The Great AwakeningThe Great Awakening

Religious Interest• Wealthy colonists typically

belonged to Church of England

• Other colonists- Quaker, Lutheran Congregationalist, Mennonite, Dutch Reformed Church, Presbyterian

• Puritans in a minority

Religious Interest• Colonists taught they could only

reach God through church• Over time, lose reverence for

clergy• Cotton Mather- inoculating

Bostonians for Small Pox, bomb thrown through his window

Cotton Mather’s House

The Great Awakening• Churches believe its time to renew

enthusiasm and commitment

• Begin series of revivals

• Great Awakening 1720-1770, period of revived religious feelings

Great Awakening Leaders

• Jonathan Edwards • George Whitefield

Great Awakening Leaders• Jonathan Edwards

– “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

–One of the first

• George Whitefield–Preached to

very large crowds

–Taught people to feel God’s power for themselves

Great Awakening

• Itinerant Ministers, (traveling)

• Preached in other’s churches, or if not welcome, barns or fields

• Large crowds would come to listen

• Many ministers not well-educated

What did they preach?

• Anyone can have a personal relationship with God

• Not wealth or education, but faith and sincerity needed to study gospel

• Celebration of ordinary people

Results

• In frontier settlements, Baptist and Methodist faiths grew

• Democratic churches- new churches often allowed dissent (difference of Opinion)

Results

• Affected mostly middle and lower classes

• Removed authority from religion

• “priesthood of believers”

• Response to the idea that wealth and education make you better?

Discussion questions

• Some historians believe the Great Awakening was an awakening of more than just religion. Besides preaching:

– what might have gone on at a revival?

– what else might have been awakened?

Write this down in complete sentences!