The Great Awakening occurred in the years preceding the American Revolution and coincided with the Methodist Revival in England. Both events had a huge impact on American Christianity, but to understand them, we have to talk a little about 18th Century Christianity as it existed beforehand.
American background
The dominant religions in the US were all Calvinist. Puritans had settled much of New England. Some had adopted believer baptism and so had become Baptists, but they remained strictly Calvinistic. The Church of England was the established church in some states, and was predominantly Calvinistic at the time. Scotch settlers brought Presbyterianism with them. French Huguenots came to the Colonies fleeing persecution, and they were also strict Calvinists.
There were, of course, Catholics, Lutherans, Quakers, Jews, and others, but most were Calvinists of one sort or the other. Continue reading
I just received an email asking an important question I can’t recall having addressed before. I asked for and received permission to post an edited version of the question —
