First Great Awakening

This is a Christian movement that stemmed from the spark of revivalism of 1620 among the Scotland Presbyterians.  The belief was expanded by the teachings of George Whitefield during 1730s who appealed strongly to the religious emotions of the Church goers in Bristol and London in 1737 and the Kingsavood Colliers (coal minors).

Focus Of The Movement

The First Great Awakening was an evangelical movement that swept across protestant Europe, Birtish America and American colonies in 1730s and 1740s.  The belief made strong appeal on the American Protestantism that made departure from the traditionalist angle of Christian practices as rituals, hierarchy and sacrementalism.

The belief focused on personalizing of Christianity to adherents towards activating of deep sense of spiritual convictions, salvation and enhanced personal morality.

It crept into Christian denominations like the Congregational Churches, Presbyterian Churches, Small Baptist and Methodist Anglicans as a social event that challenged the traditional Protestantism.  That is reason it was noted that the First Great Awakening focused on people who were already Church members than the Second Great Awakening that focused more on the unchurched people.

As a socialist Christian movement, the evangelicals included every person, gender, status or race in conversion.

Influence Of The Belief

Some of the major effects of the First Great Awakening was its ability to extend Christianity to embrace the blacks as well as women.  By this movement, many African slaves and Freed Blacks were converted into Christianity.

For example, in the Middle and Southern Colonies, especially the “black country” regions, the Presbyterians hold strongly to the awakening. In the Southern Tidewater and low country, the Baptists and Methodists converted both the whites and blacks into their folds.

This event changed the style of Christianity that previously took the blacks as relegated people.  By the awakening, the whites welcomed the blacks and ordained some of them into the offices as exhorters, deacons and preachers. The development made the African traditional beliefs that were held by the Africans at the Black Country to change by conversions into Christianity.

By the unfolding events, some white preachers began to preach against slavery and soliciting  for its abolition while others were ensuring for fair treatment and education to the slaves.  This brought an enhanced campaign for education of the slaves to enable them to read the Bible like their white counterparts. This campaign influenced the raise of literacy amongst the blacks and slaves in the Southern America firstly and later to the North.

The literacy campaign for the African Americans was basically for religious purpose but later translated to material values as many of the blacks began to enjoy equality which embued with some sense of freedom.

The effect of the literacy of the blacks started yielding positive results as there were some black Baptist Churches in the South before the American Revolution.

Another major role of the First Great Awakening to the Americans was on the lives of women.  Before the era, women were not allowed to play any public roles in many denominations of Christianity.

The new method of sermon accommodated women and many of them wrote memoirs or diaries.  The women includes Hannah Heaton (1721-94) who wrote of her Christian experience.  Phillis Wheatley was equally an African American poet who was accredited as the first published black woman poet.  Wheatley wrote of the experience of her journey from African paganism to the Christian colony.

The first Awakening arose the significance of the blacks and their women as such breed African leaders that established black congregational churches as well as later generations that fought for abolition of slavery.

First Great Awakening Figures

These were individuals as revivalists or preachers that contributed strongly towards the establishment of the belief.  One of the notable earliest revivalists was Jonathan Edwards in Massachusetts.  He was a puritan of Calvinist root.  He capitalized on the gains of individual's religious experience as against the Episcopal polity of many denominations.

Edward was succeeded by George Whitefield who was viewed as the preacher that sparked the first great awakening by his traveling across the New England and Georgia with his type of Christian theology that was more of enthusiasm than traditional.

Although Edward and Whitefield were both slave owners but taught that slaves must be given fair treatment as well as education.

Another figure that influenced the growth of the movement was Benjamin Franklin who was inspired by the preaching of Whitefield.  As a publisher, he printed many of the Whitefield's sermons in the front page of his journal called the Gazette.

Included in the list of the figures was Samuel Davies who a Presbyterian master and was known for converting a large number of African slaves to Christianity.  He promoted the campaign for equal education to the blacks.

Conflicts To The Belief

Before the establishment of the First Great Awakening, there were sort of counter-revolution against non-conformists by the conservatives. The division between both sets of believers drove towards the era of the great awakening.

This dispute was widened by the awakening that divided the Congregationalist into the “New Light” or “Armenians”, who accepted the development and the “Old Lights” or the “Calvins” who rejected the revivals. As people that hold to authority, they sought to suppress the movement.

The conflicts between both believers continued till the American Revolution that both of the groups lend their support.

Conclusion

The First Great Awakening was a classical continuation of the principle of liberalism that was embraced by the apostolic fathers who departed from the rigorist or traditionalist position of the Hebrew Yahosheans.  As the Hebrew Yahosheans professed legalism, the Gentile Yahosheans embraced Gracean method.

The Gracean tradition gave rise to reformations and revivalism that allowed for religious compromises.  The great awakening was the product of revivalism that challenged the orthodixity that was held by the earliest apostles of Yahoshea Mehsiyach.

Although, the great awakening helped to include all races and gender into the Christendom, but it did not address the required corrections to the errors of Catholism, Protestanism and revivalism.

So, those adherents that seek for Yahosheanism through churches or Christian denominations influenced by the first great awakening were honestly deceived into an amplified height of observation to Gracean movement or tradition.

Yahosheanism was a legalistic movement while the great awakening was directed towards compromises and liberalism.