Puritanism In The Great Awakening

A spiritual outburst shook the American churches in the 1740s when Christians took on new enthusiasm for their faith. The dead religion gave way to a serious commitment to this revival that became known as the Great Awakening. The specific dates normally given for the Great Awakening are 1740 to 1743, roughly the time of the Whitefield preaching tour, although the way had been prepared by revived preachers who preceded it and the subsequent effects continued for a few decades. Some historians associate the Great American Awakening with the Evangelical Revival in England, which occurred in Wesley's time for nearly a century.
Certain Christians started to disassociate from the set up way to deal with adore around then, which prompted a general

Only those who could give a public and credible testimony of their conversion became full members of the churches. Thus, in its initial phase Puritanism was marked by a great religious intensity, a kind of continuous revival. This characteristic of Puritanism would strongly influence the different manifestations of American Protestantism. Over the years, the new generations have lost the vision and religious fervor of the pioneers. Increasing economic prosperity and intellectual advancement have resulted in a progressive numbing of the spiritual life. In the midst of this state of affairs, many people began to pray for a revitalization of the churches and their members. It was common for preachers to mourn the decline of spirituality and urge their faithful to pray for revival. These aspirations began to be met outside New England in the central colonies. For months, Whitefield, a convicted Calvinist who had initially worked with John Wesley, preached almost every day to auditoriums that numbered eight thousand. This campaign has had a huge impact on all colonies, becoming the first national wide-ranging event in US history. Not all pioneers were excited about the restoration. In New England itself, there was a solid response from some congregational ministers, drove by Charles Chauncey of Boston, who condemned the

This period was marked by a marked decline in religious activity, since people were more interested the burning political issues of the time.
The greatest significance of the Awakening was the way it prepared America for the War of Independence. In the decades before the war, the revival taught people that they could be bold in confronting religious authority, and that when churches did not live up to the expectations of believers, people could break up and form new ones.
Through Awakening, settlers realized that religious power lay in their own hands, not in the hands of the Church of England, or any other religious authority. After a generation or two passed with this kind of mentality, the settlers realized that political power lay not in the hands of the English monarch, but in their own will to self-rule. In 1775, despite the fact that pioneers did not have the same religious convictions, they shared a typical perspective of flexibility of British control. Subsequently, the Great Awakening achieved an atmosphere that made conceivable the American