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The Great Awakening. At age six, John Wesley was rescued from a burning room in his father's rectory, depicted here in this 19th century engraving. The dramatic incident caused him to refer to himself later in life as a "brand plucked from the burning." Not all American ministers were swept up by the Age of Reason.
Feb 20, 2024 · A broad-ranging history of the Great Awakening, this book examines the revivals from Continental, Scottish, and English roots, to Whitefield’s prodigious American meetings, to the cascading revivals of the era of the American Revolution. It especially highlights the social and theological tensions between moderate and radical evangelicals.
- Religious Quickening
- Whitefield's Influence
- Tensions Build
- Legacy
Settlement of the American colonies was marked by periods of intense religious feeling from nearly the beginning. Prior to Whitefield's first tour of the colonies in 1739, there were individual incidents of religious quickening, or sudden renewed interest, among several Christian denominations beginning as early as 1720. Movements among the Dutch R...
Whitefield was a leading preacher in England before he came to America in 1739. His sermons, delivered in a deep, musical voice with great dramatic flair, attracted large crowds wherever he went. As his popularity spread throughout England, however, opposition from various religious leaders grew. Resenting Whitefield's appeal to the masses, his abi...
As the Great Awakening gained momentum and the presence of revivals increased, tensions between the revivalists and established congregations began to appear. Revivalists focused on bringing to listeners an awareness of the spirit and presence of God in their lives. Revivalists preached about sin and tried to awaken a person's need to repent for hi...
Though the Great Awakening was mostly over by 1750, its presence never faded completely. The movement reached beyond individual religious experiences, impacting American political and social culture as well. The movement's message of unity broke some denominational boundaries and encouraged religious tolerance among congregations. This helped to cr...
Aug 29, 2012 · Introduction. In the 19th century, religious historians coined the term great awakening to describe a series of widespread evangelical revivals concentrated in the British colonies between the years 1740 and 1743. During this period, now known as the First Great Awakening, thousands of individuals claimed to have experienced the new birth, a ...
Great Awakening. A powerful religious revival known as the Great Awakening occurred in the British North American colonies from the 1720s to the 1740s. The revival was a movement among Protestant Christians who were reacting to a number of religious conditions in the colonies. It was a reaction against the reliance on reason as the basis for ...
May 24, 2024 · Search for: 'Great Awakening' in Oxford Reference ». An American revivalist movement, which was a response to the growing formalism of early 18th-century American Christianity. Though revivals began in New Jersey in 1719, the preaching of the Puritan scholar Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), and the resultant conversions in the 1730s gave it ...
Most importantly, the Great Awakening gave birth to the American evangelical movement, a development of enormous consequence in American life. It is true that people in the mid-1700s did not call the revivals The Great Awakening, but they did recognize that a significant event had transpired in the “late revival of religion.”.
