What did the great awakening represent?
The Great Awakening represented a reaction against the increasing secularization of society and against the corporate and materialistic nature of the principal churches of American society.
When was the 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.
What was the great awakening for dummies?
The Great Awakening was a religious movement that swept across parts of the British colonies in North America in the mid-1700s. Protestant Christian preachers taught that good behavior and individual faith were more important than book learning and Bible reading.
What impact did the Great Awakening have?
The First Great Awakening divided many American colonists. On the one hand, it was an experience that created unity between the colonies. It led to a shared awareness of being American because it was the first major, "national" event that all the colonies experienced.
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.