Great+Awakening

**//The First Great Awakening //** //The belief in the sinfulness and helplessness of humankind and the possibility //  //of redemption if you individually make the choice and repent // AP Focus
 * APUSH Talking Points **

#1 Challenges to institutions and ideologies that dominated Europe and Early colonial America emerge. The First Great Awakening leads to the development of American centers of higher learning. That and political and judicial developments and the advent of the American press play a pivotal role in establishing a uniquely American character – **American Identity** is an AP Theme

The Enlightenment, also called The Age of Reason, is described by scholars as an a method of thinking and knowing based on the presumption that the natural world is best understood through the use of close **observation**by the human faculties coupled with a **reliance on reason**. Intellectuals began to see the universe as an ordered creation, a place of balance and order, which promoted the mathematical revolution found in poetry, music, art, and architecture from this period. Observation and reason began to supplant revelation, reliance on tradition or traditional authority, and inward illumination as the dominant means of acquiring knowledge. **Great Awakening (1739-1744) **

Puritanism had declined by the 1730s, and people were upset about the decline in religious piety. The Great Awakening was a sudden outbreak of religious fervor that swept through the colonies. One of the first events to unify the colonies.

** [|Jonathan Edwards] ** (1703-1758) Credited with starting the Great Awakening in 1734. Edwards gave gripping sermons about sin and the torments of Hell - // [|Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God], a Careful and Strict Inquiry Into...That Freedom of// Most influential theological writer and thinker of the movement. Blasted the idea of salvation through free will

  **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">George Whitefield ** <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (1714-1770)

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: 'Segoe UI','Lucida Grande',Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">Brilliant English orator who traveled extensively throughout the colonies Most influential figure of Great Awakening; founded Methodism in GA and SC **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">__ELEMENTS of the GREAT AWAKENING__ ** <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">#1 **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;"> Enthusiasm ** <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">--emotional manifestations (weeping, fainting, physical movements) in contrast to staid and formal Anglican and Congregational worship. Whitefield would preach to crowds as large as **30,000** with great emotion.
 * 1) 2 **itinerancy--**preachers roamed rural and urban areas and held meetings
 * 2) 3 **Democratic religious movement**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">- insisted that all should have the religious experience

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">- Stirred impulse towards independence among colonists

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">- Broke down strong denominational ties

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">- Challenged religious authority. Baptists in the South preached to slaves and against the ostentatious wealth of the planter class

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">__CONTENT of the MESSAGE__
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">Salvation came through faith and prayer, not rituals or good works

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">The individual, not any religious authority, judged his or her own behavior based on one's understanding of God and the Bible

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">Personal piety--break away from the constraints of the past and start fresh. Revivals resulted in changed behaviors (decrease in card-playing, drunkenness, increase in church attendance, Bible study)

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Individual revival--rejection of cold rationalism of Puritanism and Anglicanism and more reliance on the "heart" rather than the "head." <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: 'Segoe UI','Lucida Grande',Arial; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">

===<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: 'Segoe UI','Lucida Grande',Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">THE GREAT **AWAKENING (First mass social movement in American History)** === <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Enthusiasts saw themselves as beneficiaries of a direct inspiration from God__: became the driving force behind the Great Awakening

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: 'Segoe UI','Lucida Grande',Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> **<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">__OLD LIGHT vs NEW LIGHT__ **
 * <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Old Lights ** <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;"> -- orthodox and liberal clergymen deeply skeptical of emotionalism and theatrical antics of the revivalists. Believed emotionalism threatened their usefulness and spiritual authority

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">**New Lights** -- Supported the Awakening for revitalizing American religion

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;"> and used emotionalism to move followers.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: 'Segoe UI','Lucida Grande',Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">**RESULTS of GREAT AWAKENING**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">Split denominations thus increasing competitiveness of American churches. Brought religion to many who had lost touch with it. Undermined the older clergy. Encouraged a new wave of missionary work among the Indians and slaves

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: 'Segoe UI','Lucida Grande',Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; vertical-align: baseline;">Founding of "new light" colleges: Dartmouth, Brown, Rutgers, & Princeton. The Great Awakening had a strong democratic component as people People increasingly had more choice over religion **//(a highly American trait)//** Main issue was religious style: personal faith, church practice, & public decorum. The Awakening had an emphasis on direct, emotive spirituality and seriously undermined the older clergy. It started many new denominations and greatly increased the numbers and the competitiveness of American churches.