And this is going to be on the Great
Awakening and I want to thank you all
for putting up with me am I talking this
is one of the reasons I do this is
because I I things I dislike about
online classes is don't get the
interaction and maybe you can tell by
done so far I'm a performer I'd love the
contact with my students and I miss this
that's why I want you to come in
introduce yourself to me when winter
semester starts look up my schedule
email me I'll tell you when I'm around I
want to meet you again come to my
classes and if you need to take chto-to
I'm teaching it and in the spring
semester that's the good news of bad
news for you as I'm teaching it at eight
o'clock in the morning on monday and
wednesday but good news isn't you're
finished bad news is that's the
highlight of your day and it's all
downhill from there but anyway i'd love
to have you love to have you there yeah
I anyway I want to meet you okay the
Great Awakening there are two very
powerful influences that are competing
in American intellectual life in the
18th century the 1700s one was the
traditional outlook of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries with its emphasis
on a personal relationship with God an
intimate relationship with God God's
involved with the world with your lives
daily by the minute by the hour God
keeps watch over us and the devil is
competing
God you know that that old time religion
the other force was the new spirit of
the Enlightenment the idea that there
are natural causes for everything that
happens and those causes man can
determine them I'm I said those causes
can be determined but that would have
been passive voice so I caught myself so
I figure if I remind you enough of this
as we go along that pretty soon you will
catch yourself and you will notice that
when others say it including when I say
it there are natural laws that does that
govern everything that happens natural
causes and that these natural laws these
natural causes man can can determine if
he just thinks deeply enough and
observes deeply enough so one we have
except things based on faith that
old-time religion the other is there are
natural causes let's let's see we're
getting more scientific and these these
two ideas butt heads
it's the old style religion old-time
religion that allowed us to have the
witchcraft hysteria old-style old-time
religion God is stern angry god you
can't do anything to deserve salvation
well what we're going to get as it seems
that the ideas of enlightenment are
women we're going to get a reaction
against a scientific outlook on life
people feel like something's missing in
their life and me Russ missing is
there's a hole in their life that that
religion maybe can can fill this
movement that's going to have to start
in Europe and spread to the new world
it's going to be called the Great
Awakening later recalled the first Great
Awakening but that can't happen till we
have a second month you know one names
their child Frank Smith senior
ironically Frank Smith Jr is named
before Frank Smith senior right well so
we don't have a second first Great
Awakening until we have a second the
first stirrings or freshening as they're
called the time of the great awakening
began in the early 1700s here in America
but the major part of the Great
Awakening really began in the 1730's and
reached its peak in the 1740s and for a
while a new spirit of religious fervor
swept over the country and seemed to
reverse the
trend away from religion the trend
towards science you got wondering
preachers wa n d arnot did you oh ND
your yet wondering preachers from
england who did a lot to stimulate this
revival movement this is the first great
revival movement in american history the
Great Awakening yeah john and charles
wesley wesl ey who visited georgia and
other southern colonies in the 1730's
they kind of set the table set the stage
for the Great Awakening they revitalize
religion and converted many to
Christianity that they preached the
slaves and as they called him Indians
indigenous peoples Native Americans
converted a lot john and charles wesley
from from british isles go to church and
look in the back of the hymnal where it
says glista hampson list who wrote them
i bet no matter what church you go to i
bet more written by either John or
Charles with john and charles wesley
than anybody else there was george
whitefield another Englishman who came
over very very powerful speaker an
associate traveled some of the Wesley's
then went off on his own solo tour he
made several tours of the colonies and
drew huge crowds wherever he went
whitefield must have done had this
tremendous presence
about him it was so powerful that Sam
said that he could make whole crowd
swoon simply by saying the word
Mesopotamia but the most popular English
actor his day said he'd give anything he
had if he could just saved the word Oh
like mr. whitefield in his first sermon
he ranted and raved and cried and
laughed and whispered and shattered and
some claim that his first sermon Joe 15
people start raving that white fields
American tour inspired thousands to seek
salvation to convert and most of
converts were young adults in their mid
to late 20s this really pleased The
ministers remember I talked to you in
the second lecture about the younger
generation were not as strongly
