First Great Awakening Research Paper

The Puritan’s goal of coming to the New World was not to create a new life, but to create the ideal model of living for the “corrupt” inhabitants of England. This was coined “The Errand”, the Puritans desire to establish a City Upon a Hill that others could look up to and imitate in order to receive God’s grace. The Puritans failed at building their City Upon a Hill (creating a perfect religious, economic, and political community), however the long-term effects of their efforts have influenced American moral politics throughout its history. The Puritans forever had the attitude of a community that had successfully established a City Upon a Hill. The Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced not only by religion, but also inside of that, morality.

The idea of the United States having Puritan origins is still alive today. In Sarah Vowell’s, The Wordy Shipmates, the topic of how a nation affiliates itself with Puritan perspectives is introduced. She encourages one to look beyond the surface information of the first English settlers’ motives in the 1600s, and to investigate what Puritan views truly are. She mentions the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, expressing his freedom to enforce his religious views on to a whole colony of people. The superiors of this religious group decided in the colonies what was appropriate for the society they are creating. She utilizes key characters to compare and contrast the different types of a “puritan” citizen. Furthermore, she allows

Over time, religion in the colonies underwent many changes. During the founding stage of the colonies, religion was extremely important, as it was the reason many people moved to America to begin with. However, a few sects of Christianity, Puritanism in particular, sacrificed the exclusivity and strictness of their religion, in order to convert more people as fast as possible. This led to the decline of religion as a priority, and church membership took a hit, as people were simply apathetic towards religion and its strict doctrines. In the mid-18th century, there was a huge spike in religious practice referred to as the Great Awakening. People began to flock from all over the colonies to listen to a sermon preaching the evil of mankind and

The ideas constructed by the Puritans were not simply a principal starting point for American culture because they were the first in the country, but because they offered distinct ways of thinking that are still deep-seated in our culture today. Although many of the ideas of Puritans have evolved or vanished over time, it is important to give credit to the Puritan writers and thinkers such as John Winthrop and John Cotton who offered ideas that were new at the time and that stayed with the American consciousness—culturally, socially, and politically.

Although all the colonists all came from England, the community development, purpose, and societal make-up caused a distinct difference between two distinct societies in New England and the Chesapeake region. The distinctions were obvious, whether it be the volume of religious drive, the need or lack of community, families versus single settlers, the decision on minimal wage, whether or not articles of agreements were drawn for and titles as well as other social matters were drawn, as well as where loyalties lay in leaders.

During the Colonial Era, religion and worship played an important role in the quotidian lives of Puritans. Jonathan Edwards was an eloquent preacher and theologian who impacted many lives through sermons. Edwards's sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” persuaded individuals to worship Christ and ask forgiveness for their sins. This sermon left a strong lasting impact, one that would later trigger the Great Awakening from 1734 to 1750. In the sermon, Edwards uses many rhetorical strategies to assist in the influence of his sermon including appeals to pathos and ethos, imagery, and figurative language. Through an angry tone, Edwards connects to his audience, the Puritans of his congregation, to encourage their conversion and atonement for their sins.

The Great Awakening unified the diverse colonies with the belief that colonists must shift their lives’ focus from worldly matters, such as accumulating land and wealth, back to faith and the church i n order to avoid condemnation by God.

Thus, many Puritans left England in April 1630 to travel to the New World (Martin 1984: 20) to found a “godly community” (Westerkamp 1999: 2). The ships arrived in the wilderness, a harsh place that required strict rules and religious guidance and “Faith in God’s providential plan” to endure the circumstances (Martin 1984:4). This reassurance had already taken place on their way to the New World when John Winthrop delivered his speech, according to which the Puritan community was as a “City upon a hill” representing a model of “biblical commonwealth”(Westerkamp 1999:10). Consequently, the community established fixed power relations wielding much authority to the ministers who often also were medical authorities and, consequently, caused an intersection of spiritual and medial issues (Lutes 1997: 314). The announcements of the Puritan misters influenced the community strongly since the people’s interpretations were based on them (Lutes 1997: 313). Moreover, the Puritan community comprised strict gender roles (Boschmann 2005: 247) as can be seen by the example of Anne Bradstreet. Even though she joined the journey, she was mainly following her father and husband. Her reluctance was indicated by her statement that by living in the new community her “heart rose”(Martin 1984: 20). In particular, within

