The Great Awakening

Bro. Glen, the Great Awakening and the Reformation were two different events. The Great Awakening is, generally, a revival that occurred in America (and Canada) and England in the mid-1700s. (The Second Great Awakening occurred in the early 1800s and is responsible for the Adventists, Mormons, Campbellites and the Primitive-Regular split).

The most influential of the preachers were the Wesleys and George Whitefield. John Wesley preached in the United States, to disappointing results, before returning to England, where he led great revivals. Whitefield drew tremendous crowds in both America and England. Interesting that Whitefield and Wesley, though poles apart on grace, for the most part cooperated in the movement.

This is a pretty good account of the Great Awakening:
http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/grawaken.htm

Interesting lecture:

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/four.html

Jonathan Edwards on the phenomenon:

http://www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/awaken.htm

And Martin Luther King weighs in:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol1/501117-An_Appraisal_of_the_Great_Awakening.htm

From Christianity Today:

On Edwards: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/61h/61h028.html

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/9b6/9b6010.html

On Whitefield and others: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2001/001/10.39.html

Ben Franklin, whatever his religious views, was a fan of Whitefield and would attend his services to hear the man speak and found himself contributing to the ministry.

The Great Awakening appealed especially to the non-established churches -- Baptists, Presbyterians, proto-Methodists, in particular. After the Great Awakening, the established churches could no longer lay exclusive claim to state support, an important factor in the Founders' adoption of religious liberty.

The movement was not without its detractors, especially among the established churches, which decried the emotionalism and easy-believism of the revivals. (Hmm. Sounds familiar, and for the same reasons.)

[ February 05, 2003, 10:00 AM: Message edited by: rsr ]

 

It has been observed that the First Great Awakening in England saved that country from a counterpart to the bloody revolution French Revolution.

 

Thanks, Jeff, for the reference to Asbury.

Francis Asbury:

http://www.victorshepherd.on.ca/Heritage/francis.htm

The most common name for the revivalists was "New Lights," a term that carried over to the second Great Awakening.

 

Bro. Glen, there are two generally recognized events called the Great Awakening.

The first occurred in the mid-17th Century and is exemplified by Jonathan Edwards in the United States, the Wesleys in Britain and George Whitefield in both. Whitefield is an interesting connection between the two.

The first was marked by emotionalism, conversions and itinerant preachers who preached to large crowds outside of churches. (Whitefield is said to have preached to 20,000 people in Boston at a time the entire population of the city was only slightly larger than that.) The Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists, in particular, grew as a result.

The Second Great Awakening began in the early 1800s in the United States and was characterized not only by revivalism but also by the development of new sects and denominations -- Mormons, Adventists, Campbellites, Disciples of Christ, etc. It also promoted the creation and development of mission societies, both within and among denominations.

A case could be made that there have been others that deserve the title, such as the development of Pentecostalism in the early 1900s and what is happening today, which has been called the "Third Wave."

 

According to observers, the First Wave was the original Pentecostal movement; the Second Wave began in the '60s when Charismatics began to influence mainline churches. The Third Wave would include much of what we see from some TBN-style evangelists -- healing, resurrection, prophesying -- along with an emphasis on unity.

Online research is difficult because most sites are for or against it, but I think a reasonable definition can be found at:

http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/t00.html

 

Wanted to pass on this tidbit about Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin. Although they were poles apart in religion, they were friends.

In an essay entitled "Whitefield Awakens America," (published in "Days of Destiny: Crossroads in American History, DK Publishing, 2001), John Demos records Franklin's account of his attendance at a Whitefield meeting:

 

ROFL