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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>  

It 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.

* Kidd, Thomas S. ''The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America'' (2007) , 412pp [http://www.amazon.com/Great-Awakening-Evangelical-Christianity-Colonial/dp/0300118872/ref=ed_oe_h exxcerpt and text search]* Lambert, Frank. ''Pedlar in Divinity: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals''; (1994)