First Great Awakening essays

First Great Awakening essays The First Great Awakening was an immense religious revival in the English colonies. The Puritan churchgoers, especially, became bored with sermons that were too complex and dull for them to understand or care about. Worshippers began to question the churches beliefs. However, in the 1734, Jonathon Edwards began the First Great Awakening. This event was extremely important to the people and united them together for the first time, moving the colonists closer to the war for independence. In addition to the complex sermons, the Puritans also had strict membership requirements, which limited the amount of people in their church. They could not get enough people to join the church and lost many who were members. Also, Jacobus Arminius preached that there was no such thing as predestination, and he believed that a person's use of free will determined their fate. Because of these multiple pressures, many religions began to loose their beliefs and spirit. At this time the First Great Awakening swept through the colonies. It began in Northampton, Massachusetts, by Jonathon Edwards. Edwards was extraordinarily intelligent, but he also had the ability to communicate with the people in a way that made his sermons interesting. He countered Arminius by saying that good works did not save a man from damnation but that complete dependence upon God did. Four years after Edwards, Englishman George Whitefield began a new style of preaching. He had an amazing ability to deliver speeches to the point where even Edwards began to cry. During his speeches, many people converted and the "saved" groaned and cried. Many imitators began to preach like Whitefield. The colonies soon became united under the revival; they began calling themselves Americans for the first time. This was an important step toward the uniting of the colonies and the thought of revolution. However, not everyone was happy with the new style of religion. Ortho...