Great Awakening in America
The Great Awakenings refer to several waves of interest in religion in America. These waves have coincided with increases in economic prosperity and materialism that have caused people to view religion with less interest. It began in the 1930s as disunited attempts at religious revival and in the 1940s had matured into "the remarkable Revival of Religion" (Lambert, p. 6). During the 1740 sThe Great Awakenings aimed at inspiring people to perceive religion as a source of emotional energy and not as a set of rituals and practices. The social and economic problems faced by twenty-first century American society necessitate a similar movement that can create a sense of community in a religiously and ethnically diverse society.
During the early decades of the eighteenth century, the British colonies in America were evolving from their beginnings in the sixteenth century. Trade in slaves, sugar, tobacco and manufactured goods from Britain had created greater wealth among the colonialists, particularly in Pennsylvania and Chesapeake (American Promise, p. 127). With increasing prosperity and enterprise, people had become interested in buying goods and were spoilt for choice for the first time in history. People had become detached from religion and more involved in the seeking comfort in life. In large and important cities, hardly 10 to 15% of the adult population attended church regularly (American Promise, p. 130). The preachers of the Great Awakening sought to stem this growing worldliness by getting people to connect emotionally with religion.
Along with waning interest in religion, increasing...
Great War The United States after the Great War World War I, also known as the Great War, officially came to an end in 1918 and reshaped the country in a variety of ways. One of the most immediate changes was the way the world perceived the United States. Before the war, most of the country and its leaders preferred an isolationist stance to any international conflict. In 1914 the U.S. had
Using Tennents' strategy, the clergymen of Presbyterian, Puritan and Baptist churches were conducting revivals in their regions by the 1740s. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards stirred up flamboyant and terrifying images of the absolute corruption of the human nature in their emotionally charged sermons. These preachers also described the terrors awaiting the unrepentant in hell in their powerful sermons. Some of the converts from the early revivals in the northern
great awakening was a religious revival that swept across America in the 1730s to 1740s that saw the restructuring of the society in general within America. For the very first time, this religious revival managed to bring the Native Americans and the blacks into the organized churches as opposed to the prior diverse ways of their worship to their various gods. It also brought the new colonialists into the
The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers (Brannan 1998). Franklin, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and a true Democrat, saw both Whitefield's democratic tendencies and the threat that he posed to the Established Church. He noted that
Great Awakening and the Enlightenment The Great Awakening, was not, as many believe a continuous spiritual awakening or revival in colonial America, instead it was a several revivals in a variety of locations (Matthews). However, The Great Awakening is an appropriate name. The new Americans had found their lives much different from their lives in England. In England the communities were compact, but in America people lived in great expanses
Great Awakening This is more of a religious awakening that was experienced within the American colonies from the 1730s to the 1770s leading to the independence period. It was a revitalization of the religious groupings and religious movements particularly among American colonies. The movement in America was not in isolation but part of a much wider mass movement that was taking place on the other areas like England, Germany and
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