Great Awakening Essay

Jonathan Edwards, a famous preacher in pre-colonial times, composed a sermon that was driven to alert and inject neo Puritanical fear into an eighteenth century congregation. This Bible based and serious audience sought after religious instruction and enlightenment. Through the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards offers a very harsh interpretation to humankind. Edwards utilizes various rhetorical techniques to evoke an emotional response in his audience and to persuade the members of his congregation that their wicked actions will awaken a very ruthless and merciless God.

During the early eighteenth century between 1730 and 1750, a resurgence in religious fervor known as the First Great Awakening developed throughout the thirteen British Colonies. As the European Enlightenment ideas of reason and logic in all things began to grow in Europe and the colonies, the First Great Awakening derived from an attempt to restore the predominance of emotion and spiritual piety in religion. Likewise, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the Second Great Awakening again invigorated religious zeal in the United States in response to the growing secularism in America and complacency of religious believers. The First Great Awakening’s prominent figures, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, discredited the socially stratified religious ideology of established churches such as the Christ Church and popularized the religious ideology of fervent personal connections with God and the principles of spiritual guilt and Calvinist predestination, or the selective and predetermined salvation and damnation of people. From the First Great Awakening also arose the decrease in traditional church parish worship and the appearance of emotionally impassioned itinerant preachers in the thirteen colonies and the mass preaching to emotional crowds outside. The Second Great Awakening eroded Calvinist predestination, and instead religions such as Methodists and Baptists professed the equality of all before God and salvation for all who repent for their sins and

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, a series of religious revivalist movements took place in the English colonies of North America. Born out of the declining religious devotion of many colonists, the revival, known as the Great Awakening, created a new form of Christianity and transformed how religion was viewed in the colonies. This monumental event had long-term effects on North America, some of which continue to be felt even today. The most notable long term effects included the transformation of Protestantism and religious worship, the spread of revolutionary zeal due to the establishment of the American spirit, and the emergence of higher education in America.

After the Revolutionary War ended, a rebellion against the church began during the 1730s, known as the Great Awakening. This Awakening transformed the topography of the European Religious culture. Americans wanted a religion that was compatible with their way of life. During the era of the Revolution, the most substantial denominations were the Quakers, the Congregationalists, and the Anglicans. After America’s liberation from the tyranny of the British Crown and religious ideology of predestination, they wanted to associated themselves with a religion that gave them more control over their destination. Americans adopted the freedom of choice allowing them to accept or reject God’s salvation for themselves.

The fighting conflicts between religious and political groups, which resulted from the Glorious Revolution during 1688 to 1689, caused a significant event the “Great Awakening” in 1730s and 1740s. It was a religious movement that swept through settled North America, including British Americans and American colonists, with a spiritual revivalism. It led the ministers explored all people, including all statuses, occupations, levels of education, and region, to reject the emptiness of material goods and allow their emotions and beliefs in God from the heart. Therefore, the Great Awakening had caused some divisions within society and had impacted on religion in the Americas, especially colonists.

‘Reform movements in the United States sought to expand democratic ideals. Assess the validity of this statement with specific reference to the years 1825-1850.’

During the Second great Awakening, new ethics and morals in the U.S were formed which molded the changes in our government and beliefs in the Antebellum Period. The Second Great Awakening created Protestant based religions that were the main influences that shaped the Antebellum Period. Slavery reforms, sobriety, women's rights, and Temperance in the Antebellum Period, between the War of 1812 in the Civil War, all descended from the Second Great Awakening.

Jonathan Edwards, A puritan minister delivers a very powerful and life changing sermon to his congregation in Enfield, Connecticut. His most successful appeal is Man’s emotion, by creating vivid, horrific images with negative connotations to emphasize the importance of sinners, unconverted men, and parishioners to convert to puritan beliefs.

In 1662, several congregations met up and signed the “Halfway Covenant”. This move was designed to liberalize membership rules and change up the position of church in the political and social society. The children were allowed to be baptized without providing evidence of conversion. Both children and parents could attain halfway membership. Infants can be baptized and they grew into halfway membership in the church.

In the 19th century, the Second Great Awakening occurred which lead the American people to change their opinion on religion. This caused a multitude of individuals to convert and change churches. Due to the refocusing of religious beliefs, it resulted in numerous realizing the flaws and defects within the country. They started believing enormous changes were needed in order for salvation. This influenced the formation of social movements such as women’s rights, temperance and the abolition of slavery and many others. The social movement would have such an impact on society that America would change as the one we know today.

Edwards’ message in, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” was preached in a religious climate during the era of the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening preceded the American Revolution, an era when American’s fought against political issues such as high taxes, demanding their freedom and independence (Wikipedia, 2014) . The idea of an "awakening" implies a slumber or passivity during secular or less religious times. However, this can be applied to a non-religious context. I propose that “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” be examined from the perspective of compelling people to consider their weaknesses and insufficiencies (along with the insufficiencies of others) in order to encourage them to equality, and removing social hierarchy and fear. From that perspective, “Sinners in the Hands

As the Age of Enlightenment gradually came to an end, the British American colonists were ready to progress beyond the ideology of human reason and depend solely on biblical revelation. During the eighteenth century, a great movement known as the First Great Awakening swept through Protestant Europe and America, leaving a permanent impact on

Before the First Great Awakening, a revolution known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688, stopped the fighting between religious and political groups. The Glorious Revolution declared the Church of England the reigning church of the country. Now that all of the colonists were under the same religious rule, religion became a past time or a “go through the motions”

Jonathan Edwards Sermon “ Sinners in the Hands of an angry god” contributed into the Great Awakening, showing that Hell was real, and whoever defied god was put down. Edwards used dark imagery to get his our heads, the meaning that everyone is predestined and anyone can be sent to hell. Edwards says in his sermon that “ God's enemies are easily broken into pieces, they are a heap of light chaff before the whirlwind”(2). Edwards hoped that the imagery and language of his sermon would awaken audiences to the horrific reality that he believed awaited them, should they continue life without their devotion to Christ? This made many people horrified and help start the great Awakening, making Christians more aware of the power of Christ, and increase their devotion to Christ.

Jonathan Edwards, a negative and realistic man, focused on how God is a judgemental god and sinners will be put to a painful death, they should be fearful. He says in the first few lines of his speech, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, “So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit.” (Edwards, Pg. 23) Edwards implies that everyone deserves to be in hell and he goes on to say that God is an angry God and that no one had done anything to try to ease His anger. Edwards also played a large role in the Great Awakening. He wanted people to experience Christianity in an intense and emotional way. In his speech, he said, “O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell.” (Edwards, Pg. 26) Edward’s speech was opportunity knocking at everyone’s doors. He influenced people to want to be saved in a way that made many fearful of what could happen to them if they weren’t saved or a child of God. Edwards believed that God set the world in motion, but was not active in everyone’s life. Edwards believed that God created the world and