From the Great Awakening to the American Revolution

1. From the Great Awakening to the American Revolution History 236 April, 2008

2. What historians call “the first Great Awakening” can best be described as a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. That revival was part of a much broader movement, an evangelical upsurge taking place simultaneously on the other side of the Atlantic, most notably in England, Scotland, and Germany. In all these Protestant cultures during the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a new Age of Faith rose to counter the currents of the Age of Enlightenment, to reaffirm the view that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason. First Great Awakening

3. From Pietism to the Great Awakening • The Great Awakening grew out of the pietist movement in North America. There was a felt need for a truly personal religious experience and that led to a spontaneous outbreak of events that began in 1734 around Northhampton, Massachusetts. • The pastor was Jonathan Edwards.

4. ONATHAN EDWARDS was born into a Puritan evangelical household on October 5, 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut. He was the fifth of eleven children born to the Rev. Timothy and Esther Edwards. His childhood education immersed him not only in the study of the Bible and Christian theology but also in classics and ancient languages. Jonathan Edwards, 1

5. Jonathan Edwards, 2 • Studied at Yale, especially natural philosophy and metaphysics, classics and ancient languages, and religion of course, and began preaching at Northhampton in the pulpit that his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, had held. • Emphasized the personal experience of conversion and other elements such as the sovereignty of God, the depravity of humankind, the reality of hell, and the necessity of a "New Birth" conversion.

6. Jonathan Edwards, 3 • Then, in the early 1730s, especially around 1734, people began responding to his sermons, surprising even Edwards who continued to call for the experience of conviction of sin and of divine forgiveness. • People “began responding to his sermons, some with emotional outbursts, but many with a remarkable change in their lives, and with increased attention to their devotional lives. In a few months, the movement swept the area and reached into Connecticut.” • This was the beginning of the First Great Awakening.

7. Jonathan Edwards, 4 • The widespread revivals of the 1730’s and 1740’s stimulated one of the two most fruitful periods for Edwards' writings. In this period, Edwards became very well known as a revivalist preacher who subscribed to an experiential interpretation of Reformed theology. While critics assailed the convictions of many supposed converts as illusory and even the work of the devil, Edwards became a brilliant apologist for the revivals. In The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741), Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival (1742), A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), and The Life of David Brainerd (1749), he sought to isolate the signs of true sainthood from false belief. The intellectual framework for revivalism he constructed in these works pioneered a new psychology and philosophy of affections, later invoked by William James in his classic Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).

8. George Whitfield, an Anglican pastor and close friend of the Wesley brothers in England, visited with Edwards and joined him in preaching. Whitfield underwent an emotional transformation, much like John Wesley, and became a famous preacher, dividing his time between Georgia and England. George Whitfield

9. John Wesley from Inside the Methodist Church John Wesley from Inside Wikipedia! John Wesley on John Wesley John Wesley in Savannah, Georgia John Wesley

10. Wesley, Early Life • John Wesley was born in Epworth, 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Lincoln, the son of Samuel Wesley, a graduate of Oxford, and a minister of the Church of England. In 1689 Samuel married Susanna Annesley, twenty-fourth child of Dr. Samuel Annesley. Both Samuel and Susanna had been raised in Dissenting homes before becoming members of the Established Church early in adulthood. Susanna herself became a mother of nineteen children. In 1696 Samuel Wesley was appointed rector of Epworth, where John, the fifteenth child, was born. • At the age of five, John was rescued from the burning rectory. This escape made a deep impression on his mind; and he regarded himself as providentially set apart, as a "brand plucked from the burning."[2] • The Wesley children's early education was given by their parents in the Epworth rectory. Each child, including the girls, was taught to read as soon as they could walk, and talk. In 1714 John was admitted to the Charterhouse School, London, where he lived the studious, methodical, and (for a while) religious life in which he had been trained at home. • During his early years, John Wesley had enjoyed a deep religious experience. His biographer, Tyerman, says that he went to Charterhouse a saint; but he became negligent of his religious duties, and left a sinner.

11. Susanna Wesley

12. Wesley, at Oxford, in His Own Words • 4. In November, 1729, four young gentlemen of Oxford, -- Mr. John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College; Mr. Charles Wesley, Student of Christ Church; Mr. Morgan, Commoner of Christ Church; and Mr. Kirkham, of Merton College, -- began to spend some evenings in a week together, in reading, chiefly, the Greek Testament. The next year two or three of Mr. John Wesley's pupils desired the liberty of meeting with them; and afterwards one of Mr. Charles Wesley's pupils. It was in 1732, that Mr. Ingham, of Queen's College, and Mr. Broughton, of Exeter, were added to their number. To these, in April, was joined Mr. Clayton, of Brazen-nose, with two or three of his pupils. About the same time Mr. James Hervey was permitted to meet with them; and in 1735, Mr. Whitfield. • 5. The exact regularity of their lives, as well as studies, occasioned a young gentleman of Christ Church to say, "Here is a new set of Methodists sprung up;" alluding to some ancient Physicians who were so called. The name was new and quaint; so it took immediately, and the Methodists were known all over the University. • 6. They were all zealous members of the Church of England; not only tenacious of all her doctrines, so far as they knew them, but of all her discipline, to the minutest circumstance. They were likewise zealous observers of all the University Statutes, and that for conscience' sake. But they observed neither these nor anything else any further than they conceived it was bound upon them by their one book, the Bible; it being their one desire and design to be downright Bible-Christians; taking the Bible, as interpreted by the primitive Church and our own, for their whole and sole rule. • 7. The one charge then advanced against them was, that they were "righteous overmuch;" that they were abundantly too scrupulous, and too strict, carrying things to great extremes: In particular, that they laid too much stress upon the Rubrics and Canons of the Church; that they insisted too much on observing the Statutes of the University; and that they took the Scriptures in too strict and literal a sense; so that if they were right, few indeed would be saved.

