APUSH - Great Awakening and the Enlightenment

Great Awakening

- reaction to religion becoming boring

- new spiritualism/revivalism meant Christians could believe from hearts during worship

- reject predestination, individual experiences of salvation

- less intellectualizing, ministers preached more about damnation and salvation

- factions in churches develop

Egalitarian

Equal

Old Sides/Lights

Traditional

New Sides/Lights

- favored revivalism

- people realized disobedience to authority didn't guarantee damnation

Jonathan Edwards

- Congregationalist minister who helped bring Great Awakening

- preached damnation in his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

- believed salvation wasn't predestined, but determined by behavior

- believed those not born again would suffer a terrible fate

George Whitefield

- Methodist preacher who entered colonies in 1739-1741

- English where Enlightenment occurred

- preached Christianity based on emotionalism and spirituality, which is today shown in southern Evangelism

Impact of the Great Awakening

- challenged religious thought

- opposition to Awakening heightened in 1740's when Congregationalists splintered (Methodists and Baptists)

- splintering led to more religious toleration

- prepared America for its war of independence

- revivalism taught you can challenge religious authority and break away from church

The Enlightenment

- period making contrasting ideas of intellectual reasoning

- origins: late 1600's and 1700's Europeans believed human reason and science could be applied to society and laws of nature

- Western Europe and New World changed their view of life from God-centered to man-centered

- Scientific Revolution led to the Enlightenment

- successful: planetary movements, chemistry, vaccine for small pox, etc.

Major Ideas of Englightenment

- people are good and environment influences them

- science and reason can answer life's mysteries and man's questions about government and himself

- reason can solve most problems in society

- government created to keep society orderly

- separation of powers best way to protect human liberties

- all men created free and equal

- free market should be allowed to regulate trade

Social Contract

- theory that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual

- most important people: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

Thomas Hobbes

said:

- humans are cruel, greedy, and selfish

- enter social contract to escape brutish life

- only powerful government and absolute monarchy can ensure orderly society

John Locke

said:

- humans are reasonable, moral, and good

- humans have natural rights: life, liberty, and property

- people from government work to protect these natural rights

- best form of government has limited power

- people can overthrow government if it violate their rights

Enlightenment and the Economy

- "Laissez-faire": "let it be" allow business to operate with NO government interference

- free trade

- opposed tariffs

Major Enlightenment Ideas

- YES freedom of speech

- YES education for all

- YES government freely elected

- NO slavery (because slavery meant competition in economy)

- NO religious prejudice

- NO divine right theory

- NO unequal distribution of property

View of Religion

- people think differently about religion

- Europeans began to take control of their own faith and religion

- Deism

Deism

- philosophy that resulted from Enlightenment

- many future founding fathers were Deists (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin)

- belief: there's a God but he did not do anything after placing natural laws, let universe function on its own