The Awakenings

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Church History: reformation to the present

the awakenings

In the 1700s and 1800s, Christian revivals deeply affected individuals and society.

any Christians put great emphasis on correct doctrine, believing that “rightly dividing the word of truth” is the most important aspect of Christian faith. Others put the emphasis on proper worship, that M everything “be done decently and in order.” But most of us would agree that faith is more than doctrine or worship. Jesus commands us to love God with mind and strength, but he also says we must love with the heart.

In the 1700s in America and Britain, preachers began to emphasize the “new birth,” preaching and teaching that genuine conversion is usually accompanied by emotion: great sorrow for sin, great joy at forgiveness. This had an electric effect on both nations and led to the beginning of modern evangelicalism. This study looks at the 18th-century Great Awakening in Britain and America, and briefly at the 19th-century American frontier revivals. During these “awakenings,” Christians discussed and debated the place of emotions in the walk of faith—a question that still faces believers today.

Scripture: Psalm 51:1–12; Matthew 3:8; 7:16; 15:8; 22:37; Acts 2:14–21; 1 Corinthians 1:18–25

Based on: The Christian History issue “George Whitefield,” including the articles “The Gallery: Leaders of the Awakening Army” and “Faith and Feelings”

Part 1 Identify the Current Issue Note to leader: Provide each person with the articles included at the end of this study.

The Puritan settlers came to New England to establish a “holy commonwealth.” They brought with them a vibrant faith and orthodox theology. Descendants of the original settlers, though, had less enthusiasm for their parents’ vision. In comparison, the faith of the following generations seemed lifeless and formal. In addition, the intellectual skepticism coming from Europe’s Enlightenment began to make inroads in the colonies, which encouraged many to equate Christian faith with reasonable thinking.

Between 1725 and 1760, the colonies and Britain experienced major revivals; collectively, these are known as the Great Awakening. Preachers like George Whitefield tried to help listeners feel convicted of sin, by vividly describing human lostness and passionately preaching the good news. As a result, thousands of people experienced a “new birth.”

Most denominations—Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists—grew as a result of the awakenings, though Anglicans (Episcopalians) generally did not. England, Scotland, and Wales experienced similar awakenings through the work of Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley, among others.

Some Christians belittled the revivals. In America in the mid-1700s, “Old Light” theologians such as Charles Chauncey of Boston sneered at the “enthusiasm” of revivals. Critics claimed revivals were emotional froth, pandering to the lower classes’ need for excitement.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), New England theologian and revivalist, eloquently defended the awakenings. In his Treatise on Religious Affections, he admitted that some of the excitement was passing, and some was excessive. But some had its origins in the Holy Spirit. Edwards argued that a truly converted person would show it in a life of good works, and an emotional faith without works was dead; still, in true conversion, since all of a person is converted, the emotions would be engaged.

Around 1800, a series of revivals began in America, which some historians have dubbed the Second Great Awakening. Its preachers were flamboyant, extemporaneous, and in touch with the common person. As they preached, people convicted of sin sometimes did things unthinkable in standard church services—fainting, rolling, falling, dancing, jerking, and so on. These frontier preachers made use of outdoor camp meetings, which became a permanent fixture in American religion. The meetings drew people from a vast area and were social as well as spiritual happenings. Itinerant preachers known as circuit riders

played an important role in frontier regions where settlements were widely dispersed. Singing was a key component in the meetings, leading to many new songs that tended to emphasize a person’s deep sorrow over sin and delight in walking with God.

Later in the 1800s, urban evangelists like Charles G. Finney, a former attorney, made their own contributions to national awakening. Finney and likeminded preachers believed that emotion should turn people’s minds to higher things—the reasonableness of God’s claim on their lives and the loathsomeness of their sin.

As a result of these awakenings in the 1700s and 1800s, churches grew, colleges were founded, and good works flourished. A contemporary observer wrote of revivals leading to “good order, tranquility, and happiness, as well as . . . the humble and sincere piety that reigns in many a heart.” America became indelibly stamped with an evangelical mindset.

