The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment

Ideological Fuel for the American Revolution

Warm-up for Mon. Oct 6, 2014• Vocab- Get out your spirals and write down

the following definitions. Remember to write down your sentences.

The Age of Enlightenment- European and North American period of new ideas based on science, reason, and political philosophy.

The First Great Awakening – A period of renewed religious passion in the colonies during the mid-1700s.

The Great Awakening (mid-1700s) gave colonists a shared national religious experience

Reasons for The Great Awakening

• People felt that religion was dry, dull and distant

• Preachers felt that people needed to be concerned with inner emotions as opposed to outward religious behavior

• People in New England can read and interrupt the Bible on their own

George Whitefield

• Anglican minister who preached to Puritans who used raw emotional sermons to reach all classes of colonists

• Preached that “good works” and “godly lives” would bring you salvation

• Forced to give sermons in open areas (revivals)

Jonathan Edwards a Puritan Minster terrified listeners with his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry

God”

John Wesley – an Anglican priest and friend of George Whitfield. Though his time in America was a dismal failure and he returned to England in shame, he later sent many

preachers to the colonies to spread “Methodism.”

Outcomes of the Great Awakening

• Birth of deep religious convictions in the colonies

• New churches built to accommodate new members

• Colleges founded to train new ministers

Outcomes of the Great Awakening

• Encouraged ideas of equality and right to challenge authority

• Birth of charity and charitable organizations

The Enlightenment

• A movement in the 1700’s that rejected traditional ways of life and looked for a more rational and scientific way to explain the world we live in

• It was an emphasis on the sciences and reason to explain things

Enlightenment Arguments

• Generally we are good and it our environment that influences us

• The use of science and reason could answer life’s mysteries

• Science and reason could also answer man’s questions concerning government and himself

Outcomes of the Enlightenment

• Great surge of literacy in the colonies

• Newspapers and book publications increase

• Schools are synonymous with new towns and villages

• Deism, God is the great clock maker

Outcomes of the Enlightenment

• People are born with natural rights

• Government has an obligation to protect those natural rights

• Kings have no right to govern people, people empower government

Summary

• The Enlightenment stirred the mind towards rational thought. Colonists understood that they had the ability to decide for themselves.

Exit Ticket

• On a blank piece of paper, answer the following question in at least two complete sentences:

How do the ideas of the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment explain the willingness of the Colonists to protest English policies, write books like Common Sense, and form groups like the Sons of Liberty?