Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editor's Introduction
- SECTION I BACKGROUND ON RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS – PRE-1500S
- SECTION II RELIGIONS IN THE POST-COLUMBIAN NEW WORLD – 1500–1680S
- SECTION III RELIGIOUS PATTERNS IN COLONIAL AMERICA – 1680S–1730S
- SECTION IV RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN BRITISH AMERICA – 1730S–1790
- SECTION V AMERICAN RELIGIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
- 26 Religion and Imperial Conflict
- 27 Evangelical Awakenings in the Atlantic Community
- 28 Religion and the American Revolution
- 29 The Religious Landscape: From the Revolution to the New Nation
- 30 Religion in Canada, 1759–1815
- 31 From Religious Nationalism to Political Consciousness: The Bourbon Reforms in Spanish America, 1750–1790
- SECTION VI THEMATIC ESSAYS
- Index
- References
27 - Evangelical Awakenings in the Atlantic Community
from SECTION V - AMERICAN RELIGIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editor's Introduction
- SECTION I BACKGROUND ON RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS – PRE-1500S
- SECTION II RELIGIONS IN THE POST-COLUMBIAN NEW WORLD – 1500–1680S
- SECTION III RELIGIOUS PATTERNS IN COLONIAL AMERICA – 1680S–1730S
- SECTION IV RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN BRITISH AMERICA – 1730S–1790
- SECTION V AMERICAN RELIGIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
- 26 Religion and Imperial Conflict
- 27 Evangelical Awakenings in the Atlantic Community
- 28 Religion and the American Revolution
- 29 The Religious Landscape: From the Revolution to the New Nation
- 30 Religion in Canada, 1759–1815
- 31 From Religious Nationalism to Political Consciousness: The Bourbon Reforms in Spanish America, 1750–1790
- SECTION VI THEMATIC ESSAYS
- Index
- References
Summary
The eighteenth century in British America witnessed the flowering of an evangelical movement, especially within, but not entirely limited to, the Protestant churches. The spiritual phenomenon flourished during the first half of the century in many parts of the eastern colonies in what has often been called the Great Awakening. Many people of the time were certainly aware of a more widespread quickening of the Spirit in the ministries of the churches along the Atlantic seaboard, but the term has become a moniker by which historians now treat the American developments as part of a broader transatlantic spiritual awakening during that period.
Historians have debated such epoch-naming as though such questioning itself was part of their vocation. Is “medieval” an appropriate denominator for a period, seen as a “middle age” between the grandeur of the Greco-Roman world and its renaissance centuries later? Is “renaissance” a fitting term for a multifaceted movement that is difficult to define and date? Is “reformation” a singular term that fits a series of movements with different goals in different places at different times? Is “enlightenment” a useful designation for a movement that manifests itself in so many ways? The didactic usefulness of such terminology provides constant grist for the careful historian's mill, and the debates over such terminology will be endless. So it is also with the topic of this essay, the so-called evangelical awakenings, especially in their American manifestation.
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- The Cambridge History of Religions in America , pp. 550 - 569Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000