Discussion Starters: [Q] What place do emotions have in the Christian faith? [Q] George Whitefield said, “Before ever . . . you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be brought to see, brought to believe, what a dreadful thing it is to depart from the living God.” [Q] Do you agree that before you become a Christian, you have to feel lost? [Q] When you become a Christian, do you need to feel the joy of Christ’s forgiveness and presence? Why or why not?

Part 2 DISCOVER THE ETERNAL PRINCIPLES

Teaching Point One: Believers must worship God “in Spirit.”

“He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without holy affection, never is engaged in the business of religion. True religion is a powerful thing . . . a vigorous engagedness of the heart.” —Jonathan Edwards

Read Matthew 3:8; 7:16; 15:8; 22:37.

[Q] Some revivalist preachers argued that it is impossible to be a Christian and not experience sorrow for sin or the love of God. Do you agree? Why or why not?

[Q] In what ways does your church encourage emotional demonstrations? Discourage them? Should churches encourage such? [Q] When have you had an emotional experience in worship or prayer and the result was good? When did you have such an experience and the result harmed your walk with Christ? What was the difference? [Q] What, in your opinion, are the greatest drawbacks to letting people express themselves more emotionally in worship or prayer? The greatest benefits? [Q] According to Acts 2:14–21, what did Peter quote Joel as saying would happen in the last days? Do you think that is a one-time event, or the norm for Christians? [Q] The psalmists freely expressed their emotions in prayer and song. Sometimes they were elated: “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord” (Ps. 95:1); sometimes dejected: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Ps. 22:1); sometimes angry: “Repay [the wicked] for their deeds” (Ps. 28:4). Does this mean that all emotional responses to God are justified? Why or why not?

Teaching Point Two: Believers must worship God “in truth.”

“Ecstasy is no guarantee of orthodoxy or that Christian fruit will result.” —Nathan O. Hatch, historian

Read 1 Corinthians 1:18–25.

[Q] Jonathan Edwards admitted that during the Great Awakening there was an excess of emotional display in some cases. Ultimately, do such excesses harm the reputation of Christianity? Why or why not? [Q] To what extent should Christians be encouraged to display their emotional response to the gospel? Does it make a difference whether they are in worship, in a prayer meeting, or in the privacy of their home? [Q] What to you are inappropriate ways of expressing Christian joy? Appropriate ways? [Q] What signs indicate a person’s Christian life is too rational or unemotional? [Q] Today, what attracts people to revivals? What about revivals repels people today? [Q] In order to evangelize our culture effectively, do you think people need to see a more rational presentation of the faith or a faith that obviously touches people deeply?

Optional Activity: Purpose: To explore the debate over intellect and emotion in expressing our faith. Activity: Divide the group in half: the Head-leys and the Heart-leys, two factions in a local church. The Head-leys want to donate $5,000 from the church treasury to an evangelical college. The Heart-leys want to use it to hold a gathering with contemporary worship and singing. The $5,000 cannot be divided. Have each side come up with reasons why its option is better stewardship. They can draw from the Bible and theology, their experiences and preferences, and the “Faith and Feelings” quotations. Then hold a brief debate. Afterward, discuss: Which arguments were based on Scripture and theology, and which on matters of taste? Which were most compelling? Why?

Part 3 APPLY YOUR FINDINGS

Summarize the discussion and close by reading Psalm 51:1–12 together as a prayer.

Action Point: Over coffee with Christian friends this week, ask: “Do we err on the side of emotion or intellect in our faith? What would it look like to be more passionate? To be more rational?” Enjoy the conversation.

— Study adapted by Kyle White

The Gallery: Leaders of the Awakening Army Whitefield’s co-workers in the great eighteenth-century revival. By Mark Galli

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Passionate theologian

At age 14, Jonathan Edwards, already a student at Yale University, read philosopher John Locke with more delight “than the most greedy miser finds when gathering up handfuls of silver and gold, from some newly discovered treasure.”

