The "Great Awakening"

Aspects that led to the “Great Awakening” in the colonies were several. Religious writing and Bibles were still the most popular and best-selling publications at the time, and theological issues definitely overshadowed political ones. Ministers and church officials worried that people were becoming too focused on gaining profit and worldly goods than pursuing their eternal salvation. The “Enlightenment” school of thought, brought over from Europe to America, questioned for the first time many faith-based aspects of religion and called for a more fact-based approach, one that focused on observing nature and employing the scientific method to try to prove or disprove religious ideas. The large revivals that began to spring up during the Great Awakening directly engaged individual members of society to question, discuss, and analyze religion directly, rather than being forced to defer and accept the personal Biblical interpretations of their church’s preacher or minister.

Criticism came, for the most part, from the very church leaders who felt threatened that their congregation would depart or be influenced by these “renegade” and wayward revivalists. They accused them of disrespecting established leaders and the church as a whole, as well as causing general disorder. One Anglican minister pointed out that revivals drew mostly poor people, those who were “rude, ignorant, void of manners, education or good breeding” (Liberty 158). The traditional church frontmen were convinced that a church service should be solemn and structured, whereas the evangelists of the Great Awakening opted for emotional preaching, individual participation, and an overall “church of the heart.”

Reverend George Whitefield was accused by Arnold of deceiving and representing God as a being that would accept absolution of sin and repentance (as opposed to the Church’s standard teaching that God has already decided who will or won’t be saved, and personal worship and activity has no influence on His decision). Arnold also accused Whitefield of stepping over his bounds by appearing to speak for God Himself. He “exclaim[s] against all the clergy of the Church and pass[es] unwarrantable sentences upon men as if he were the Supreme Judge” (Freedom 86). His attack on Whitefield, by far the most successful of these new evangelists with tens of thousands of spectators attending his revivals, was an attack on the revivalists as a whole.

One long-term effect of the Great Awakening was society’s subsequent increase in questioning authority and colonial issues. It also greatly increased freedom in the methods of worship allowed to the colonial population. “In listening to the sermons of self-educated preachers, forming Bible study groups, and engaging in intense religious discussions, ordinary colonists asserted the right to independent judgment” (Liberty 158). At the same time, this increased freedom caused much more division in the Church and led to the formation of many new and still-existing breakaway churches, among them Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists. Women began to preach during this time period, as well, which had not occurred before. Overall, it could be said that the increase of religious choice and freedom led to more courageous and independent thinking from colonists in every other aspect of their lives.