The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalism is a book written by Barry Hankins in 2014. The main idea that the book reflects is that the Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalism reinforced Americans beliefs in the individual’s importance and support even as it helped to bring a sense of community to a highly nomadic masses. The Second Great Awakening movement transformed the American religion and society in a number of ways. While there was a large growth of the deism in New England. Church’s revolutionary fervor tended to alienate it from its constituency. Western migration also effected the development of churches. The New England revivals were Calvinist, who believed in predestination, God’s sovereignty, People could not

As colonists were settling into the New World, it didn’t take long for religion to follow them. The Quakers, or the members of The Society of Friends, is a Christian movement that was founded by George Fox around 1650 in which they believed that God spoke directly to each one of them through an “inner light” and that people didn’t need a preacher or a Bible to discover God’s holy word. What made this religion bring controversy was that Puritans believed that Quakers brought an unimaginable threat to society like having woman be in leading roles in the Quaker meeting in which orthodox Puritans thought was to be unholy like to believe in. this brought about the many mistreating of Quakers by the hands of the Puritans that led the Quakers to look

During the 1730s and 1740s the Great Awakening was a religious revival that lead by the Protestants. The main idea of the revivals was to preach a new idea of being reborn which meant that one must except Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. Once that occurred the people in return they will be forever saved and be forgiven for the sins they have committed in the past and the ones they will commit in the future. The text the Itinerants Chapter 2 from the Great Awakening PDF is a great text to read for information on the Great Awakening. The text shows how people like George Whitefield and others like him reshaped the landscape of the religious world.

In the 1700s during the Great Awakening, Puritans worked harder than ever to increase the number of saved Christians. They constantly tried to convince sinners to convert and be “born again”. The Puritans inflicted fear upon all who were not converted in hopes of convincing them to follow the word of God. In 1741 Pastor Jonathan Edwards induced a strong sense of fear in his congregation through the use of powerful sermons filled with rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and logos in hopes of increasing the number of “born again” Christians.

As a result of the corruption of the Church of England, a new religious movement sought to reform the church. Puritanism sought to “purify” the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Their unique approach of worshipping with engaged speakers and knowledge filled sermons attracted many believers. The initial largest location that Puritans migrated to in the United States was Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Puritans set up churches with the beginning goal in mind and grew their church to ten thousand people. Subsequently, rapid migration began to various parts of America. The immigrants were educated and devoted believers who began churches all

With the good fortune that was brought on by the colonization of America problems such as spiritual decline was on the rise. By the late 1600’s, New England ministers were criticizing problems that included public drunkenness to excessively high prices and wages. It was predicted that if the Puritans did not change their ways ruin and destruction would befall all (Oakes et al. 2017, 108). These behaviors were starkly juxtaposed to the beliefs of fate of Puritans that Robert C. Winthrop had previously purposed. Winthrop believed, unlike the many other religious who had made the same trek , the Puritans would be rooted in God’s law, making them the model society. If they were to follow biblical law, then they would be protected from the undue hardships that the New World had to offer. Winthrop enumerated several reasons why the Puritan migration was necessary, one being that,

We begin our discussion on the issue of Predestination with debate between the Calvinists (led by Theodore Beza) and the Arminians (led by Jakob Arminus). The Calvinists based their position on the belief of double predestination, where some people are elected to be saved, and others to damnation (McGrath 1997: 453). It is also termed the doctrine of “limited atonement’ and “particular redemption”. This is summarized as the "Five Points of Calvinism." The Arminians objected to the Calvinist position. The Arminians systematized their theological views into five points of doctrine and issued a document known as the "Remonstrance of 1610."