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Cleanup and Spell Check, typos fixed: an 18th century → an 18th-century, self awareness → self-awareness
[[Image:Whitefield.jpg|right|thumb|250px|George Whitefield]]
The '''First Great Awakening''', or simply '''Great Awakening''', was a religious revitalization movement that swept the Atlantic region, and especially the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. Indeed, the First Great Awakening launched the [[Evangelical Christians|Evangelical Christian]] movement in America and laid the foundation for the Evangelical successes of the [[Second Great Awakening]] of 1800-1830.<ref>Thomas S. Kidd, ''The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America'' (2007) </ref>
The leaders were [[Jonathan Edwards]], [[George Whitefield]] and [[Gilbert Tennent]], among many others.
The Awakening emerged from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal guilt and of their need of salvation by Christ. Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made religion intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual guilt and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality. It brought Christianity to African-American slaves and was an apocalyptic event in [[New England]] that challenged established authority. It incited rancor and division between old traditionalists who insisted on the continuing importance of ritual and doctrine, and the new 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 little impact on Anglicans, and Quakers. Unlike the [[Second Great Awakening]], that began about 1800 and which reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on people who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self -awareness.
To the evangelical imperatives of Reformation Protestantism, eighteenth- century American Christians added emphases on divine outpourings of the Holy Spirit and conversions that implanted within new believers an intense love for God. Revivals encapsulated those hallmarks and forwarded the newly created evangelicalism into the early republic.
==International dimension==
The evangelical revival was international in scope, affecting the [[Atlantic history|North Atlantic region]]. The dramatic response of churchgoers in Bristol and London in 1737, and of the Kingswood colliers with white gutters on their cheeks caused by tears in 1739 under the preaching of [[George Whitefield]], is marked the start of the awakening in England. But in fact these events had been preceded by similar revivals in [[Wales]] some years earlier, predated again by a movement of God's Spirit in [[New Jersey]] in 1719 and 1726 and in Easter Ross, Scotland, in 1724. Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom sees it as part of a "great international Protestant upheaval" that also created [[Pietism]] in Germany, the [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical Revival]] and [[Methodism]] in England. <ref> Ahlstrom p. 263</ref>
The Awakening was thus an 18th -century transatlantic revival involving England and its [[13 Colonies|North American colonies]]. The revival was spurred by the sense that Christian worship had become too formulaic and devoid of emotion. Among the most notable clergy who fueled the awakening was [[Theodore Frelinguysen]] who led a revival in the 1720s among members of the [[Dutch Reformed Church]] in New Jersey.
===Jonathan Edwards===
The revival began with [[Jonathan Edwards]], a leading theologian and philosopher of [[The Enlightenment]]; he was a Congregationalist minister based in Northampton, in western Massachusetts. Edwards emerged from [[Puritan]] and [[Calvinist]] roots, but emphasized the importance and power of immediate, personal religious experience. Edwards was said to be 'solemn, with a distinct and careful enunciation, and a slow cadence.'[http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_420_edwards.htm] Nevertheless, his sermons were powerful and attracted a large following. "[[Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God]]," is his most famous sermon.
Winiarski (2005) examines Edwards's preaching in the Suffield, Massachusetts, meetinghouse on 6 July 1741 and the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" that he preached at Enfield two days later. At Suffield and Enfield, Edwards countenanced the "noise" of the Great Awakening, but his approach to revivalism became more moderate and critical in the years immediately following. The discovery of an anonymous letter composed by one who attended the Suffield service provides evidence for a reassessment of that seminal moment in the Great Awakening.<ref> This letter, likely written by Samuel Phillips Savage, a strong supporter of evangelical Protestantism, is published in the appendix to Winiarski (2005). </ref>
Edwards' greatest contribution to the awakening was probably his book, ''A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.'' For many younger untried clergymen, Edward’s book was a “how to manual” that instructed them as to the finer points of conducting a revival. It influenced even the most famous of the Great Awakening ministers, [[George Whitefield]].
