Comparing The Central Ideas Of The First Great Awakening

The Central Ideas of the First Great Awakening

The colonial American society witnessed innumerable revolutions and renewals during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The revolutions had different thematic focuses including protests against slavery and racial segregation among others. One of such revolutions was the Great Awakening, which involved the spiritual revival that swept the colonial American communities. In particular, the Great Awakening was intense in the New England colony during the first five decades of the 18th century. The genesis of the Great Awakening was the dissociation of certain Christians based on a new approach to worship. The dissociation and the new approach elicited a savoring sense of gratification among believers,

Unlike Bacon and Maxon, Jonathan Edwards reiterated that God's work was a wrought in the society, and massive abiding alteration existed in different forms. Edwards noted that the level of seriousness and decency remained constant in public worship attendance, but the youth demonstrated a lot of alterations. He noted that "frolicking, reveling, unclean conversation, profane, and lewd songs," were increasingly becoming common among the youths. Moreover, fornication incidences emerged, and these alterations haunted the young and the old alike. Hence, there was a need for transformations in the teachings of the church with regards to these deviant behaviors among the believers. As a result, evangelists streamlined their teachings with these alterations, and the First Great Awakening featured evangelistic campaigns and open air rallies. Additionally, Edward noted with concern that the community was far short of meeting the Christian fundamentals regarding charity to the poor. He explained that the Christian community had a “very lamentable decay of religious affections as well as the unthinkable decline of the peoples’ spiritual engagement, yet many prayer societies and social aspect of the religion were maintained.” These behaviors stimulated the awakening, and the different alterations forced the evangelists to form delegations and redefine the course of religion. Thus, the concept of evangelism and its impacts on asserting Christian teachings constituted one of the central ideas in Great