religious so now young people came back
to the church and in Connecticut the
number of new church members the year
before whitefield toward Connecticut was
630 once he toured that year your heat
when heater connecticut the new converts
over 3,200 that's five times as many
close to it right
he wakefield even one over the man the
one man that europeans considered to be
a scientist the one man maybe the
Europeans knew the most about Ben
Franklin whitefield came to Philadelphia
Franklin's town and one night been in
his buddies what we're going to do
tonight so I said hey it's wife your guy
i see is as playing the at the palladium
tonight and let's go see him ben said no
I just some should be good on HBO
pay-per-view that rosie-girl fading no
come on then let's go let's go out and
do something this is okay I'm not going
to buy any of the black white field
victory tour t-shirts and they pass the
collection dish I'm not putting anything
in then Franklin was noted for sayings
like neither a borrower nor a lender be
a penny saved is a penny earned and he
kept locks on his change purse I said
Ben we did expect you anything did do
that anyway well Franklin was so
impressed with light filled that in his
journal that night he wrote that when
they passed the dish I emptied my
pockets holy into the collection dish
gold and all so whitefield must have
been some kind of speaker unfortunately
we've lost all the both audio and
videotapes of him from the 1700s there
is a fire and that they didn't back up
then back them up didn't put him in the
and in the sky or whatever it is we do
these speaker these preachers were so
different from the rational talk of the
Enlightenment that these preachers
didn't preach to your head they didn't
make great theological arguments they
preached to your heart and they tried to
warn you you're all going to hell God
has no reason to save you one of the
best of the sermons was by a preacher by
the name of Jonathan Edwards he did a
sermon which he was called sinners in
the hands of an angry god he told the
crowds the God that holds you over the
pit of hell much as one holds a spider
or some other loathesome insect over a
fire abhors you and you and 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 that fire he is of purer eyes than
to bear to have you in his sight you are
10,000 times so abominable in his eyes
as a most hateful and venomous serpent
is in hours you
have offended him infinitely more than
ever a stubborn rebel did his prints yet
it is nothing but his hand that holds
you from falling into the fire every
morning it is subscribed to nothing else
that you did not go to hell last night
that you was suffered to have again to
have awakened in this world after you
closed your eyes to sleep and there is
no other reason to be given why you were
not dropped into hell since you a rose
in the morning but that God God's hand
has held you up
this is not the kind loving God of
touched by an angel this is the angry
god of the Old Testament you can't do
anything to deserve to be saved Edwards
is probably the most outstanding
preacher of this time day after day
after day agonized sinners came to hear
him talk and when he wasn't on a tour
they came to his house begging how do i
convert how do I know when I'd been
saved and he would tell them more than
one please agonized people come one in
guidance from him when he told him how
you should feel but you've been saying
that when they went home they didn't
feel this more than one committed
suicide because of this and again the
preachers they like they were digging
this a church attendance rose
collections raise people come to church
they could save their souls but you'd be
careful there's the same be careful what
you ask for you might get it there's
unintended consequences yes church
attendance rose yes collections raised
with the new converts the young people
are the ones coming back but the great
awakening would do more than that the
great awakening would open unprecedented
divisions and churches that people had
felt would never divide if you felt were
indivisible
and New England Presbyterians divided
into what they call new lights these are
the young converts and the old lights
the older were conservative and they
divide 1741 and didn't come to it back
together again until excuse me 1758 when
the new lights emerged victorious see
the old lights and the new lights and
utilize the young converts from the
Great Awakening the old lights those who
had you know traditional church members
and then yet the college students of
course at the time they were the bud
lights anyway in many communities the
old lights passed laws forbidding new
light preachers from preaching from
performing marriages baptisms funerals
and remember the old lights are the
older church members they are the ones
holding political power so they're the
ones who can pass laws in Connecticut
the old lights kicked several new light
who had been elected to the connecticut
colonial assembly kicked them out
because they were new lights there was
in connecticut a new light preacher by
name of elijah pain ta ta i and ii was
arrested for violating the law and
preaching put him in jail pretty soon he
starts preaching out his jail cell
window pretty soon the cross gets a big
they built stands out there like
bleachers the authorities have term down