He also treasured spiritual qualities. At age 17, after a period of distress, he said holiness was revealed to him as a ravishing, divine beauty. His heart panted “to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be all, that I might become as a little child.”

This rare blend of spiritual passion and searching intellect, in fact, characterized Edwards throughout his Connecticut childhood, his marriage (to Sarah Pierpont in 1727), and his ministry.

By 1729, he had become sole preacher of a Northampton, Massachusetts, parish. Five years later his preaching on justification by faith sparked an awakening.

It was not due to theatrics. One observer wrote, “He scarcely gestured or even moved; and he made no attempt by the elegance of his style, or the beauty of his pictures, to gratify the taste, and fascinate the imagination.” Instead, he convinced “with overwhelming weight of argument, and with such intenseness of feeling.”

In December 1734, there were six sudden conversions. By spring, there were about thirty a week. The revival spread throughout Connecticut. Wrote Edwards in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737), “It was no longer the tavern, but the minister’s house that was thronged.”

Edwards was sought out by Whitefield during Whitefield’s 1740 pass through New England. Edwards invited Whitefield to preach and reported, “The congregation was extraordinarily melted … almost the whole assembly being in tears for a great part of the time.” “The whole assembly” included Edwards himself.

During the 1740s, Edwards preached his most well-known sermon (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God) and defended the emotional nature of the Great Awakening, especially in A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections (1746), a masterpiece of psychological and spiritual discernment.

Later, Edwards reversed the tradition in his parish and insisted only converted persons could receive Communion, so his church ousted him. He became missionary pastor to native Americans in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1751, and wrote, among other theological treatises, Freedom of the Will (1754), a brilliant defense of divine sovereignty. Such were the fruits of his lifelong habit of rising at 4:00 and studying 13 hours a day.

The College of New Jersey (later Princeton) called him as president in 1758. To its great loss and that of the American church, Edwards died of the new smallpox vaccination soon after his arrival. He was 55. Some consider him to be the finest theologian America has produced.

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (1707–1791) Evangelical “archbishop”

When her husband died, Lady Huntingdon, age 39, sought advice from leading preacher Howell Harris: “She consulted me about which was it best, to live retired and give up all, or fill her place, and I said the latter I thought was right.” Thus began four decades of strongwilled and generous leadership in the evangelical movement.

Born into English aristocracy, Selina married Theophilus Hastings, ninth earl of Huntingdon, in 1728. Though a devout Anglican, after a period of intense spiritual struggle she converted to the methodist cause in 1739. Her aristocratic friends were dismayed and asked Lord Huntingdon to interfere. He arranged for a bishop to talk with her, but to no avail.

Lady Huntingdon soon became friends with the brothers Wesley (she was a member of their first methodist society) and then with Whitefield. She became, in fact, Whitefield’s closest female friend, closer even than his wife.

After her husband’s death, Lady Huntingdon and some of her titled friends met daily to pray and study the Bible. She invited Howell Harris and George Whitefield to preach at these meetings.

Lady Huntingdon founded a religious society, called a “connexion,” which grew. She built her first regular chapel, in Brighton, by selling her jewels. She also built chapels in Bath, Bristol, and London to attract the upper classes.

She purchased vacant benefices (endowed church offices) and appointed evangelical clergy to them. She also exercised her right to appoint personal chaplains, which afforded legal protection for many “methodist” clergy, including Whitefield, who were harassed by British authorities.

In 1768, she established a seminary in Trevecca, Wales. Over her lifetime, when many parishes paid clergy 40 pounds a year, she donated over 100,000 pounds to the methodist cause. Never afraid of controversy, she engaged in heated discussions with John Wesley, Count Zinzendorf (the founder of the Moravians), and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lady Huntingdon’s impact on the evangelical movement was undeniable. When Whitefield saw her with many of her chaplains, he wrote, “She looks like a good archbishop with his

chaplains around him.” Because of official persecution, she and many of her chaplains were eventually forced to leave the Anglican communion and become dissenting ministers. She died in June 1791, but her connexion is still active today.

