Great Awakening

Last updated November 04, 2024

The Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals 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 of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.

George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and Gilbert Tennent were influential during the First Great Awakening. Some of the influential groups during the Great Awakening were the New Lights and the Old Lights.^[1]^[2]^[3] The First Great Awakening in the American colonies is closely related to the Evangelical Revival in the British Isles.^[4]

Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made religion more personal by fostering a sense of spiritual conviction of personal sin and need for redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to personal morality. It incited rancor and division between traditionalists, who insisted on the continuing importance of ritual and doctrine, and revivalists who encouraged emotional involvement and personal commitment. 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. It had less impact on Anglicans and Quakers. Unlike the Second Great Awakening, which began about 1800 and reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on those who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self-awareness.^[5]

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's grandfather.^[6] Edwards's congregation was involved in a revival later called the "Frontier Revivals" in the mid-1730s, though this was on the wane by 1737.^[7] But as American religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom noted, the Great Awakening "was still to come, ushered in by the Grand Itinerant",^[7] the British evangelist George Whitefield. Whitefield arrived in Georgia in 1738 and returned in 1739 for a second visit of the Colonies, making a "triumphant campaign north from Philadelphia to New York, and back to the South".^[7] In 1740, he visited New England, and "at every place he visited, the consequences were large and tumultuous". Ministers from various evangelical Protestant denominations supported the Great Awakening.^[8] In the middle colonies, he influenced not only the British churches, but the Dutch and German.

Additionally, pastoral styles began to change. In the late colonial period, most pastors read their sermons, which were theologically dense and advanced a particular theological argument or interpretation. Nathan O. Hatch argues that the evangelical movement of the 1740s played a key role in the development of democratic thought,^[9]^{[ disputed – discuss ]} as well as the belief of the free press and the belief that information should be shared and completely unbiased and uncontrolled.^[10] Michał Choiński argues that the First Great Awakening marks the birth of the American "rhetoric of the revival" understood as "a particular mode of preaching in which the speaker employs and it has a really wide array of patterns and communicative strategies to initiate religious conversions and spiritual regeneration among the hearers".^[11] All these theological, social, and rhetorical notions ushered in the period of the American Revolution. This contributed to create a demand for religious freedom.^[12] The Great Awakening represented the first time African Americans embraced Christianity in large numbers.^[13]

In the later part of the 1700s, the Revival came to the English colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island primarily through the efforts of Henry Alline and his New Light movement.^[14]

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.^[15] This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the educated elite of New England to those who were less wealthy and less educated. The center of revivalism was the so-called Burned-over district in western New York. Named for its overabundance of hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new denominations, communal societies, and reform.^[16]

Among these dozens of new denominations were free black churches, run independently of existing congregations that were predominantly of white attendance. During the period between the American revolution and the 1850s, black involvement in largely white churches declined in great numbers, with participation becoming almost non-existent by the 1840s–1850s; some scholars argue that this was largely due to racial discrimination within the church.^[17] This discrimination came in the form of segregated seating and the forbiddance of African Americans from voting in church matters or holding leadership positions in many white churches.^[17] Reverend Richard Allen, a central founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was quoted describing one such incident of racial discrimination in a predominantly white church in Philadelphia, in which fellow preacher and a former slave from Delaware, Absalom Jones, was grabbed by a white church trustee in the midst of prayer and forcefully told to leave.^[18]

Closely related to the Second Great Awakening were other reform movements such as temperance, abolition, and women's rights. The temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order. The abolition movement fought to abolish slavery in the United States. The women's rights movement grew from female abolitionists who realized that they could fight for their own political rights, too. In addition to these causes, reforms touched nearly every aspect of daily life, such as restricting the use of tobacco and dietary and dress reforms. The abolition movement emerged in the North from the wider Second Great Awakening 1800–1840.^[19]

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.^[5] 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 leaders such as Dwight L. Moody who carried out religious work in the Civil War armies. The Christian and Sanitary Commissions and numerous Freedmen's Societies were also formed during the war.^[20]

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.^[21] The Jesus Movement is cited as evidence of this awakening, and it created a shift in church music styles.