they'd build him again people want to
hear this the great awakening peaked in
1742 everywhere except in virginia
we're at high point came and 1755 well
for all the immediate impact of the
Great Awakening it's the long-term
effects that are most that our greatest
and there are several these long-term
effects of the Great Awakening first the
revival started the decline and the
influence of the Quakers of the
Anglicans of the Congregationalists
Congregationalist Asia that's what the
Puritan church is called and the United
stand and the colonies so the Quakers
hankinson congregation lost influence if
they're going to lose the influence
someone else is going to gain influence
the Baptists and Presbyterians will gain
influence
along those lines the Great Awakening
introduced to America the movement began
by the Wesley brothers john and charles
john charles wesley planted the seeds
that eventually are going to grow flower
into the largest American Protestant
movement the Methodist Church the
Methodist Church st. more than any other
is responsible for forming the American
idea prosit ism of the American idea of
morality methods is so important that a
second the Great Awakening would
stimulate the founding of many new
colleges colleges at the time basically
we're to train two professions doctors
and preachers we get the old lights that
we need colleges to train our preachers
new lights we need colleges train our
preachers in 1746 new light
Presbyterians established the colony of
near the college of new jersey and class
I say what do you think that college is
generally is only one college mean
people know of in New Jersey and that is
Princeton the college of new jersey
became Princeton 1746 in 1754 anglican
zhis tablished King's College in New
York City most famous college in New
York City this became king college
became columbia and 1764 baptist
established the colony or the College of
Rhode Island this became Brown
1769 Congregationalist built dartmouth
these colleges are still around today
were established the train new lighter
old late preachers third the revival
marked the real beginning a black prosit
ism before the Great Awakening didn't
have very many Christian slaves part of
that was because the slave owners
wouldn't allow it but then came the
Great Awakening and these preachers like
the Wesley's preached the blacks
converted blacks now the slave owners
had a bit of a change in attitude they
thought well yeah maybe we can use this
to our advantage the other slaves have
it horrible but if we can convince them
to slavery as God's idea and that they
need to behave in this life so they can
get rewarded with life and heaven may
there be easier to control I think that
was part of it but these new light
ministers went in preached the slave
communities and converted many and some
slaves became preachers and preached the
audience de mixed black and white
audiences for a little while not for a
long time but for a little while but
this tradition of black process ISM is
going to become huge and the idea of
black preachers is going to become huge
in the civil rights movement in the
1950s and 60s so many of the leaders
were prodded black Protestant preachers
and this started during the Great
Awakening forth the Great Awakening also
had the unintended consequence or
unintended consequence of fostering
religious toleration it blurred the
lines
in the different Protestant sects you
get preachers from different churches
preaching together in the same revival
meeting and this leads to a religion
became more democratic revivalism
prepared the way for Americans to accept
what is called denominationalism this
means that this assumes that all Judeo
Christian churches are legitimate
expressions in the belief in God that
all Judea Christian churches deserve
equal freedom and respect quite a change
from the Puritans and lastly the Great
Awakening also seems to have helped
prepare the way for the American
Revolution how's that okay here's how I
that is during the Great Awakening
people realize that their religious
leaders could be wrong that they had the
right to question the religious leaders
what's a short step from questioning
your religious leaders to questioning
your political leaders and a lie it's
easier to question your political
leaders than your religious leaders if
you can question these guys and surely
can question these guys I don't think
it's any accident the timing the Great
Awakening 1740s okay we're only 30 years
your new from the American Revolution
Ben Franklin while the leaders of
revolution around Washington and many
others were young young people young men
during this time I don't think that's an
accident
I think I can make that draw that
conclusion okay we will stop there that
will complete we're now ready next to
make the move toward American
independence and that will be in the
next lecture thank you I always end
every class I haven't done first two I
always first two lectures I always end
everyone with a thank you as I thank you
otherwise if it weren't for you I'd be
standing here in an empty room only with
the person filming me wait a minute i am
ok but thank you and i also say peace i
say be careful out there I say watch it
you say in the phone because they're
still listening and watch that you post
because it will be there forever thank
you
