The Great Awakening and Enlightenment in Colonial America
This paper examines the parallel and interconnected roles of the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment in shaping colonial American society and political thought. It traces the Great Awakening from Jonathan Edwards's early revivals in Massachusetts through George Whitefield's mass evangelism, analyzing how the movement democratized religion, eroded traditional authority, and fostered individual rights. The paper then surveys the Enlightenment's intellectual foundations — from John Locke's political theory to the deism of leading founders — and shows how Enlightenment principles of reason, natural law, and contractual government directly informed the Declaration of Independence and transformed a colonial tax dispute into a revolutionary war for independence.
- Introduction: Two Movements, One Nation: Context for the Great Awakening in colonial America
- The Great Awakening: Origins and Key Figures: Edwards and Whitefield launch widespread religious revival
- Social and Political Effects of the Great Awakening: Revival democratizes religion and challenges authority
- The Enlightenment: Intellectual Foundations: Reason, natural law, and Locke's political theory
- Enlightenment Thought in Colonial and Revolutionary America: Founders apply Enlightenment ideals to colonial governance
- The Declaration of Independence as Enlightenment in Action: Declaration embodies contractual government and natural rights
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What makes this paper effective
- Draws clear causal links between religious revival and political change, showing how the Great Awakening's emphasis on individual conscience laid groundwork for revolutionary thinking.
- Moves logically from the Great Awakening to the Enlightenment and then to the Declaration of Independence, building a coherent narrative arc across both movements.
- Grounds broad claims in specific historical examples — Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Whitefield's outdoor preaching, Locke's Two Treatises — rather than relying on abstractions alone.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates synthesis across multiple secondary sources to construct a unified argument. Rather than summarizing each source independently, the writer draws on scholars such as McLoughlin, Bass, and Tackett together to show how religion, philosophy, and politics reinforced one another in the colonial period. This source integration is a foundational skill in historical writing.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with an overview of the Great Awakening's origins and key preachers, then pivots to its social consequences (democratization of religion, tolerance, rejection of authority). A second major section introduces the Enlightenment's European roots before narrowing to the American context, culminating in a close reading of the Declaration of Independence as the practical expression of Enlightenment ideals. The conclusion ties both movements together as catalysts for American independence.
Introduction: Two Movements, One Nation
The Great Awakening was not, as many believe, a single continuous spiritual revival in colonial America; instead, it was a series of revivals occurring in a variety of locations (Matthews). Nevertheless, The Great Awakening is an appropriate name. The new Americans found their lives much different from life in England. In England, communities were compact, but in America people lived across vast expanses of land. Because people had to fend for themselves, any form of authority — governmental or ecclesiastical — was met with resistance (Matthews). This reality, combined with the simple difficulty of reaching a church, caused many colonists to become, in effect, "spiritually asleep."
Running parallel to this religious ferment was the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement rooted in reason, natural law, and individual rights. Together, these two movements — one born of faith, the other of philosophy — shaped the political culture that made the American Revolution possible.
The Great Awakening: Origins and Key Figures
The Great Awakening began with Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). The movement first broke out in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1733 when Edwards preached to the youth of his congregation about the grave sin of "bundling" — a custom in which young courting couples would lie in bed together, fully clothed. He also called upon young people to abstain from worldly amusements such as dances (Great Men of God). In his view, the people were "very insensible of the things of religion" (Edwards, qtd. in Prescott). By 1734 the revival had intensified, and Edwards embarked on a preaching tour that put the entire Connecticut River Valley into a state of spiritual awakening. The revival declined in that region by 1737, and the congregation eventually dismissed him, but the Great Awakening had already spread far beyond Northampton.
Edwards's most influential — and most famous — sermon in American history was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in which he expounded God's judgment on sinners and then offered salvation to those who repented (Prescott). The itinerant preacher and evangelist George Whitefield followed Edwards, introducing outdoor preaching and carrying his message to the lower classes — a group the established church had largely ignored. His evangelistic career included seven tours of the colonies, with an estimated attendance of 8,000 people per sermon. In his preaching, Whitefield accused many pastors of speaking of an unknown, unfelt Christ. Many ministers, in turn, opposed the Great Awakening for reasons ranging from denial of the deity of Christ to the belief that human efforts to manufacture revival were an affront to God (Prescott).
