Religion in the ColoniesCould I live like this?

Religion led to schools

● Training ministers required advanced study● Northern colonies were heavily populated;

schools could be founded○ 1638-Harvard University; Boston Latin founded○ William and Mary (1693); Yale (1701)

● Southern colonies sparsely populated○ schools not feasible

N.E. Primer

Great Awakening

● The Enlightenment pulled people away from faith○ A life of the mind, not of the faith; ○ Deism arose and was popular

● A wave of Evangelism broke out● First mass movement in America

Edwards and Whitefield

● Jonathan Edwards begins it in western MAInspires his congregations to greater faith● Sinners in the hands of an angry god● He is a Puritan/Congregationalist● George Whitefield--Anglican minister

GA-MA tour● He is a show--About a “New Birth”-Born again

movement--outdoor sermons

how does this work?

Great Awakening Revives and Splits

● Faith is re-awakened in America● But churches now split: old vs. new

○ Reason vs. Faith○ More schools spring up to properly train ministers

● Princeton (1746); Columbia (1754); Brown (1764); Rutgers (1769); Dartmouth (1769)○ All had religious purpose

Impact

● Created religious differences that had to be tolerated

● Emphasized the power and right of the individual to judge things for himself

● America is the promised land where humans can work to perfect reason or faith or both