The Great Awakening
In Colonial America
In Review
 Colonial America was in transition.
 The communities had been established and were thriving.
 Immigration from Europe was increasing day by day
 Colonial America was developing it’s own leadership, in the wealthy, land
owning men.
 This leadership was highly educated, well read and influenced by the
Enlightened mind set.
 Colonial people were beginning to develop a sense of identity.
 Politically speaking:
 The Enlightened way of thinking caused the leadership to
challenge the authority of England.
 The colonies want their own identity and the right to determine
their own future.
 Religiously speaking:
 The Great Awakening also encouraged a new way of thinking.
 The religious authority was being challenged.
The Great Awakening
 During eighteen centuries, colonial America saw major
changes as the American cities developed into major
seaports
 Also, the Southern plantations were bringing large
amounts of money into the American economy.
 Obviously, the population increased as immigrants
arrived in large numbers.
 It was during this time of economic growth that America experienced a cultural
philosophical shift in the way they understood authority
 This can be understood in the popularity of the Enlightenment way of thinking and the
religious Great Awakening.
 The Great Awakening was a period of great revivalism that spread throughout the colonies
in the 1700’s. It deemphasized the importance of church doctrine and put a greater
importance on the individual spiritual experience.
What was the Great Awakening
 The Great Awakening was a spiritual renewal that
swept the American Colonies, particularly New
England in the 1700’s.
 It was a period of time that was characterized by great
fervor and emotion in prayer which was a response to
the general sense of complacency among believers.
 This new spiritual renewal began with people like the
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield (who came
from England) during the early 1700’s.
 Unlike the strickt Puritan spirituality, the revivalism ushered in by the Awakening
allowed people to express their emotions more overtly in order to feel a greater
intimacy with God.
What Caused the Great Awakening?
 In late 1600’s fighting between religious and political groups in
England stopped with the Glorious Revolution, an event which
established the Church of England as the main church.
 From a political perspective, this led to stability since everyone now
practiced the same religion. But instead of being a positive driving
force for religious belief in general, it created complacency among
believers.
 It after a few decades of this kind of complacency in the American
colonies that the spiritual “revival” of the Great Awakening came
about.
 The Great Awakening came about at a time when people in the
American colonies were questioning the role of the individual in
religion and society. It began at the same time as the Enlightenment
which emphasized logic and reason and stressed the power of the
individual to understand the universe based on scientific laws.
Similarly, individuals grew to rely more on a personal approach to
religion.
What were the effects of the Great Awakening?
 The Great Awakening’s biggest significance was the way it
prepared the America people for its fight for Independence.
 This form of revivalism taught people that they could be
confident when confronting religious authority, and that when
churches weren’t living up to the believers’ expectations, the
people could break off and form new denominations or new
churches.
 Through the Awakening, the Colonists realized that religious power resided in their own hands,
rather than in the hands of the religious authority.
 The Colonists also came to realize that political power did not reside in the hands of the English
monarch, but in their own will for self-governance.
 Thus, the Great Awakening brought about a climate which made the American Revolution
possible.
 The Great Awakening also provided an alternative to the Enlightened philosophy of rationalism.
The Government as Governing Body of the People
 Another effect of the Great Awakening on colonial culture was this idea
of state rule that would govern and set the laws for the people.
 Believers had this understanding of what a covenant (agreement) meant.
 Each believer understood that they owed their allegiance to their church,
and their church in turn had to be faithful to the members.
 Believers reserved the right to dissolve the covenant and to sever ties
with the church without prior permission.
 This idea of “covenant” was popular in the Puritan society and later
formed the ideological basis for breaking from Great Britain.
 As stated in the Declaration of Independence, the colonists were very
familiar with this odea of separating themselves from authoritarian
institutions.
What is the Significance of the Great Awakening?
It pushed individual religious experience
over established church doctrine, thereby
decreasing the importance of the church.
It unified the American colonies as it spread
through numerous preachers and revivals.
This unification was greater than had ever
been achieved previously in the colonies.
Significant Revivalist Preachers
 Jonathan Edwards
 Jonathan Edwards was a key American revivalist during the Great
Awakening who preached for close to ten years in New England. He
emphasized a personal approach to religion. He also bucked the puritan
tradition and called for unity amongst all Christians as opposed to
intolerance. His most famous sermon was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God," delivered in 1741. In this sermon he explained that salvation was a
direct result from God and could not be attained by human works as the
Puritans preached.
 George Whitefield
 A second important figure during the Great Awakening was George
Whitefield. Unlike Edwards, Whitefield was a British minister who moved
to colonial America. He was known as the "Great Itinerant" because he
traveled and preached all around North American and Europe between 1740
and 1770. His revivals led to many conversions and the Great Awakening
spread from North America to the European continent.