Mainline Protestant denominations weakened sharply in both membership and influence while the most conservative religious denominations (such as the Southern Baptists) grew rapidly in numbers, spread across the United States, had grave internal theological battles and schisms, and became politically powerful.^[22]

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.^[23] In recent times, the idea of "awakenings" in United States history has been put forth by conservative American evangelicals.^[24]

In the late 2010s and 2020s the term Great Awakening has been used by promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory to denote awareness of their theory.^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]

In 2018, the British political commentator Andrew Sullivan described the "Great Awokening", describing it as a "cult of social justice on the left, a religion whose followers show the same zeal as any born-again Evangelical [Christian]" and who "punish heresy by banishing sinners from society or coercing them to public demonstrations of shame".^[29] In 2024, The Third Awokening was used as the title of a book by Professor Eric Kaufmann on the same subject.^[30]^[31]

Related Research Articles

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George Whitefield, also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican minister and preacher who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1732. There, he joined the "Holy Club" and was introduced to John and Charles Wesley, with whom he would work closely in his later ministry. Unlike the Wesleys, he embraced Calvinism.

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

The Third Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century. It influenced pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire Earth. It was affiliated with the Social Gospel movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene and Pentecostal movements, and also Jehovah's Witnesses, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Thelema, and Christian Science. The era saw the adoption of a number of moral causes, such as the abolition of slavery and prohibition.

A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worship style and, sometimes, a founder. It is a secular and neutral term, generally used to denote any established Christian church. Unlike a cult or sect, a denomination is usually seen as part of the Christian religious mainstream. Most Christian denominations refer to themselves as churches, whereas some newer ones tend to interchangeably use the terms churches, assemblies, fellowships, etc. Divisions between one group and another are defined by authority and doctrine; issues such as the nature of Jesus, the authority of apostolic succession, biblical hermeneutics, theology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and papal primacy may separate one denomination from another. Groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties—are sometimes known as "branches of Christianity". These branches differ in many ways, especially through differences in practices and belief.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mainline Protestant</span> Older, more establishment Protestant denominations

The mainline Protestant churches are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States and Canada largely of the theologically liberal or theologically progressive persuasion that contrast in history and practice with the largely theologically conservative evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic, confessional, Confessing Movement, historically Black church, and Global South Protestant denominations and congregations. Some make a distinction between "mainline" and "oldline", with the former referring only to denominational ties and the latter referring to church lineage, prestige and influence. However, this distinction has largely been lost to history and the terms are now nearly synonymous.

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 evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom, the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.

The Fourth Great Awakening was a Christian awakening that some scholars – including economic historian, Robert Fogel – say took place in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while others look at the era following World War II. The terminology is controversial, with some historians believing the religious changes that took place in the US during these years were not equivalent to those of the first three Great Awakenings. Thus, the idea of a Fourth Great Awakening itself has not been generally accepted.

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Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States. Estimates from 2021 suggest that of the entire U.S. population about 63% is Christian. The majority of Christian Americans are Protestant Christians, though there are also significant numbers of American Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations such as Latter Day Saints, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 210 million Christians and, as of 2021, over 140 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The Public Religion Research Institute's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, showed that 70% of Americans identified as Christian during this seven-year interval. In a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians. They were 75% in 2015, 70.6% in 2014, 78% in 2012, 81.6% in 2001, and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.

Christianity was introduced to North America as it was colonized by Europeans beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Spanish, French, and British brought Roman Catholicism to the colonies of New Spain, New France and Maryland respectively, while Northern European peoples introduced Protestantism to Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Netherland, Virginia colony, Carolina Colony, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Lower Canada. Among Protestants, adherents to Anglicanism, Methodism, the Baptist Church, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, Quakerism, Mennonite and the Moravian Church were the first to settle in the US, spreading their faith in the new country.

The history of modern Christianity concerns the Christian religion from the beginning of the 15th century to the end of World War II. It can be divided into the early modern period and the late modern period. The history of Christianity in the early modern period coincides with the Age of Exploration, and is usually taken to begin with the Protestant Reformation c. 1517–1525 and ending in the late 18th century with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the events leading up to the French Revolution of 1789. It includes the Protestant Reformation, the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery. Christianity expanded throughout the world during the Age of Exploration. Christianity has thus become the world's largest religion.