13. Wesley to Georgia • In 1735 left England for Georgia, asked by John Oglethorpe to serve as pastor in Savannah and hoping to preach to the Indians. Caught in terrible storm at sea, he was inspired by a group of German Moravians—part of the Pietist movement in Germany—who prayed and sang through the storm, certain of their salvation. Wesley not so sure of the depth of his faith, or his salvation. • As a pastor, he was a failure. His brother Charles, who had accompanied him, returned to England. • A failed love affair sank him even deeper into gloom.

14. Wesley Leaves Georgia • So, he left Georgia and returned to England. He almost gave up preaching for lack of faith, but then, on May 24, 1738, “Wesley had the experience that changed his life: • ‘In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle [cont. next slide]

15. The Aldersgate Transformation • “to the Romans. Abut a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my hear strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation. And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away, my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death”

16. Beyond Aldersgate • Slowly Wesley, now assured of his salvation, returned to preaching. George Whitfield invited him to Bristol to preach in his absence when he returned to his flock in Georgia. Whitfield, fiery and often preaching in the open, broke down some of Wesley’s reserve and decorous habits. They eventually parted ways, but amicably, on some theological differences over predestintion and free will.

17. Methodism • Wesley always stayed in the Church of England, preferring to bring the church to the masses by awakening and cultivating their faith. However, his “Methodists” needed some structure, and structures to meet in. Gradually the “societies” of Methodists were organized into smaller classes to study Scripture, pray, discuss religious matters, collect funds, and these were very egalitarian, even allowing for women leaders.

18. Methodism, 2 • The “movement grew rapidly,” and Wesley traveled across England helping organize and promote it. When criticized by his superiors, he retorted “the world is my parish,” and this became the motto of Methodist missionary enterprises. Wesley preached several times a day and traveled thousandsof miles on horseback until the age of seventy.

19. Methodism, 3 • Eventually the Methodists—much more egalitarian and successful with the lower classes—broke with the Anglican Church, although Wesley resisted this to his death. • And in the newly independent United States, Methodism especially prospered and moved west with the frontier, and its looser structure, accommodating to change and circumstances more easily than the rigid Anglican Church, provided for growth among the Americans.

20. Religion and the Founding of the American Republic • In fact, this leads us to a consideration of religion and the founding the American Republic. • Religion in colonial America was a central theme among the people. Indeed, some colonies such as Massachusetts were settled by pilgrims and Puritans seeking religious freedom from the oppressions of Europe. • Others who came later, such as the Quakers of Pennsylvania, also sought religious freedom, so, in those colonies, one of the principles that governed was dissent from the Church of England.

21. Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, 2 • In other colonies, such as Virginia, the Church of England had the ascendancy. • In New England, Roger Williams expelled from the Puritan Massachusetts for his radical views (like admiring the Indians and paying them for their land!) and Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island with many Baptists. • In Maryland, Catholics were allowed to practice by virtue of religious freedom established early on. • In sum, a wide diversity of Christianity in the English colonies.

22. Religion and the American Revolution • Religion played a major role in the American Revolution by offering a moral sanction for opposition to the British--an assurance to the average American that revolution was justified in the sight of God. As a recent scholar has observed, "by turning colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by crying the message to all ranks in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better." • Ministers served the American cause in many capacities during the Revolution: as military chaplains, as penmen for committees of correspondence, and as members of state legislatures, constitutional conventions and the national Congress. Some even took up arms, leading Continental troops in battle.

23. Religion and the Revolution, 2 • The Revolution split some denominations, notably the Church of England, whose ministers were bound by oath to support the King, and the Quakers, who were traditionally pacifists. Religious practice suffered in certain places because of the absence of ministers and the destruction of churches, but in other areas, religion flourished. • The Revolution strengthened millennialist strains in American theology. At the beginning of the war some ministers were persuaded that, with God's help, America might become "the principal Seat of the glorious Kingdom which Christ shall erect upon Earth in the latter Days." Victory over the British was taken as a sign of God's partiality for America and stimulated an outpouring of millennialist expectations--the conviction that Christ would rule on earth for 1,000 years. This attitude combined with a groundswell of secular optimism about the future of America to create the buoyant mood of the new nation that became so evident after Jefferson assumed the presidency in 1801.

24. Unitarians and Universalists • The strong strain of rationalism that permeated the American Revolution also drove the creation of new religious movements, one called the “Unitarians” (rejected Trinity) and the other “Universalists,” and the two eventually merged. • “The were rationalists, stressing human freedom and intellectual capabilities in contrast to the orthodox emphasis on divine mystery and human sin.”

25. Unitarians and Universalists, 2 • Universalists stressed the doctrine that in the end all will be saved, introduced by British Methodists who aruged that the doctrine of eternal damnation was a denial of God’s love. • From the merging of the Unitarians and Universalists there emerged eventually the Transcendalist movement of the 19th century (led by such people as Ralph

26. Unitarians and Universalists, 3 • Waldo Emerson who combined rationalism with romanticism. The transcendentalists “stressed self-knowledge as a means to understand the universe and its purpose.”

27. Breaking off from England during the Revolution • Anglicans, Methodists and others had to decide on how to manage a political revolution (independence of the colonies) with old loyalties and ties to the mother churches in England. • Not surprisingly, the American branches broke off.

28. Breaking off from England during the Revolution, 2 • The American Methodists established their own conference apart from the English and John Wesley. • The Anglicans became the Episcopal Church in America. • Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians all followed similar paths to “independent” denominations.