John Cennick (1718–1755) Sensational lay preacher

Though trained as a land surveyor and writing instructor, John Cennick once was asked to fill in for an absent preacher. He wrote, “I was naturally fearful of speaking before such a company, having never done such a thing as this.”

But when he preached, “tears fell from many eyes.” When he stood to preach again the next Sunday, 4,000 people gathered. Though never ordained, he soon became one of the top preachers of his day.

Cennick was born in Wales and converted at age 19. After he read a copy of Whitefield’s journal, he wrote, “My heart cleaved to him.” The next time Whitefield was in London, Cennick walked all night to get there: “I met my dear brother and fell on his neck and kissed him. Our communion was sweet, and I stayed with him several days.”

Whitefield soon asked Cennick to be headmaster of a school for coal-mining families. In 1744, Whitefield gave him charge of his Moorfields congregation and the Calvinist branch of methodism. The responsibilities proved too much, though, and coincided with a shift in theology. By late 1745, Cennick joined the Moravians and became a missionary to Ireland.

Before long, as one historian put it, “All walls and windows [of his meeting house] were covered with people, and Cennick had to go in at the window, creeping over the heads of the people to reach his pulpit.”

His days were consumed with traveling, and he endured beatings and arrests. Though ill much of the time, he preached up to 20 times a week. All told, he established in northern Ireland 40 societies and 10 Moravian churches. Finally, at age 36, his body could take no more.

Charles Wesley (1707–1788) Lost and found friend

One September morning in 1733, Charles Wesley violated Oxford conventions: He invited a poor servitor, George Whitefield, to breakfast. Servitors worked their way through college by running errands for students of higher social standing. Servitors were excluded from many college functions, even Communion.

Still, Charles was impressed with the “modest, pensive youth” who had keen spiritual interest. He invited Whitefield to the Holy Club, and thus began a lifelong, though interrupted, friendship. On Pentecost 1738, Wesley finally found “peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ.” Thereafter, he preached in homes and prisons. Whitefield urged Charles to join him in preaching outdoors. Wesley refused because of “the fear of man”—how it would look to his cultured friends. Then Whitefield simply informed him that the following Sunday, Charles would be taking his place at Moorfields.

Wrote Charles, “My inward conflict continued.” But “I prayed and went forth in the name of Jesus Christ. I found near ten thousand helpless sinners waiting for the Word.… The Lord was with me, even me, his meanest messenger.”

Charles’s passion, which caused him often to pray with strong cryings and tears, sometimes went to extremes. He consulted “the oracle,” opening the Bible at random for guidance.

Once, Charles was dining with John Cennick, Whitefield’s close associate, and began “to dispute about election.” Cennick wrote, “He fell into a violent passion and affrighted all at the table.… He called Calvin the firstborn son of the Devil, and set all his people into a bitter hatred of me.” As a result, Charles remained aloof from Whitefield for six or seven years. After 1749, he and Whitefield reconciled, addressing each other as “My old dear Friend.”

Charles is best known for his 5,500 hymns (some scholars say over 8,000), including “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”

Gilbert Tennent (1703–1764) American awakener

Upon hearing Gilbert Tennent preach, Whitefield wrote, “I never before heard such a searching sermon.… He has learned … to dissect the heart of a natural man. Hypocrites must either soon be converted or enraged at his preaching.” They were both.

Born in Ireland, Tennent graduated from Yale in 1725 and assumed a Presbyterian pastorate in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Impressed with the piety and fervor of Dutch Reformed minister Theodorus Frelinghuysen, Tennent became passionate leader of a minority in the Presbyterian church. When George Whitefield arrived in the Middle Colonies in 1739, he sought out Tennent. After Whitefield started an awakening in Boston, he insisted Tennent continue his work there.

The effect of Tennent’s preaching was perhaps as great as Whitefield’s—and just as controversial. One minister wrote, “[Then] came one Tennent, a minister impudent and saucy; and told them all they were damned, damned, damned! This charmed them; and in the dreadfullest winter I ever saw, people wallowed in the snow night and day for the benefit of his beastly braying.”

