{"id":4527,"date":"2025-04-03T08:41:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4527"},"modified":"2025-04-03T08:41:55","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:41:55","slug":"the-great-awakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/03\/the-great-awakening\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0<\/em>
\u00a0
Every schoolchild learns about the Spirit of 1776 \u2013 the monumental social and political upheaval that led to the birth of the United States.
\u00a0
The American Revolution featured a galaxy of superstars, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton (who would no doubt have been surprised to learn he would one day be a huge hit on Broadway).\u00a0\u00a0

Fewer Americans are aware that 40 years earlier there had been another revolution that profoundly shaped our nation.

It was known as the Great Awakening – a spiritual revival that began in New England and spread throughout the colonies.\u00a0

The Awakening featured its own cadre of luminaries, including two prominent clergymen: Jonathan Edwards (arguably the greatest theologian ever born on American soil) and a young open-air preacher named George Whitefield (whose name is pronounced \u201cwhit\u201d instead of \u201cwhite\u201d).
\u00a0
A number of historians now include both figures in that special group known as America\u2019s Founders, even though each was gone years before the Declaration of Independence. Edwards died in 1758 and Whitefield left the scene in 1771.

Whitefield, you might recall, was a member of the Oxford Holy Club with John and Charles Wesley. Even though he never surrendered his English citizenship, he spent much of his adult life overseas.

His messages prepared the American colonists to embrace an idea that was found nowhere else on Earth \u2013 the radical notion that every human being matters equally to God, regardless of wealth or social standing.\u00a0\u00a0

By all accounts, he was a rock star long before Elvis.

He preached to huge crowds.\u00a0In 1740, when he arrived in Boston at the age of 25, the city boasted about 17,000 residents.\u00a0Whitefield’s outdoor “congregation” sometimes numbered more than 20,000.\u00a0\u00a0

Without the benefit of a sound system, Power Point, or walk-up music, he held his listeners spellbound.\u00a0In a day in which most preaching was dull to the point of sleep-inducing, Whitefield’s messages literally brought people to their knees.\u00a0Many of them cried out, groaned, and fainted as they pondered the condition of their souls.

When a Connecticut farmer learned that Whitefield was preaching nearby, he dropped his plow and grabbed his wife.\u00a0They breathlessly raced to join the crowd, afraid they might not arrive in time to hear the sermon.\u00a0\u00a0

Whitefield journeyed from England to the colonies seven times \u2013 a voyage across the treacherous North Atlantic which no one took for granted. Even as an outsider, he quickly became the best-known person in America, rivaling even Ben Franklin \u2013 the only founder who personally experienced both the Great Awakening and the Revolution.\u00a0\u00a0

Since he was a lifelong spiritual skeptic, Franklin provides an interesting test case. Could Whitefield somehow get through to such a hard-boiled agnostic?\u00a0 \u00a0

Franklin, wondering what all the ruckus was about it, decided to hear the preacher for himself.\u00a0He stood at the fringes of the crowd.\u00a0He marveled at Whitefield’s ability to connect with common people.

At the end, when it was time to take a collection for the poor, Franklin \u2013 despite his prior resolutions not to get drawn in \u2013 found himself reaching for his purse.\u00a0He even ended up borrowing money from a friend so he could contribute more generously.\u00a0Whitefield and Franklin, by the way, became friends. \u00a0
\u00a0
Edwards, for his part, was something of a different creature.
\u00a0
Whereas Whitefield preached outdoors, Jonathan was always under roof. While the Anglican\u2019s sermons were dynamic, Edwards the Puritan read directly from a carefully crafted manuscript in a dull monotone. But the content of his two-hour messages nevertheless stirred the hearts of his listeners.
\u00a0
Christians today sometimes speak of colonial times as if they were a Golden Age of Faith. They weren\u2019t. Church attendance hovered around a paltry 10%.
\u00a0
Then, from the late 1720s through the early 1740s, fresh winds seemed to blow through Edwards\u2019 parish in Massachusetts. \u201cThe Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in,\u201d he wrote. In one community after another, people began to crowd into church.
\u00a0
Worshippers who had long prided themselves on sitting stock still during sermons began to cry out for God\u2019s mercy. There were screams and tears and thrashing bodies \u2013 the kinds of things that tend to alarm denominational officials. But there was also genuine joy. Outsiders noted, with approval, that gossip and conflict seemed to disappear.
\u00a0
The Great Awakening ended almost as mysteriously as it began. Hundreds of other pastors before that time had preached their hearts out.\u00a0But few people had responded. Those revivals seemed to fizzle before they even started.

Why were things different with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield?

Looking back almost 300 years, we can say that it was apparently the right time.\u00a0It was God’s time.\u00a0It was the beginning of an age when the simplest farmer began to believe that his opinion mattered, and a milkmaid could dream of making a meaningful contribution to God\u2019s kingdom. Whitefield and Edwards made it clear that spiritual maturity did not come down to breeding or education or religious tradition.

Knowing and serving God were within reach of everyone. That was a genuine turning point in the history of Christianity, and it helped prepare Americans to imagine a whole new kind of country. \u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Carefully crafted sermons and theological treatises weren\u2019t the only gifts bestowed by Jonathan Edwards. He and his wife Sarah had eleven children.\u00a0
\u00a0
This was the pre-Pampers, pre-microwave oven, pre-Disney-movies-on-the-tablet-to-keep-them-occupied era.\u00a0There were surely plenty of days in the midst of all those runny noses and sibling quarrels in which Jonathan and Sarah were tempted to ask themselves, \u201cIs all of this really worth it? Does it really matter whether or not we try to corral these kids today to keep them on the right path?\u201d
\u00a0
History allows us to see what they couldn\u2019t see.\u00a0By the year 1900 the Edwards family had grown to include 1,400 descendants, among them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n