How did the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment impact colonist’s society?

Answer 1

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Answer 2

The Enlightenment was a shift from religious thinking to scientific thinking in the colonies. It gave the colonists another option besides religion and challenged traditionalist beliefs. The Great Awakening was the religious response to the Enlightenment. It tried to reinforce church doctrine. It was the start of the evanglical movement of America.

Answer 3

It is unfortunate that one answer sees the Enlightenment as positive and rational, and the Great Awakening as a(n irrational?) reaction against it. When you take a closer look at leaders in the Great Awakening and in the evangelical movement that grew out of it, the idea that they were somehow opposed to or afraid of reason is ludicrous.

Consider two names in particular:

a) Jonathan Edwards, one of the leaders and defenders of the Awakening in New England (though he also, consistently with his careful approach, warned about emotional excesses), was THE leading American philosopher of the 17th century and exerted an enormous influence on subsequent philosophical developments. (For example, his book *The Freedom of the Will* is insightful and rigorously argued.)

b) John Witherspoon, an Scottish pastor of the EVANGELICAL party brought to Princeton to serve as President of the College of New Jersey, was an articulate follower of the moral and political philosophy of John Locke (usually regarded as foremost in the British Enlightenment) and of the Scottish "Common Sense" philosophy. He was, not surprisingly, an ardent supporter of the Revolution, signer of the Declaration and very active on Congressional committees (while still busy presiding and teaching many classes at Princeton).

In short, it's silly to play one off against the other. A better way to appreciate the input of these two great events/movements:

There were a whole host of events and ideas that came together to create the "ideological foundations" of the Revolution (as Bernard Bailyn showed in his classic, *The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution). Enlightenment ideas, esp. those of John Locke, played their part, but NOT all alone. The main influence of Locke was his political philosophy, which itself was rooted in a long historical development of the British understanding of government and rights. Another influence was the Puritan "covenant" ideas -- which understood communities, both religious and secular/state, as VOLUNTARY associations and put this into practice long before Locke and others spoke of "the consent of the governed".

In other words, Locke himself was in some ways more important for how he PACKAGED ideas, and some of his working out the implications, than as if he created them.

Understanding Locke's general influence in this way, we can recognize that its contribution to the Revolution was chiefly in helping to develop the categories and ways of thinking through the philosophical and political issues that gave rise to the revolution (esp. of "rights"), though again, these were NOT new with the Enlightenment.

Note also that the specific religious (or anti-religious) views of some followers of the Enlightenment, this does not appear to have played much of a role in the Revolution. In fact, the leaders of American society who advocated and led in the Revolution span the religious spectrum from very skeptical to very devout. Skeptics and Deists had no more influence than others in these matters. More importantly, the Revolution and subsequent establishment or a republican form of government, was not by any means based on ideas that were somehow ANTI-religious.

As for the Great Awakening, one major effect of this revival (or series of revivals) was that, as it spread THROUGHOUT the colonies in the late 1730s to early 1740s it helped to bring together groups ACROSS the boundaries of colonies, which would be important in the 1760s-70s as colonial opposition to British policies began to be co-ordinated throughout the colonies. The awakening also led to co-operation across the lines of church denomination and to a boom in independent, NON-state churches (Congregationalists and Baptists). Both of these helped lay the foundation for a "secular" (NOT anti-religious) government and "separation of church and state" (that is, churches that were not STATE churches).

That is not to see these were the ONLY influences of these events. For example, the growth of evangelicalism, sparked by the Great Awakening, was the spark for a whole range of REFORM movements --both in Britain the the American colonies. It was communities rooted in the revival that took place on both sides of the Atlantic, and political and church leaders from these communities that launched such late 18th century efforts as that to end the slave trade and then to abolish slavery. In these efforts, Enlightenment categories (esp about the RIGHTS of man) were also helpful in advancing the cause.

Answer 4

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