Social and Political Effects of the Great Awakening
While the Great Awakening was at its core a religious revival, its effects were profoundly social and political. The movement splintered established churches by granting people independence from institutional religion. The Puritans had used a practice of cooptation to accept new members — the congregation voted or appointed members with or without the individual's consent. By contrast, the ideals of the Great Awakening allowed people to join a church on the basis of a personal experience with God, a decision made by the individual, not the congregation. The result was such a proliferation of churches that no single denomination could dominate as it once had. As the importance of congregational structure diminished, two levels of social life grew more significant: the individual and the broader community — which, for converts, increasingly meant the nation (Bass).
Through individual participation in salvation, religion had become democratic (McLoughlin 75). This new structure also encouraged greater tolerance and broadened people's sense of community (Bass). That tolerance drew into the American community those previously on its margins, including the poor and enslaved. McLoughlin notes that the Great Awakening pulled people from nonelite and rural cultures into a shared communal identity. The emphasis on each individual's personal relationship with God underscored the importance and inherent value of every human being, and in so doing paved the way for the American Revolution (Bass).
Another consequence of the Great Awakening was a growing rejection of traditional authority — including the authority of the British Crown. Scholars have also observed that because the Great Awakening was grounded in principle rather than violence, it made the American Revolution fundamentally different from the French Revolution, which was defined by a reign of terror (Prescott).
The Enlightenment: Intellectual Foundations
Although the Anglo-American intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment came to the forefront in the 18th century, its roots reach back considerably further. The movement's name arose when thinkers and writers in London and Paris claimed to be more "enlightened" than their predecessors and set out to "enlighten" others. Thomas Aquinas had set the movement in motion when he began defending every aspect of Christian faith with reason. Humanists followed in the 14th and 15th centuries, arguing that God not only created humans — His crowning glory — in His own image, but that humans also shared in His creative powers. The movement continued through the 16th and 17th centuries in the work of philosophers such as Michel de Montaigne and René Descartes (Brian). Its foundational assumption was faith in the power of human reason: if it was possible to discover the laws governing the universe (as Isaac Newton demonstrated with universal gravitation), then humanity could also discover the laws governing nature and society (Tackett).
The most important political theory in the American Enlightenment derived from John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and from the work of a republican network known as the Commonwealthmen, making American political thought a blend of several strands of Enlightenment philosophy. Following Locke's argument, Americans contended that when the British government stripped them of their liberties, it broke the political bonds uniting the two peoples. Americans also drew inspiration from English radicals who championed natural rights, contractual government, and representative governance (American Enlightenment).
Works Cited
"American Enlightenment." Washington State University Internet Classroom and Anthology. World Civilizations. 1 Apr. 2004. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/AMERICA/ENLIGHT.HTM.
"American Revolution." Washington State University Internet Classroom and Anthology. World Civilizations. 1 Apr. 2004. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/AMERICA/REV.HTM.
Bass, Randy. "Religion and Community: The Great Awakening." Georgetown University. Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies. 1 Apr. 2004.
Brian, Paul. "The Enlightenment." 17 Dec. 1998. Washington State University. 1 Apr. 2004. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html.
Comtois, Marc. The American Enlightenment. 2004. 1 Apr. 2004. http://users.ids.net/~marcom/historint/Enlightenment.doc.
The Declaration of Independence. 4 July 1776.
"Jonathan Edwards." Great Men of God. ChristiansinTouch.com. 1 Apr. 2004. http://www.christiansintouch.com/greatMen_JE.cfm.
Matthews, Terry. "The Great Awakening." Lecture Four. 1 Apr. 2004.
McLoughlin, William M. Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Prescott, Scott. "The Great Awakening." Updated 2003. Southeastern College. 1 Apr. 2004.
Tackett, Timothy N. "Age of Enlightenment." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2004. Microsoft Corporation, 1997–2004. 1 Apr. 2004. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571679/Enlightenment_Age_of.html.
Works Consulted
Barck, Oscar T., and Hugh T. Lefler. Colonial America. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Hawke, David. The Colonial Experience. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975.
Middleton, Richard. Colonial America: A History, 1585–1776. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing, 1996.
Nettels, Curtis Putnam. The Roots of American Civilization: A History of American Colonial Life. 2nd ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963.
Savelle, Max, and Darold D. Wax. A History of Colonial America. 3rd ed. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1973.
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