Question

who was repelled by the Great Awakening? Short easy answer please.

Answer 1

The Great Awakening was a watershed event in the life of the American people. Before it was over, it had swept the colonies of the Eastern seaboard, transforming the social and religious life of land. Although the name is slightly misleading--the Great Awakening was not one continuous revival, rather it was several revivals in a variety of locations--it says a great deal about the state of religion in the colonies. For the simple reality is that one cannot be awakened unless you have fallen asleep.

Neither the Anglicans who came to dominate religious life in Virginia after royal control was established over Jamestown, nor the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, were terribly successful in putting down roots. The reality was that on the frontier, the settled parish system of England-- which was employed by Puritan and Anglican alike--proved difficult to transplant. Unlike the compact communities of the old world, the small farms and plantations of the new spread out into the wilderness, making both communication and ecclesiastical discipline difficult. Because people often lived great distances from a parish church, membership and participation suffered. In addition, on the frontier concern for theological issues faded before the concern for survival and wrestling a living from a hard and difficult land. Because the individual was largely on his own, and depended on himself for survival, authoritarian structures of any sort--be they governmental or ecclesiastical--met with great resistance. As a result, by the second and third generations, the vast majority of the population was outside the membership of the church.

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, the landscape was littered with the dry tender of the unchurched. All that was required was a spark of revival to set the landscape afire with religious enthusiasm. And when that spark ignited, those who led the revival were so surprised by what was taking place, that they "attributed it entirely to God's inscrutable grace."

The First Signs of Awakening

The sparks of revival were struck in New England. Solomon Stoddard's sermons in Northampton, Massachusetts had led to revivals breaking out as early as 1679. And after that, periodic revivals would occur and then die out. One of the reasons they would be extinguished was the smothering influence of the Enlightenment. With the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica in the 17th century, traditional religious formulations had been under pressure. That is because implicit in the work of Newton and others was the assumption that human beings had the ability to discover the secrets of the universe and thereby exert some control over their own destiny. If human beings could in fact think the thoughts of God--if they could discover and read the blueprints whereby God had made and ordered the world--the result was a lessening of the gulf between God and man. This tended to undercut traditional Calvinism which held that the gap between the Deity and his creatures was quite large. This affirmation of human ability and reason had an extremely corrosive effect on the reigning orthodoxy which held that one's destiny was solely in God's hands. The result was a growing emphasis on man and his morality, with religion becoming more rational and less emotional.

One of those who attacked this growing rationality, and who was also one of the principle figures in the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards. Edwards has received a bad press for his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." In that sermon he used the image of a spider dangling by a web over a hot fire to describe the human predicament. His point was that at any moment, our hold on life could break and we'd be plunged into fires of eternal damnation. But if you read his sermons, you will find that he spoke quietly, reasonably, and logically. Indeed, he was dry and even a bit boring. But he began to experience a harvest of conversions that were accompanied by exaggerated behavior. People would bark, shout, and run when they were converted.

Why did people listen to Edwards? Why did his preaching provoke such a response? For one thing, he was speaking about a matter they were vitally interested in. If I were to tell you I heard on the radio on the way over that someone had found a cure for cancer, you would want to know the details. And so it was for the Puritans who were growing deeply concerned by what they perceived to be a striking decline in piety. The youth of the second and third generation were given to mirth and frivolity and would spend the greater part of night in co-ed parties. They would go riding in wagons under layers of quilts and blankets. Edwards and others were deeply concerned about these excursions and the impact they might have on the state of their morals. And there is reason to believe that Edwards had cause to be concerned about these activities.

Answer 2

Found this online, hope it helps! :3

Answer 3

haha i just saw this online too... but do you know how to shorten that? its too long .

Answer 4

Don't know a whole lot about history... :/

Answer 5

its okay! thanks anyway :)

Answer 6

The Great Awakening was a period of great revivalism that spread throughout the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. It deemphasized the importance of church doctrine and instead put a greater importance on the individual and their spiritual experience.

Source: http://americanhistory.about.com/od/colonialamerica/p/great_awakening.htm

The Great Awakening was a spiritual renewal that swept the American Colonies, particularly New England, during the first half of the 18th Century. Certain Christians began to disassociate themselves with the established approach to worship at the time which had led to a general sense of complacency among believers, and instead they adopted an approach which was characterized by great fervor and emotion in prayer.

Source: http://www.great-awakening.com/?page_id=12