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Spiritual journey examples
Religion and identity
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John Edwards Religious Affections discusses the two kinds of exercise of religion. The first exercise he talks about is trials. Trials benefit religion as proof. No true religion is trial-less, but has plenty of rewards at the same time. Edwards wrote “ Hereby the truth of it is manifested, and appears indeed true religion; they above all other things, have a tendency to distinguish between true religion and false.”
It is 1741. The Enlightenment is spreading worldwide. The puritan people are leaving God. Johnathan Edwards gives a sermon on July 8th , 1741, trying to convince his fellow Puritan people to come back to God. He is going to try and accomplish this by giving his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God '.
In search of religious freedom a group of devout Christians sailed across the ocean only to come across a new land, radically different from the one they left behind. From the initial journey, to the formation of the colonies, and finally their complicated relationship with “non-believers” Puritans strongly held religious convictions has played a key role in all of this. The Puritans were a group of reformed Protestants seeking to reform the English Church. After the fall of the Roman Catholic Church, a new church was established “The English Anglican Church”. While most Puritans sought to reform the church others wanted nothing to do with it these Puritans would eventually be known as Separatists.
Thomas S. Kidd wrote the book “The Great Awakening A Brief History with Documents” in a format that allows its readers to study history the way historians do. The book is broken down into two parts. The first part is a detailed introduction of what happened during the The Great Awakening. The second part includes and explores 36 primary source accounts from this era. These primary source accounts range from pastors’ sermons to the spiritual experiences of slaves, Native Americans and farmers, among others.
What is fundamentalism? Essentially, it is an adherence to the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to life and teaching. In his book, Fundamentalism and American Culture, George M. Marsden attacks the daunting question of “How has the fundamentalist movement managed to resist the pressures of the scientific community and the draw of modern popular culture to hold on to their ultra-conservative Christian views?” Not only does this History textbook answer that pressing question, but it also tells the incredible, encouraging tale of how Christian principles CAN survive in a godless world. From the first chapter, Marsden notes fundamentalism’s steady march through American history.
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House” seem at first glance quite similar to one another regarding context, however, after taking a closer look, it becomes apparent that there are some substantial differences. These differences cannot be understood without the knowledge of cultural context concerning the Puritan belief system and their lifestyle. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was written with the sole purpose of scaring and intimidating the people that purtinans believed to be sinners. Edwards’s work contributed to a movement called “The Great Awakening”. It’s objective was to make the so-called ‘sinners’ aware of their wrongdoings and compel them to repent.
One of his well-known sermon is “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at the meeting house in the village of Enfield, Connecticut, on Sunday, July 8, 1741, at the height of the great awakening. In this sermon, Edwards focused on the consequences of leading a sinful life, the power of God and repenting of ones sins, in order to be saved from hell. The purpose behind this piece of writing was not to terrorize or dismay the hearers, but to make them repent and believe in God again. This piece was aimed at those who lacked belief in God as well as churches.
Douglass is relentless when attacking the church, he states, “The American Church is Guilty” (Douglass 1039). This has a slightly taste of irony, because here Douglass, a colored man, is calling out the most “sacred” body of people. It almost as if he was the master and they were the slave now. Next, the main theme expressed by
The American Enlightenment and the Great Awakening were two very important motivators that changed the colonial society in America through religious beliefs, educational values, and the right to live one’s life according to each individual’s preference. The Great Awakening and the American Enlightenment movements were two events in history that signaled a grand distinction to the teachings among religious believers. New beliefs of how a person should worship in order to be considered in “God’s good graces” soon became an enormous discussion among colonists across the land. “Men of the cloth,” such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were well respected and closely followed when preaching about the love of God and damnation.
In Interpretation A, Krout states that the power of the evangelical Protestantism was the greatest factor in the temperance movement. While there is validity in this statement as through congregationalism, evangelical Protestantism had a large following and therefore can get a large group of people to support prohibition. However Krout also mentions that an economical factor was often the reason why people became supporters of prohibition. Krout also mentions that the economical factors included increased taxation and reduced production. Around this time big business men like John Rockefeller put large amounts of money into the temperance movement as they felt it would benefit them as they would have more efficient workers.
To those living in British America in the 1700’s, religion was a central fixture of everyday life. One’s denomination was intrinsically tied up in one’s ethnic and social identity, and local churches in the mid-Atlantic depended upon the participation and donations of their parishioners to survive. However, as the 18th century progressed, poorer farmers and ministers across the diverse sects of colonial America came to resent the domination of church life by the upper class. In a parallel development, a split had grown between the rationalists, who were typically wealthy, educated and influential men who represented the status quo, and the evangelicals, who disdained the impersonal pretention of the rationalists and promoted a spiritual and
If thou doesn’t love thy neighbor as thyself, thou was unchristian like. Fervent sermons transferred meaningful ideas of equality to everyday citizens. Reverend Miller presented this sermon at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist denomination was one of the most outspoken anti-slavery sects. The Methodist gained the most membership during the Second Great Awakening, in fact one in five Americans belonged to the Methodist Church (Keillor 1).
The Primitive Baptist Church developed after a disagreement occurred within the church around the 1830’s. This disagreement
They weren’t particularly in joy of the Anglican beliefs and customs. Winthrop’s sermon helps reiterate the puritan’s ideology and at the same time give guidelines on how to make a successful society and provides them with reason on why they have to succeed. They were an outcast in England and if their society here in the New World failed too then they as a group have failed. They have failed to show why their way is right and also they have failed god.
Fundamentally, idolatry is the worship of an image or object or the excessive devotion towards a person or item. From a religious perspective, idolatry is the worship of images and representations other than the true God. Idolatry is a practice whose scope is often misunderstood, prompting the efforts by different people to demystify the practice both in the past and in the world today. Martin Luther, for instance, explores his understanding of the practice in his Large Catechism, a text meant to guide Lutheran clergymen in their service. This essay discusses idolatry, with specific emphasis on Luther’s ideas and presentation of the same and its prevalence in the modern world.