The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment in the Colonies

TWO GREAT MOVEMENTS

The Enlightenment

• Science and mathematics begin to overthrow ideas of religion and miracles.• Earth is not the center of the universe as expected.• WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?• Rejection of religion

• These ideas traveled from Europe to the Colonies• BEN FRANKLIN- Obtain truth

through experimentation and reason

• Lightning Experiment!

• New ideas led to new ways of thinking, and new inventions

ENLIGHTENMENT

• These new ways of thinking also led to alternate ideas…ideas of Revolution.

Power of reason Transform society Advance knowledge

• John Locke: Life, Liberty, and Property• Question the authority of Britain over the colonies

• Certain individual rights of every individual

• Literacy rates were higher than in England, allowed for a more expansive spread of thought.

• The Enlightenment transformed society; put an emphasis on liberty, democracy, and religious tolerance.

The Great Awakening• Jonathan Edwards- wanted to revive intense Puritan

thought and practices• Church attendance is not enough for salvation!• You must feel sinfulness and God’s love.

“The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; … and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.”

AWAKENING

• Travel from village to village, asking people to re-dedicate themselves to God.

• George Whitefield- attracted thousands at meetings• Brought many colonists into organized churches—also challenged the authority of churches.

• Abandoned churches, refused to pay taxes

• Increased interest in higher education

Questioning of traditional authority…• What is right and wrong?

• Who can tell me what to do?

HOW DOES THIS PROMOTE AN AMERICAN IDENTITY?

1. Opposed the notion of a single truth or a single church. As preachers visited town after town, sects began to break off larger churches and a multitude of Protestant denominations sprouted

2. The social effect of multitudes of new denominations was not, however, a fracturing of communities, but a unifying drive which helped to create a “national consciousness”

3. The chain of authority no longer ran from God to ruler to people, but from God to people to ruler—challenged British monarchy

4. Ideas of liberty and democracy went into the hearts and minds of all colonists.