THE GREAT AWAKENING

A great religious revival, the Great Awakening, swept through the American colonies from the 1720s through the 1740s. Ministers of the movement claimed that local ministers were not devoted enough to God and practiced “cold” preaching. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards preached of the pitiful condition of man and the terrors of hell that most will confront when they die. Entire congrégations were stirred to greater religious devotion; thousands turned up to hear Anglican George White- field as he toured the colonies in 1740. Some congregations also split over the message and the tactics of the “Awakeners.”

The Great Awakening had several major effects on the colonies. Yale, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Rutgers were all founded to train ministers during this period, yet preachers without college degrees preaching during the Great Awakening claimed to “know God” as well; several historians claim that the movement introduced a sense of social equality to the colonics. By challenging the existing the religious establishment, the Great Awakening introduced a sense of social rebellion to colonial thought that became amplified in the ensuing years. In addition, some historians maintain that the debate and the questioning of religious authority that took place in the Great Awakening reinforced the idea that the questioning of political authority was also acceptable.