The First Great Awakening, sometimes called the Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival, was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism, adherents striving to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom, the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.
Building on the foundations of older traditions — Puritanism, Pietism, and Presbyterianism — major leaders of the revival such as George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards articulated a theology of revival and salvation that transcended denominational boundaries and helped forge a common evangelical identity. Revivalists added to the doctrinal imperatives of Reformation Protestantism an emphasis on providential outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Extemporaneous preaching gave listeners a sense of deep personal conviction about their need for salvation by Jesus Christ and fostered introspection. Revival theology stressed that religious conversion was not only intellectual assent to correct Christian doctrine but had to be a "new birth" experienced in the heart. Revivalists also taught that receiving assurance of salvation was a normal expectation in the Christian life.
While the Evangelical Revival united evangelicals across various denominations around shared beliefs, it also led to division in existing churches between those who supported the revivals and those who did not. Opponents accused the revivals of fostering disorder and fanaticism within the churches by allowing the uneducated to be itinerant preachers and encourage religious enthusiasm. In England, Evangelical Anglicans would grow into an important constituency within the Church of England, and Methodism would develop out of the ministries of Whitefield and Wesley. In the American colonies, the Awakening caused the Congregational and Presbyterian churches to split, while strengthening both the Methodist and Baptist denominations. It had little immediate impact on most Lutherans, Quakers, and non-Protestants, but later gave rise to a schism among Quakers that persists to this day.
Evangelical preachers "sought to include every person in conversion, regardless of gender, race, and status." Throughout the North American colonies, especially in the South, the revival movement increased the number of African slaves and free blacks who were exposed to (and subsequently converted to) Christianity. It also inspired the founding of new missionary societies, such as the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792.
Continental Europe
Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom sees the Great Awakening as part of a "great international Protestant upheaval" that also created Pietism in the Lutheran and Reformed churches of continental Europe. Pietism emphasized heartfelt religious faith in reaction to an overly intellectual Protestant scholasticism perceived as spiritually dry. Significantly, the Pietists placed less emphasis on traditional doctrinal divisions between Protestant churches, focusing rather on religious experience and affections.
Pietism prepared Europe for revival, and it usually occurred in areas where pietism was strong. The most important leader of the Awakening in central Europe was Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Saxon noble who studied under Pietist leader August Hermann Francke at Halle University. In 1722, Zinzendorf invited members of the Moravian Church to live and worship on his estates, establishing a community at Herrnhut. The Moravians came to Herrnhut as refugees, but under Zinzendorf's guidance, the group enjoyed a religious revival. Soon, the community became a refuge for other Protestants as well, including German Lutherans, Reformed Christians, and Anabaptists. The church began to grow, and Moravian societies would be established in England, where they would help foster the Evangelical Revival as well.
Evangelical Revival in Britain
England
While known as the Great Awakening in the United States, the 18th-century revival movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival in Britain. In England, the major leaders of the Evangelical Revival were three Anglican priests: the brothers John and Charles Wesley and their friend George Whitefield. Together, they founded what would become Methodism. They had been members of a religious society at Oxford University called the Holy Club and "Methodists" due to their methodical piety and rigorous asceticism. This society was modeled on the collegia pietatis (cell groups) used by pietists for Bible study, prayer, and accountability. All three men experienced a spiritual crisis in which they sought true conversion and assurance of faith.
George Whitefield joined the Holy Club in 1733 and, under the influence of Charles Wesley, read German pietist August Hermann Francke's Against the Fear of Man and Scottish theologian Henry Scougal's The Life of God in the Soul of Man (the latter work was a favorite of Puritans). Scougal wrote that many people mistakenly understood Christianity to be "Orthodox Notions and Opinions", "external Duties" or "rapturous Heats and extatic Devotion". Rather, Scougal wrote, "True Religion is a Union of the Soul with God ... It is Christ formed within us." Whitefield wrote that "though I had fasted, watched and prayed, and received the Sacrament long, yet I never knew what true religion was" until he read Scougal. From that point on, Whitefield sought a new birth. After a period of spiritual struggle, Whitefield experienced conversion during Lent in 1735. In 1736, he began preaching in Bristol and London. His preaching attracted large crowds who were drawn to his simple message of the necessity of the new birth as well as by his manner of delivery. His style was dramatic, and his preaching appealed to his audience's emotions. At times, he wept or impersonated Bible characters. By the time he left England for the colony of Georgia in December 1737, Whitefield had become a celebrity.
John Wesley left for Georgia in October 1735 to become a missionary for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Wesley made contact with members of the Moravian Church, led by August Gottlieb Spangenberg. Wesley was impressed by their faith and piety, especially their belief that it was normal for a Christian to have assurance of faith. The failure of his mission and encounters with the Moravians led Wesley to question his own faith. He wrote in his journal, "I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God."
Back in London, Wesley became friends with Moravian minister Peter Boehler and joined a Moravian small group called the Fetter Lane Society. In May 1738, Wesley attended a Moravian meeting on Aldersgate Street, where he felt spiritually transformed during a reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley recounted that "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." Wesley understood his Aldersgate experience to be an evangelical conversion, and it provided him with the assurance he had been seeking. Afterwards, he traveled to Herrnhut and met Zinzendorf in person.
