1. The First Great Awakening and Jonathan Edwards American Religious History, Topic 3

2. Living History

3. Background: Losing Faith The early decades of the eighteenth century found the British colonists of North America losing touch with the respective faiths of their fathers. As settlement spread westward from coastal towns and cities, families became disconnected from organized religion. As colonies achieved commercial successes, building up “treasures in heaven” seemed less appealing to some than storing up “treasures on earth.” The spirit of the European Enlightenment, which stressed the importance of science and human reason in understanding the world (and, in many cases, questioned a traditional view of life based on faith and revelation), crossed the Atlantic with passengers and publications and watered the growing garden of materialist secularism.

4. Seeing History Engraving of Voltaire by Pierre Charles Baquoy (c. 1795) (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

5. Background: Declension In short, as colonists focused on the “arm of flesh,” dependence on the “arm of the Lord” waned in Anglican Virginia and Maryland, Puritan (Congregationalist) New England, Dutch Reformed New York and New Jersey, and Quaker Pennsylvania, to name a few. Puritans in New England had worried about a “declension”—a decline or deterioration—of piety since the 1660s, when many clergy adopted the “Halfway Covenant” to boost decreasing church membership by granting baptism to the children of parents who had not confessed experiencing a personal conversion. Week after week, sermons of doom called jeremiads warned of the consequences of weakening devotion.

6. Background: “NL” vs. “OL” It was not until the 1730s and 1740s—during a period known as the First Great Awakening—however, that a wide-sweeping religious revival would bolster the fading faiths of colonial congregations. A rejuvenation of spirituality in Scotland and England crossed the Atlantic with zealous itinerant preachers and made its way first to the Middle Colonies and New England. These men preached against the “Old Light” (traditional) emphasis on an authoritative clergy, Bible study, head-knowledge and reason, and a difficult, works-filled road to salvation. They spoke for the “New Light” (evangelical and revivalist) emphasis on a participatory congregation, dramatic conversion, heart-knowledge and emotion, and a more democratic salvation for all based on a personal recognition of the “indwelling of Christ”—and His grace—in one’s heart.

7. Seeing History "New Light" Preacher George Whitefield (from George Whitefield: A Biography by Joseph Belcher (1857),in public domain at wikimedia.org)

8. Reason from the Background What principles or lessons stand out to you from the history covered by the preceding slides? What one word would you choose to describe the history covered by the preceding slides? Please explain. What is the biggest question that you have about the history covered by the preceding slides?

9. Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “Years ago I participated in the measurement of the nuclear characteristics of different materials. The process used an experimental nuclear reactor designed so that high energy particles streamed from a hole in the center of the reactor. These particles were directed into an experimental chamber where measurements were made. The high energy particles could not be seen, but they had to be carefully controlled to avoid harm to others. One day a janitor entered while we were experimenting. In a spirit of disgust he said, ‘You are all liars, pretending that you are doing something important, but you can’t fool me. I know that if you can’t see, hear, taste, smell, or touch it, it doesn’t exist.’ That attitude ruled out the possibility of his learning that there is much of worth that can’t be identified by the five senses. Had that man been willing to open his mind to understand how the presence of nuclear particles is detected, he would have confirmed their existence. In like manner, never doubt the reality of faith.” 

10. Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “You will gather the fruits of faith as you follow the principles God has established for its use. Some of those principles are: ◦ Trust in God and in His willingness to provide help when needed, no matter how challenging the circumstance. ◦ Obey His commandments and live to demonstrate that He can trust you. ◦ Be sensitive to the quiet prompting of the Spirit. ◦ Act courageously on that prompting. ◦ Be patient and understanding when God lets you struggle to grow and answers come a piece at a time over an extended period” (Elder Richard G. Scott, May Ensign 2003).

11. Background: Preachers William Tennant and his four sons lit the Presbyterians of Pennsylvania aflame with the spirit of revival, John and Charles Wesley ignited the spark of Methodism in Georgia and along the Atlantic Coast, and George Whitefield made famously popular tours of the colonies that, perhaps more than any other single effort, set British America ablaze with renewed religious fervor. Highly dramatic and poignantly personal, these preachers, along with a host of others, gathered “New Lights” (people who agreed with the revivalists’ ideas) left and right and challenged established ministers and a tradition of deference to their authority.

12. Background: Results of the FGA The result was a tremendous splintering of sects and changing of memberships from one church to another, which, ultimately, made personal choice—not family tradition—the motivating factor in baptism and church attendance. New colleges, such as present-day Princeton University, Brown University, and Rutgers University, also sprang up to meet the educational demands of “New Light” adherents.

