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The Great Awakening

 

            
             The Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals that took the colonies .
             by storm during the 1730's and 1740's. The primary cause of these revivals were .
             changes in economics, political transformations, and Enlightenment rationalism. .
             Implementations of such things like the "half-way covenant," allowed people to take .
             part in church affairs without actually having a salvation experience, thus, rebellion in .
             the church became very immanent. Men and women alike no longer felt very strongly .
             of a need for conversion. The supporters of the Awakening pointed to the apparent .
             degeneration of Puritan values to explain the need for revival (The Great Awakening, .
             pgs. 1-9). John Whiting of Hartford expressed the sentiment and the need for revival .
             in an election sermon of 1686, saying: .
             .
             Is there not too visible and general a declension; are we not turned (and that .
             quickly too) out of the way wherein our fathers walked? A rain of .
             .
             righteousness and soaking showers of converting, sanctifying grace sent from .
             heaven will do the business for us, and indeed, nothing else.
             In New England, revival started with the fiery preaching of Jonathan Edwards. William .
             Tennent became the leading figure in New Jersey and the middle colonies, and .
             George Whitefield took the South with his preaching of methodology. This revival, .
             with it's fiery preachers, focused on the preeminence of salvation and ultimately .
             Latham pg.2.
             reformed the religious order of the colonies.
             .
             One of the most noted theologians of his time, Jonathan Edwards was born .
             October 5, 1703, into a Puritan evangelical household. He received his childhood, as .
             well as adult education from Yale College. From 1726 to 1750 Edwards served as .
             the pastor of Northampton, Massachusetts (Yale, n.pg.). Edwards became known as .
             a revivalist and theologian after publishing "A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising .
             Work of God," which described the awakening of his church and served as a model .


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