- Time Period
- 1733 - 1770
- Description
- The First Great Awakening transformed religious life and theology in the colonies during the mid-18th century. Proponents of the revivals worried that religion had become a cold, intellectual assent to truth rather than a vital relationship with the person of Christ. The Great Awakening was not universally acclaimed, but Congregationalist pastor Jonathan Edwards defended the revivals as God's "own peculiar and immediate work." George Whitfield was the most prominent figure of the First Great Awakening. His preaching tours of the colonies drew massive open-air crowds.Older Protestant denominations faced competition from newer evangelical denominations like Baptists and Methodists. The upstart groups remained a minority in most of the colonies, but their increasing size and influence presaged the Second Great Awakening and the advent of an evangelical religious majority.
- Interactive Timeline(s)
- Social Movements and Religion
- Browse Related Timeline Entries
- Social Movements and Religion in American History
- Biographies
- Tennent, Gilbert Occom, Samson Randall, Benjamin Backus, Isaac Edwards, Jonathan
- Events
- William Tennent's "Log College" The Plan of Union of 1758 Jonathan Edwards Preaches 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' The First Great Awakening Benjamin Randall Organizes the Free Will Baptists Publication of An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty The Trial of Margaret Meuse Clay
- Photographs
-
George Whitefield preaching in Philadelphia- Internet Archive- from Life of George Whitefield by A. S. Billingsley -
George Whitefield preaching at a horse race- Internet Archive- from Life of George Whitefield by A. S. Billingsley -
John Wesley preaching- Hathi Trust- from The Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century by Edwin Paxton Hood -
Jonathan Edwards portrait- Internet Archive- from The History of Connecticut by G. H. Hollister - Book/Journal Source(s)
- Ahlstrom, Sydney, 2004. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Web Page Contributor
- Paul Matzko Affliated with: Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D. in History
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The First Great Awakening
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