==Presbyterians==
The Presbyterians split on the wisdom of revivals, with the “New Side” faction strongly supportive and the “Old Side” holding back. [[Gilbert Tennent]] (1703-641703–64) of Pennsylvania was the most uncompromising of New Side Presbyterians. His sermon, "The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry" (1741) played a major role in the schism that divided the Old Side and New Side. However, there was another side of Tennent's faith, one characterized by the pietism that nurtured religious renewal in the 18th century. This pietism is best seen in Tennent's celebration of the Sacramental Season, with its emphasis on Christian love and fellowship. Indeed, Tennent, like other revivalists, drew inspiration from the communal emphasis that permeated the sacramental celebration. In 1757, Tennent wrote a sacramental sermon, entitled "Love to Christ." It contains those elements of pietistic communion that inspired this "Son of Thunder" to work feverishly for the reunion of the New York and Philadelphia Synods, which took place the very next year.<ref> James B. Bennett, "'Love To Christ': Gilbert Tennent, Presbyterian Reunion, and a Sacramental Sermon". ''American Presbyterians'' 1993 71(2): 77-89. 0886-5159 </ref>
==Impact on individuals==
Historians in recent decades have disagreed sharply over the significance of the "Great Awakening.” In 1982, Jon Butler argued that it was largely the invention of later historians who misjudged the cohesiveness and the extent of the revivals. Joseph A. Conforti built on Butler's argument, suggesting that the first Great Awakening was actually invented by revival promoters during the second Great Awakening of the 1830s.
Whitefield's reconciliation of humility and power contributed much to the creation of democratic thought in the American colonies. The First Great Awakening democratized religion by redressing the balance of power between the minister and the congregation. Rather than listening demurely to preachers, people groaned and roared in enthusiastic emotion; new divinity schools opened to challenge the hegemony of Yale and Harvard; personal revelation became more important than formal education for preachers. Such concepts and habits were a necessary foundation for the American Revolution.<ref> Nancy Ruttenburg, "George Whitefield, Spectacular Conversion, and the Rise of Democratic Personality." ''American Literary History'' 1993 5(3): 429-458. 0896-7148 </ref>
Scholars especially have debated whether the Awakening had a political impact on the [[American Revolution]], which took place soon after. Heimert (1966) is the most controversial study; it argues that the evangelical Calvinism of the Awakening, not the religious liberalism of its opponents, laid the ideological foundation of the American Revolution.<ref> Heimert's work was attacked by Edmund S. Morgan and Sidney E. Mead, while Patricia U. Bonomi, Richard L. Bushman, Rhys Isaac, Gary B. Nash, and Harry S. Stout were more supportive. </ref> Heimert says that Calvinism and Jonathan Edwards provided pre-Revolutionary America with a radical and democratic social and political ideology and that evangelical religion embodied and inspired a thrust toward American nationalism. Colonial Calvinism was the basis for the American Great Awakening and that in turn lay at the basis of the American Revolution. Heimert thus sees a major impact as the Great Awakening provided the radical American nationalism that prompted the Revolution. Awakening preachers sought to review God's covenant with America and to repudiate the materialistic, acquisitive, corrupt world of an affluent colonial society. The source of this corruption lay in England, and a severance of the ties with the mother country would result in a rededication of America to the making of God's Kingdom.
Heimert's work drew retorts from Edmund S. Morgan and Sidney E. Mead, even as other historians, including Patricia U. Bonomi, Richard L. Bushman, Rhys Isaac, Gary B. Nash, and Harry S. Stout,
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==Old Lights and New Lights==
Preachers adopting the highly effective new style were called "new lights", while the old fashioned preachers were "old lights". Many colonial clergymen initially welcomed Whitefield and other revivalists, and opened their churches to them. However, many had second thoughts over time, regarding the revivalists — some of whom lacked theological training — as unorthodox. They saw the revivalists as challenging their own authority and regular church attendance as well as relying on emotionalism, which created disturbing histrionic displays among the mainly young people in attendance. As a result, many denominations split into “Old Light” and “New Light” factions. As a rule, the “Old Lights” preferred the order of regular church services, while the “New Lights” favored the more emotional appeal of the revivalists. Newer denominations, particularly the Baptists and the Methodists, gained many converts.
==Bibliography==
===Secondary sources===
* Ahlstrom, Sydney E. ''A Religious History of the American People'' (1972) the standard history; see [[A Religious History of the American People]]
* Edwards, Jonathan. (C. Goen, editor) ''The Great-Awakening: A Faithful Narrative'' Collected contemporary comments and letters; 1972, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-01437-6.
* Heimert, Alan, and Perry Miller ed.; ''The Great Awakening: Documents Illustrating the Crisis and Its Consequences'' (1967)
* McClymond, Michael, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America.'' (2007). Vol. 1, A–Z: xxxii, 515 pp. Vol. 2, Primary Documents: xx, 663 pp. isbn 0-313-32828-5/set.)
