Who sparked the Great Awakening?
The Puritan fervour of the American colonies waned toward the end of the 17th century, but the Great Awakening, under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and others, served to revitalize religion in the region.
What are three causes of the Great Awakening?
We have already mentioned the most important causes for the beginning of the Great Awakening; there were significantly fewer church attendances throughout the country, many people were also bored and unsatisfied with the way the sermons were conducted, and they criticized the lack of enthusiasm from their preachers.
What was the purpose of the Great Awakening?
The movement reduced the higher authority of church doctrine and instead put greater importance on the individual and his or her spiritual experience. An important effect of the Great Awakening was the transformation of the religious climate in the American colonies.
What happened because of the First Great Awakening?
It led to a shared awareness of being American because it was the first major, "national" event that all the colonies experienced. On the other hand, it also caused division between New Lights, who embraced it, and Old Lights, who preferred old-fashioned ways. It also split the Presbyterian denomination in half.
What was the First Great Awakening?
What historians call “the first Great Awakening” can best be described as a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s.
Did the Enlightenment cause the Great Awakening?
Although the Great Awakening was a reaction against the Enlightenment, it was also a long term cause of the Revolution. Before, ministers represented an upper class of sorts. Awakening ministers were not always ordained, breaking down respect for betters.
What are three effects of the First Great Awakening?
It had a major impact in reshaping the Congregational church, the Presbyterian church, the Dutch Reformed Church, and the German Reformed denomination, and strengthened the small Baptist and Methodist denominations.
What were three effects of the Great Awakening?
Long term effects of the Great Awakening were the decline of Quakers, Anglicans, and Congregationalists as the Presbyterians and Baptists increased. It also caused an emergence in black Protestantism, religious toleration, an emphasis on inner experience, and denominationalism.
What 2 Things did the Great Awakening do?
Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious ...
Who were the major contributors of the Great Awakening?
Q: Who were the leaders behind the Great Awakening? Moderate evangelicals, such as George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Dickinson, and Samuel Davies, who preached Puritan traditions, were the foremost leaders of the Great Awakening.
Overview
The First Great Awakening (sometimes Great Awakening) or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American eva…
Continental Europe
Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom sees the Great Awakening as part of a "great international Protestant upheaval" that also created pietism in the Lutheran and Reformed churches of continental Europe. Pietism emphasized heartfelt religious faith in reaction to an overly intellectual Protestant scholasticism perceived as spiritually dry. Significantly, the pietists placed less emphasis on traditional doctrinal divisions between Protestant churches, focusing rather on religious experien…
Evangelical Revival in Britain
While known as the Great Awakening in the United States, the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival in Britain. In England, the major leaders of the Evangelical Revival were three Anglican priests, the brothers John and Charles Wesley and their friend George Whitefield. Together, they founded what would become Methodism. They had been members of a religious society at Oxford University called the Holy Club and "Methodists" due to their methodical piety and rigorous
Great Awakening in North America
In the early 18th century, the 13 Colonies were religiously diverse. In New England, the Congregational churches were the established religion; whereas in the religiously tolerant Middle Colonies, the Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Congregational, and Baptist churches all competed with each other on equal terms. In the Southern colonies, the Anglican church was …
Revival theology
The Great Awakening was not the first time that Protestant churches had experienced revival; however, it was the first time a common evangelical identity had emerged based on a fairly uniform understanding of salvation, preaching the gospel and conversion. Revival theology focused on the way of salvation, the stages by which a person receives Christian faith and then expresses that faith in the way they live.
Social effects
The Awakening played a major role in the lives of women, though they were rarely allowed to preach or take leadership roles. A deep sense of religious enthusiasm encouraged women, especially to analyze their feelings, share them with other women, and write about them. They became more independent in their decisions, as in the choice of a husband. This introspection led many women to keep diaries or write memoirs. The autobiography of Hannah Heaton (1721–94)…
Scholarly interpretation
The idea of a "great awakening" has been contested by historian Jon Butler as vague and exaggerated. He suggested that historians abandon the term Great Awakening because the 18th-century revivals were only regional events that occurred in only half of the American colonies and their effects on American religion and society were minimal. Historians have debated whether the Awakening had a political impact on the American Revolution which took place soon after. Alan …
See also
• American philosophy
Overview
Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late 20th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part …
First Great Awakening
The First Great Awakening began in the 1730s and lasted to about 1740, though pockets of revivalism had occurred in years prior, especially amongst the ministry of Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards' grandfather. Edwards' congregation was involved in a revival later called the "Frontier Revivals" in the mid-1730s, though this was on the wane by 1737. But as American religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom noted, the Great Awakening "was still to come, ushered in …
Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening (sometimes known simply as "the Great Awakening") was a religious revival that occurred in the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century. While it occurred in all parts of the United States, it was especially strong in the Northeast and the Midwest. This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the educated elite of New England to those who were less wealthy and less educ…
Third Great Awakening
The Third Great Awakening in the 1850s–1900s was characterized by new denominations, active missionary work, Chautauquas, and the Social Gospel approach to social issues. The YMCA (founded in 1844) played a major role in fostering revivals in the cities in the 1858 Awakening and after. The revival of 1858 produced the leadership, such as that of Dwight L. Moody, out of which came religious work carried on in the armies during the civil war. The Christian and Sanitary Com…
Fourth Great Awakening
The Fourth Great Awakening is a debated concept that has not received the acceptance of the first three. Advocates such as economist Robert Fogel say it happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Jesus Movement is one evidence of this awakening, and it created a shift in church music styles.
Mainline Protestant denominations weakened sharply in both membership and influence while t…
Terminology
The idea of an "awakening" implies a slumber or passivity during secular or less religious times. Awakening is a term which originates from, and is embraced often and primarily by, evangelical Christians. In recent times, the idea of "awakenings" in United States history has been put forth by conservative American evangelicals.
See also
• Calvinism portal
• Evangelical Christianity portal
• Methodism portal
• Religion portal
Further reading
• Butler, Jon (1982). "Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretative Fiction". Journal of American History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 69 (2): 305–325. doi:10.2307/1893821. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 1893821. S2CID 59494141.
• ——— (1990). Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press (published 1992). ISBN 978-0-674-05601-5.