13. Seeing History "New Light" Preacher John Wesley, Founder of Methodism, by George Romney (1789) (in public domain on wikimedia.org)

14. Background: Jonathan Edwards British America’s most celebrated homegrown contribution to the “New Light” movement was Jonathan Edwards: a brilliant and fiery Puritan (Congregationalist) preacher who graphically instilled the fear of hellfire and damnation in his listeners. In 1734 and 1735, his Northampton, Massachusetts, congregation was aflame with his vivid descriptions of the torments of hell and the ecstasies of heaven: a strategy he hoped would awaken sleeping souls to Christ’s grace. He believed that congregations did not need to have their “heads stored” with Biblical knowledge as much as they needed to have their “hearts touched” by the Holy Spirit, and he had no qualms about frightening listeners “away from hell.”

15. Background: God’s Sovereignty Stories of his success in gaining converts became legendary and circulated widely throughout the colonies. Though he espoused “New Light” tactics, he aligned himself rigidly with orthodox Puritanism and criticized the new promises of easy salvation for all. Instead, he preached a return to the strict commitment of Massachusetts Bay Colony’s founders and their belief in being experientially moved by the recognition that absolutely nothing humans do can warrant salvation. To Edwards, salvation or damnation came utterly by the absolute sovereignty of God. Predestination and God’s grace alone warranted an individual’s salvation.

16. Reason from the Background What principles or lessons stand out to you from the history covered by the preceding slides? What one word would you choose to describe the history covered by the preceding slides? Please explain. What is the biggest question that you have about the history covered by the preceding slides?

17. Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “Anxiety and expectation regarding the need for divine direction was not uncommon among those religious reformers who set the stage for the Restoration of the gospel. One of the most famous of the New England preachers, Jonathan Edwards, said, ‘It seems to me a[n] … unreasonable thing, to suppose that there should be a God … that has so much concern [for us], … and yet that he should never speak, … that there should be no word [from him]’” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Nov. Ensign 2004).

18. Background: “Sinners” and Slumber His spellbinding sermons about the nothingness of humanity and the majesty of God reached their apex in 1741 with “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” By 1750, though, after attempting to return to the practice of offering the Lord’s Supper only to those who had publicly declared an intimate knowledge of their election, many felt that his attempts to return to orthodoxy had gone too far, and he was dismissed: an event that marked not only the end of Edwards’s revivalism—but also the last gasps of the movement of awakening of which he was a part.

19. Seeing History Engraving of Jonathan Edwards by R. Babson and J. Andrews (in public domain at wikimedia.org)

20. Seeing History Tract of the Sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741) (in the public domain at wikimedia.org)

21. Seeing History 1797 Reissue of the 1747 Bowen Map of North America (in public domain at wikimedia.org)

22. Reason from the Background What principles or lessons stand out to you from the history covered by the preceding slides? What one word would you choose to describe the history covered by the preceding slides? Please explain. What is the biggest question that you have about the history covered by the preceding slides?

23. Relate the Words of Modern Prophets “Some Christians accuse Latter-day Saints … of denying the grace of God through claiming they can earn their own salvation. We answer this accusation with the words of two Book of Mormon prophets. Nephi taught, ‘For we labor diligently … to persuade our children … to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do’ (2 Ne. 25:23). And what is ‘all we can do’? It surely includes repentance (see Alma 24:11) and baptism, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end. Moroni pleaded, ‘Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ’ (Moro. 10:32). We are not saved in our sins, as by being unconditionally saved through confessing Christ and then, inevitably, committing sins in our remaining lives (see Alma 11:36–37). We are saved from our sins (see Hel. 5:10) by a weekly renewal of our repentance and cleansing through the grace of God and His blessed plan of salvation (see 3 Ne. 9:20–22)” (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, May Ensign 1998).

24. Reason from the Source According to Edwards, what is the state of unconverted humanity?

25. Reason from the Source According to Edwards, how is God absolutely sovereign in granting salvation or damnation? Does human agency affect anything? Explain.

26. Reason from the Source What was Edwards’s purpose in writing this sermon, and what strategies did he use to achieve it?

27. Relate the FACE Seven Principles How does the document relate to FACE Principle #6: How the Seed of Local Self- Government Is Planted: “Christian self- government begins with salvation and education in God's law and love and flows to governing oneself, one's home, one's church and one's community”?

28. Relate the Anchor Scriptures How does the document relate to 2 Nephi 2:8? ◦ “Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.”

29. Relate the Anchor Scriptures How does the document relate to 2 Nephi 25:23? ◦ “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”