John Wesley returned to England in September 1738. Both John and Charles preached in London churches. Whitefield stayed in Georgia for three months to establish Bethesda Orphanage before returning to England in December. While enjoying success, Whitefield's itinerant preaching was controversial. Many pulpits were closed to him, and he had to struggle against Anglicans who opposed the Methodists and the "doctrine of the New Birth". Whitefield wrote of his opponents, "I am fully convinced there is a fundamental difference between us and them. They believe only an outward Christ, we further believe that He must be inwardly formed in our hearts also."
In February 1739, parish priests in Bath and Bristol refused to allow Whitefield to preach in their churches on the grounds that he was a religious enthusiast. In response, he began open-air field preaching in the mining community of Kingswood, near Bristol. Open-air preaching was common in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but it was unheard of in England. Further, Whitefield violated protocol by preaching in another priest's parish without permission. Within a week, he was preaching to crowds of 10,000. By March, Whitefield had moved on to preach elsewhere. By May, he was preaching to London crowds of 50,000. He left his followers in Bristol in the care of John Wesley. Whitefield's notoriety was increased through the use of newspaper advertisements to promote his revivals. Wesley was at first uneasy about preaching outdoors, as it was contrary to his high-church sense of decency. Eventually, however, Wesley changed his mind, claiming that "all the world [is] my parish". On April 2, 1739, Wesley preached to about 3,000 people near Bristol. From then on, he continued to preach wherever he could gather an assembly, taking the opportunity to recruit followers to the movement.
Faced with growing evangelistic and pastoral responsibilities, Wesley and Whitefield appointed lay preachers and leaders. Methodist preachers focused particularly on evangelizing people who had been "neglected" by the established Church of England. Wesley and his assistant preachers organized the new converts into Methodist societies. These societies were divided into groups called classes—intimate meetings where individuals were encouraged to confess their sins to one another and to build each other up. They also took part in love feasts, which allowed for the sharing of testimony, a key feature of early Methodism. Growth in numbers and increasing hostility impressed upon the revival converts a deep sense of their corporate identity. Three teachings that Methodists saw as the foundation of Christian faith were:
- People are all, by nature, "dead in sin".
- They are "justified by faith alone".
- Faith produces inward and outward holiness.
The evangelicals responded vigorously to opposition—both literary criticism and even mob violence—and thrived despite the attacks against them. John Wesley's organizational skills during and after the peak of revivalism established him as the primary founder of the Methodist movement. By the time of Wesley's death in 1791, there were an estimated 71,668 Methodists in England and 43,265 in America.
Wales and Scotland
The Evangelical Revival first broke out in Wales. In 1735, Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland experienced a religious conversion and began preaching to large crowds throughout South Wales. Their preaching initiated the Welsh Methodist revival.
The origins of revivalism in Scotland stretch back to the 1620s. The attempts by the Stuart Kings to impose bishops on the Church of Scotland led to national protests in the form of the Covenanters. In addition, radical Presbyterian clergy held outdoor conventicles throughout southern and western Scotland, centered on the communion season. These revivals would also spread to Ulster and feature "marathon extemporaneous preaching and excessive popular enthusiasm." In the 18th century, the Evangelical Revival was led by ministers such as Ebenezer Erskine, William M'Culloch (the minister who presided over the Cambuslang Work of 1742), and James Robe (minister at Kilsyth). A substantial number of Church of Scotland ministers held evangelical views.
Great Awakening in North America
Early revivals
In the early 18th century, the Thirteen Colonies were religiously diverse. In New England, the Congregational churches were the established religion, whereas in the religiously tolerant Middle Colonies, the Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Congregational, and Baptist churches all competed with each other on equal terms. In the Southern Colonies, the Anglican Church was officially established, though there were significant numbers of Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians. At the same time, church membership was low because it had failed to keep up with population growth, and the influence of Enlightenment rationalism was leading many people to turn to atheism, Deism, Unitarianism, and Universalism. The churches in New England had fallen into a "staid and routine formalism in which experiential faith had been a reality to only a scattered few."
In response to these trends, ministers influenced by New England Puritanism, Scots-Irish Presbyterianism, and European Pietism began calling for a revival of religion and piety. The blending of these three traditions would produce an evangelical Protestantism that placed greater importance "on seasons of revival, or outpourings of the Holy Spirit, and on converted sinners experiencing God's love personally." In the 1710s and 1720s, revivals became more frequent among New England Congregationalists. These early revivals remained local affairs due to the lack of coverage in print media. The first revival to receive widespread publicity was that precipitated by an earthquake off the coast of Massachusetts on October 29, 1727. As they began to be publicized more widely, revivals transformed from merely local to regional and transatlantic events.
In the 1720s and 1730s, an evangelical party took shape in the Presbyterian churches of the Middle Colonies, led by William Tennent, Sr. He established a seminary called the Log College, where he trained nearly 20 Presbyterian revivalists for the ministry, including his three sons and Samuel Blair. While pastoring a church in New Jersey, Gilbert Tennent became acquainted with Dutch Reformed minister Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen. Historian Sydney Ahlstrom described Frelinghuysen as "an important herald, if not the father of the Great Awakening". A pietist, Frelinghuysen believed in the necessity of personal conversion and living a holy life. The revivals he led in the Raritan Valley were "forerunners" of the Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies. Under Frelinghuysen's influence, Tennent came to believe that a definite conversion experience followed by assurance of salvation was the key mark of a Christian. By 1729, Tennent was seeing signs of revival in the Presbyterian churches of New Brunswick and Staten Island. At the same time, Gilbert's brothers, William and John, oversaw a revival in Freehold, New Jersey.