Posted on 07/04/2021 3:55:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
As I note in The Miracle and Magnificence of America, between the colonial and Revolutionary periods of American history came what historians have dubbed the (first) "Great Awakening." The lack of passionate Christianity, along with the coinciding adoption of certain liberal interpretations of Scripture and a turn toward the secular, greatly concerned ministers such as Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Prince, and William Cooper. By the 1730s, passionate and animated pleas for the souls of the lost became widespread.
The earliest principal figure of this period of spiritual revival was the brilliant and pious Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards. Edwards succeeded his grandfather as pastor of the church at Northampton. Later, he accepted a role as pastor of a church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Jonathan Edwards loved the pulpit, and according to BJU Press, he was more teacher and preacher than pastor. In late 1734 and early 1735, revival broke out in Northampton. By the summer of 1735, it ended, but the seeds for something more lasting were planted. Enter the mighty George Whitefield.
Whitefield is generally considered "The Father of the Great Awakening." Born in England in 1714, Whitefield entered Pembroke College at Oxford at age 17. There he joined a group called the "Holy Club," where he befriended John and Charles Wesley. John Wesley led the group, and as a result of their "methodical" ways, critics took to calling them "Methodists." The name stuck.
In 1738, Whitefield left for North America. It was not long before most of Georgia had heard of this young preacher with the booming voice and wild pulpit antics. News of Whitefield and his preaching soon spread throughout the colonies. In 1739, after a brief return to England in hopes of securing land and funding for an orphanage in Georgia,
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Interesting. I wasn’t aware of a colonial era revival.
It’s known as “the Great Awakening”.
Excellent article.
I was aware of Jonathan Edward’s, Georrge Whitefield and David Brainerd. Not so much the others.
This whole period of history is on my list for further study. One does not understand America without it.
And the creation of the university of Pennsylvania by Whitefield and Franklin.
Esther Edwards, who married Aaron Burr Sr., was born in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1732, the third child of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. “Samuel Hopkins, who wrote the first biography of her father, Jonathan Edwards, and who lived in their home for over a year, remembered her as having ‘a lively, sprightly imagination, a quick and penetrating thought.’ Her childhood years coincided with the years of the Great Awakening. She was eight when the Great Awakening began, and she heard George Whitefield preach to her father’s congregation in October of that year; she was ten when it ended in 1742. ... She herself made a profession of faith before the church when she was “about fifteen,” though her conversion is to be dated earlier—possibly when Whitefield preached to the Northampton congregation.” Her husband, Aaron Burr Sr., was one of the founders of Princeton, then a school founded on religious principles, now a university drowning in its own ungodly feces.
I am not so sure I agree with this line of thinking. Besides, if you were to read the Declaration of Independence …. you might be struck to realize that the “justifications” are certainly valid. But mostly in a superficial way. What I am trying to say is that people everywhere think they have a right to overthrow the systems they don’t like.
I am not sure that I would have (or could have) opposed the British if I had been here back in those days.
But here we are with the same types of problems as before, and many, many more.
Back to the article at hand: Is it likely that preachers known for close study of the Scripture who lived during the pre-revolution period of America were just the forefathers if Jeremiah Wright? Well, much ink has been spilled over much less.
Media didn’t mention the blackitude of the arrestees but they are termed Moor in the org names they give themselves and the initial photo is pretty conclusive. The face in front is a Negro, no question. Those in the background appear to be Arabs or Somalis but they are not distinct enough to be sure. I am sue they will be blamed on White Supremicists, whatever their own identities.
Two more good ones are John Wise and Roger Williams. (Neither mentioned in the article.)
Roger Williams was a Puritan Minister in Connecticut who was on the front lines early on of the wall of separation between church and state. The original wall. Not the new, second, corrupt wall that was created in the Everson case. The first wall created by the pastors is worthy of passion and praise, the second wall created in 1947 is poisonous and the kind of wall you put graffiti on.
John Wise was a minister in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and one of the very first ever to lead any kind of resistance anywhere to British malfeasance. On the 150th of the Declaration, Calvin Coolidge talked about this. (small quote)
“The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment.”
Note that the town seal for Ipswich.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IpswichSeal.png
It’s the same date. 1687. That’s John Wise.
George Whitefield in the mid-1700s, traveled up and down the Colonies along the King’s Highway, stopping to preach in Bath, NC, then the capital of the colony. There he was very poorly received, told to leave or else he would need the coffin he always carried with him and slept in, whereupon it is said that he cursed the town, “shook the dust off his shoes”, as he departed. Bath soon fairly withered away.
I was similarly surprised, several years ago, to learn of the following:
"The Great Revival of the Army of Northern Virginia began in the camps of the 12th and 44th Georgia regiments of Trimble's Brigade in the Shenandoah Valley one month after Antietam [late 1862]. Trimble's Brigade (including the 15th Alabama) had long been targeted by ministers, missionaries, and 'colporters' (sellers of religious tracts) because it contained a number of devout chaplains. The revival then spread through the rest of Jackson's command, which had been decimated by the fight at Sharpsburg [i.e., Antietam]. The religious camp meetings grew in power and size and were carried with the army into Fredericksburg, where they grew in intensity throughout the late fall and early winter."
"In late December, the Great Revival spread from Jackson's Corps into Longstreet's. The religious fervor spread through Longstreet's command, taking hold finally in William Barksdale's Brigade, which was billeted in the abandoned homes of Fredericksburg. The rounds of conversions and sermons had barely begun when the Mississippi soldiers, known for their tenacity and marksmanship, were ordered to take their preassigned places in rifle pits facing the Rappahannock River - which separated Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac."
- Mark Perry, Conceived in Liberty: William Oates, Joshua Chamberlain, and the American Civil War, 1999
We sure need another: NOW!
Unlike the Ninevahites who fell on their knees in repentance at hearing Jonah’s eight word message:
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