The Enlightenment (aka The Age of Reason- A burst of intellectual activity in 18th-century America due to new European ideas; celebrated rational inquiry, scientific research, and individual freedom

• Sought the truth, wherever it might lead

• Immanuel Kant- German philosopher- courage to know and understand

• Used the power of reason to analyze the workings of nature, and used new tools (microscopes, telescopes), for close observation, scientific experimentation, and precise mathematical calculation.

• Triggered by a scientific revolution in the 16th century

• Transformed the way educated people observed and understood the world

• The realization that social progress could occur through a series of intellectual and technological discoveries (adaption of mathematical techniques for observing the natural world

• Drove a scientific revolution, findings over 150 years would be astonishing

The ancient Christian view- God created earth was the center of the universe, overthrown by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1533, that Earth orbits the sun which was scorned by Catholic officials until it was confirmed using telescopes

• 1687, Issac Newton (Christian)- devout, challenged biblical notions of the world’s  workings by depicting a changing dynamic universe with natural laws that govern all things, not God)

• Deists climbed that God planned the universe and set it in motion, but no long interacted directly with the earth and its people (contrary to Christian belief that God intervened and gave daily guidance/direct support

• Deists believed that evil originated from human ignorance of the rational laws of nature, not due to inherent sinfulness

• Deists (es: Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin)- believed that the best way to improve society and human nature was to cultivate Reason, which was the highest Virtue (enlightenment thinkers capitalized on both)

• Enlightened “freethnkers” refused to allow church and state to limit what they study and investigate- a dangerous force to Europeans, revolutionary ideas & movements

  • Faith in the possibility of human progress

  • The idea of political freedom ((political philosopher Joh Locke maintained that natural law needed a gov. That respected the consent  and rights of all

  • Rights included basic civic principles- human rights, political liberty, religious toleration- influenced colonial leaders’ efforts to justify a revolution

Benjamin Franklin- Child of the En lightenment;

• Bor n Boston (1706), moved to Philadelphia, bought a print shop- began editing and publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette, published Poor Richard’s Almanack (reputation grew as printing business grew)

• Virtues of self-reliance, hard work, public service- founded library, fire company, helped start UPENN, and organized American Philosophical Society (og a debating club)

• Highly regarded diplomat, politician, educator, inventive genius devout to scientific investigation (developed the Franklin stove, lightning rod, bifocal spectacles, glass harmonica)- curiosity -> confidence, critical thinking

• Raised Presbyterian, but was a Deist (science, reason, robust social life), didn’t believe in the sacredness of the Bible o the divinity of Jesus

• For Enlightenment thinkers, intolerable to accept what traditions dictated as truth without proof

The Great Awakening

• The popularity of Enlightenment rationalism threatened traditional religious lies in Europe and America

• 18th century0 many American colonies experienced a revival of spiritual zeal intended to restore the primary emotion in the religious realm

• 1700-17590 controversial ideas circulated, many new Christian congregations were founded, and most colonies lived with an established church- aka the colony’s government endorsed and collected taxes to support a single official denomination

  • VA, MD, DE, Carolinas- Anglican Church

  • Most of ME = Puritan Congregationalism

  • NY- Anglicanism, Dutch Reformed Church

  • PA- no state-supported church, but Quakers dominated legislative assembly

  • NJ & RI- no official denomination, numerous Christian splinter groups

• Most colonies organize  religious life around local parishes- defined their theological boundaries and defended them against people who didn’t hold the same faith

  • Official tax-supported religions = people of other faiths could not preach without permission of the parish

• In the 1730s & 174s, parish system turmoil after the arrival of traveling evangelists (iternants) who claimed the local parish ministers were incompetent

• Great Awakening- religious revival sparked by worries of the erosion of religious fervor

  • Spread around the Atlantic coast- divided congregations, towns, families; fueled popular new denominations (ex: baptists and Methodists)

  • Effect on social life- profound, increased emotional gatherings, willingness to attend sermons, religion  = subject of most conversations

John Edwards - prominent Congregationalist minister in Northhampton

• One of the foremost preachers of the Great Awakening, drastically described torments that awaited sinners in the afterlife

• Arrived in Northhampton in 1727, shocked by the lack of religious fervor, and scrutinized the corrupt lewd, and materialistic practices, as well as controversial ideas from the Enlightenment

• Believed religious/spiritual > scientific knowledge

• Vividly described the torture of hell and the delights of heaven to rekindle spiritual intensity among congregants

• 1741, famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”- hell is real and is terrible

George Whitefield- most celebrated promoter of the Great Awakening (English)

• An Anglican preacher who made several trips to America to restore religious intensity in America (seven times btw 1738 - 1748)

• Started in Georgia, and preached a gospel of redemption to huge crowds in barns, open fields, and cemeteries

• Rejected Calvinistic assumption that people must prepare, believed that grace of God would arrive suddenly without warning

• Claimed Congregations were lifeless

• Critics- Anglican ministers thought he was a charlatan too occupied with converting commoners and the ignorant

  • Some believed he was too passionate, too loud, jumping up and down, screaming

• Whitefield enthralled the audience with voice, flamboyant style, unparalleled eloquence, and “angelic appearance”

• Urged people to experience a “new birth”- a sudden, emotional moment of conversion and salvation

Women and Revivals-

• The emergence of women who defied tradition by speaking at religious services (a controversial element of the Great Awakening)

  • Ex: Sarah Haggar Osborne- schoolteacher RI who organized prayer meetings that included both genders and AA & whites, refused to stop when ministers told her to

  • Ex: Bathsheba Kingsley (western MA(- spread gospel that she received revelations from heaven, rebuked her husband who tried to intervene

  • Churches remained male bastions of political authority

A Changing Religious Landscape- the Great Awakening made

• Religion is intensely personal by creating a deep sense of spiritual guilt and yearning for redemption

• Undermined, and established churches by emphasizing that all individuals regardless of wealth o social status could receive God’s grace without the guidance of ministers

• Denominations became bitterly divided as conservatives criticized democratic revivalism and sparred with evangelicals who provoked outbursts and celebrated individual freedom of faith

• Jonathon Edwards regretted the emergence of warring factions, NE would never be the same (relgious-wise)- GA shattered Puritan ideal of religious uniformity

The Heart vs. the HEad

• GA subsided by 175-, but influenced forces leading the revolution against Great Britain and set powerful currents that still flow in American life

• Implanted evangelical impulse and emotional appeal of revivalism weakened the status of old-fashioned clergy and state-supported churches, encourages believers to exercise their own individual judgment, and proliferation of denominations = increased need for toleration of dissent

• Awakening stressed the urgings of the spirit

• Enlightenment celebrated the cold logic of reason

• Both spread across mainland colonies & helped bind regions together, emphasized the power and right of individual decision making and hopes that America would become the promised land in which people might obtain the perfection of piety and/or reason

• Urging believers to exercise their own spiritual judgment = less authority if churches and ministers (like how resentment towards economic regulations of Britain weakened colonial loyalty to the king

• Both the GA and Enlightenment increased commitment to individual freedom and resistance to authority that would play a key role in the rebellion against British tyranny in 1775