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Basic Concepts about the First Great Awakening If you would like to read in a bit more depth about these answers, please use the links found on the right. What caused the Great Awakening in America? In late 17th Century England, fighting between religious and political groups ended with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Church of England was established as the primary religion of the country. Other religions, such as Catholicism, Judaism, and Puritanism were then repressed. From a political perspective, all was well because everyone practiced the same religion. But rather than being good for religion, this created complacency, or a sense of spiritual "dryness" among citizens. Religion became a boring and cold pastime for them. Eventually, a reaction against this complacency developed into a new spiritualism - or "revivalism" - where Christians would actually believe from the depths of their hearts during worship, rather than just go through the motions during services. This new spiritual renewal began with people like the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield in England and crossed over to the American Colonies during the first half of the 18th Century. |
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What was the Great Awakening? The Great Awakening was a spiritual renewal that swept the American Colonies, particularly New England, during the first half of the 18th Century. It began in England before catching fire across the Atlantic. Unlike the somber, largely Puritan spirituality of the early 1700s, the revivalism ushered in by the Awakening brought people back to "spiritual life" as they felt a greater intimacy with God.
What was the effect of the Great Awakening? The Awakening's biggest significance was the way it prepared America for its War of Independence. In the decades before the war, revivalism taught people that they could be bold when confronting religious authority, and that when churches weren't living up to the believers' expectations, the people could break off and form new ones. Through the Awakening, the Colonists realized that religious power resided in their own hands, rather than in the hands of the Church of England, or any other religious authority. After a generation or two passed with this kind of mindset, the Colonists came to realize that political power did not reside in the hands of the English monarch, but in their own will for self-governance (consider the wording of the Declaration of Independence). By 1775, even though the Colonists did not all share the same theological beliefs, they did share a common vision of freedom from British control. Thus, the Great Awakening brought about a climate which made the American Revolution possible. |
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