Religious Revitalization Research Paper

Gayle Karlan

Professor Balch

English 2327

March 7, 2011

Religious Revitalization

Between 1730 and 1745 there swept over the American colonies from Maine to Georgia a religious revival known as the Great Awakening. The revival movement, unlike the earlier doctrine of the Puritans, promised the grace of God to all who could experience a desire for it. This Second Great Awakening, a reprise of the Great Awakening of the early 18th century, was marked by an emphasis on personal piety over schooling and theology. It arose in several places and in several active forms. The early colonial ministers in the middle 1700’s tried to create a new movement of “Enlightenment” as a way to revitalize the masses. The revivals…show more content…
He described how, even though they were indeed condemned, and God was not lacking in power, they were not yet fallen to destruction because of the grace of God which gave them opportunity to repent and change their ways before it was too late. Edwards notes that only God’s own desire to keep us from falling into hell is sustaining us from it. It is only through God’s grace. He mentions several times how man has and continues to try to fit God into a mold that will not hold Him. God’s pleasure, His will, is what holds us up, until He knows that a heart is so hard that He will let go and let us slip into the hell we have earned by our own hands. Then the sinner is no more a thought of God, but is something under His feet (authorsden.com). To illustrate his point, Edwards writes “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire” (431). Damnation and the wrath of God remain the final judgment against anyone who turns away from the word of…show more content…
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