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In the United States, evangelicalism is a movement among Protestant Christians who believe in the necessity of being born again, emphasize the importance of evangelism, and affirm traditional Protestant teachings on the authority as well as the historicity of the Bible. Comprising nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, evangelicals are a diverse group drawn from a variety of denominational backgrounds, including nondenominational churches, Pentecostal, Baptist, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, Mennonite, Plymouth Brethren, Quaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Protestantism in the United States</span>

Christianity was introduced with the first European settlers beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Colonists from Northern Europe introduced Protestantism in its Anglican and Reformed forms to Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Netherland, Virginia Colony, and Carolina Colony. The first arrivals were adherents to Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, the Baptist Church, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Quakerism, Anabaptism and the Moravian Church from British, German, Dutch, and Nordic stock. America began as a significant Protestant majority nation. Significant minorities of Roman Catholics and Jews did not arise until the period between 1880 and 1910.

Christian revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a Christian church, congregation or society with a local, national or global effect. This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings. Proponents view revivals as the restoration of the church to a vital and fervent relationship with God after a period of moral decline.

References

↑ "George Whitefield". The Great Awakening: Spiritual Revival in Colonial America. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
↑ "Gilbert Tennent". The Great Awakening: Spiritual Revival in Colonial America. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
↑ "New Light Schism". www.mb-soft.com. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
↑ Ditchfield, G. M. (31 August 2005). "The International Dimension". The Evangelical Revival. Routledge. pp. 9–23. ISBN 978-1-135-36478-6.
1 2 Ahlstrom 1972.
↑ Curtis 1991, p. 135.
1 2 3 Ahlstrom 1972, p. 283.
↑ Kidd 2007.
↑ Hatch 1989.
↑ Copeland 2006, p. 173.
↑ Choiński 2016, p. 51.
↑ Corbett, Corbett-Hemeyer & Wilson 2014, pp. 37–38.
↑ Chacon & Scoggins 2014, pp. 36–37.
↑ Stewart 1982.
↑ Ahlstrom 1972, pp. 415–454.
↑ Cross 1950.
1 2 Boles, Richard J. (2013). "Documents relating to African American experiences of white congregational churches in Massachusetts, 1773–1832". The New England Quarterly . 86 (2): 310–323. doi:10.1162/TNEQ_a_00280. JSTOR 43284993.
↑ "Image 6 of The Episcopal Church and the colored people: a statement of facts". Library of Congress . Retrieved December 17, 2018.
↑ McLoughlin 1978.
↑ Long 1998.
↑ Fogel 2000, p. 10.
↑ Marty 1996, pp. 434–455.
↑ Lambert 1999.
↑ Baker, Peter (September 13, 2006). "Bush Tells Group He Sees a 'Third Awakening'". The Washington Post . Retrieved November 13, 2017.
↑ Berghel, Hal (July 2022). "Prosperity Theology Goes Online: Will This Be a Fifth Great Awakening?". Computer. 55 (7): 104–110. doi: 10.1109/MC.2022.3170217 . ISSN 1558-0814.
↑ McLaughlin, Melissa (2021-08-01). "Great Awakening 2020: The Neoliberal Wellness Journey Down the Rabbit Hole". Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations.
↑ Chandler, Kylar J. (2020). "Where We Go 1 We Go All: A Public Discourse Analysis of QAnon". McNair Scholars Research Journal. 13 (1).
↑ Robertson, David G.; Amarasingam, Amarnath (2022-07-03). "How conspiracy theorists argue: epistemic capital in the QAnon social media sphere". Popular Communication. 20 (3): 193–207. doi: 10.1080/15405702.2022.2050238 . ISSN 1540-5702.
↑ Mirzaei, Abas (September 8, 2019). "Where 'woke' came from and why marketers should think twice before jumping on the social activism bandwagon". The Conversation. Archived from the original on March 20, 2023. Retrieved April 8, 2021.
↑ Kaufmann, Eric (13 May 2024). The Great Awokening. Bombardier Books. ISBN 979-8888456354.
↑ Kaufmann, Eric (22 May 2024). "Eric Kaufmann: 'Left-liberal extremism' has turned Canada into an international anomaly". thehub.ca. Retrieved 3 July 2024.

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Chacon, Richard J.; Scoggins, Michael Charles (2014). The Great Awakening and Southern Backcountry Revolutionaries. SpringerBriefs in Anthropology. Vol. 4. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-04597-9. ISBN 978-3-319-04597-9. ISSN 2195-0830.{{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
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