Similarities Between The American Revolution And The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening was a period of time where radically new questions against former religious practices were contrived. While it never necessarily brought attention toward the state of politics in the colonies, I believe that it stirred thought among the people in an eerily similar way that occurs during the American Revolution. Thusly, the following will entail how the stagnation and subsequent rallies against religion parallel those of politics of the Revolution. If one thinks of the growth of these movements, the American Revolution and Great Awakening, as a gradually growing rebellion against the old, then the two do not differ greatly. In the Great Awakening, practices of the established church structure and predestination were thrown
into question by the sparkings of “new and better” ideas. The people responded appropriately, in a rampant nature that separated numerous divisions of the church and led to attacks on unconverted pastors. All of this was facilitated by papers, pamphlets, and rallies that were also employed in the revolution. It is the susceptibility of the people to be incited by men of position against the orthodox custom that makes the Great Awakening a rehearsal for the revolution. So when the colonies, whose people show signs of individual ideas, are bombarded with stiff navigation acts and tariffs by Britain, they respond in the same way the Great Awakening. However, instead of religious concepts, they are replaced with ideas of liberty in politics, free of the notion of British subservience. Rather than be in a state of blind control by the king, the culmination of all considered instilled individuality and a sense that America and its colonies were its own.