Soon Tennent preached The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, vividly portraying most ministers as plastered hypocrites. Its wide circulation contributed to a 1741 schism in the Presbyterian church, which lasted seventeen years.

In 1743 Tennent became pastor of Philadelphia’s Second Presbyterian Church. While continuing to support the Awakening, he eventually led in the reconciliation of his denomination, admitting he had contributed to the schism.

Married three times (his first two wives died), he fathered three children. He was originally buried beneath the middle aisle of his Philadelphia church.

Howell Harris (1714–1773) Dread-filled preacher

One frequent listener said of him, “He used to speak of hell as though he had been there himself.” And he himself said God filled his mouth “with terrors and threatenings. I was given a commission to rend and break sinners in the most dreadful manner.”

Such was the preaching of Howell Harris, the founder of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism.

As a young man in a Welsh working-class family, Harris was indifferent to religion. But at 21, he heard a vicar say, “If you are not fit to come to the Lord’s table, you are not fit to live, and you are not fit to die!” Harris wrote, “All my natural faculties were confounded in the shock.” After a period of inner turmoil, “I lost my burden; I went home leaping for joy!” Immediately he began sharing his experience, and in a few weeks his house overflowed with hearers. In the next few years, he founded 30 methodist societies—groups meeting to pray, study the Bible, and plan evangelism. Harris established his earliest societies, in fact, two years before John and Charles Wesley were converted.

Whitefield called Harris “a burning and shining light.” When they finally met, they agreed to preach in each other’s societies.

Harris’s furious preaching sometimes lasted four hours. His denunciations of clergy (“Many who wear the cloth … what good they do, I know not”) undermined his efforts to become ordained. Often his life was in peril: once a mob rushed him, swearing and throwing rocks, and once he was shot at.

Perhaps due to such pressures, Harris became paranoid. He also began associating with Mrs. Sidney Griffith, who left her drunken husband to move into Harris’s home (with Harris’s wife’s consent).

After Griffith died, Harris regained his mental poise. He preached two or three times a day and in 1752 began a kind of Protestant monastery that soon attracted about 150 people. Toward the end of his life, he apologized to evangelical leaders for his aberrant behavior, and he helped establish Lady Huntingdon’s seminary in lower Trevecca. The death of his wife greatly affected him, and he died soon after..

“The Gallery: Leaders of the Awakening Army,” George Whitefield: Christian History, issue 38, (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, Inc.), 1997. Used with permission.

Faith and Feelings What some great thinkers have said about the place of emotion in the Christian life

“About a quarter to nine, while [Martin Luther’s book] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” —John Wesley, pastor and theologian

“There are many dangers in false emotionalism, but that does not rule out true emotion and depth of feeling. Emotion may vary in religious experience. Some people are stoical and others are demonstrative, but the feeling will be there. There is going to be a tug at the heart.” —Billy Graham, evangelist

“Mankind will not act until they are excited.” —Charles G. Finney, evangelist

“Our emotional life is us in a way our intellectual life cannot be.” —John MacMurray, philosopher

“Fervency is not the prairie fire of undisciplined emotionalism; it is the blow-torch of purposeful Christian conviction.” —Paul S. Rees, pastor and author

“Unless there is some measure of emotional involvement on the part of the preacher and on the part of the hearer, the kerygma [message of the gospel] cannot be heard in its fullness, for the kerygma speaks to the whole man, emotion and all, and simply does not make sense to the intellect and will alone.” —Ian Pitt-Watson, professor of preaching

“Ecstasy is no guarantee of orthodoxy or that Christian fruit will result.” —Nathan O. Hatch, historian

“ ‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,’ not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. The world forgotten, and everything except God. He can only be found by the ways taught in the Gospels. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.” —Blaise Pascal, philosopher: notes taken during his conversion experience

“No natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.” —C. S. Lewis, professor of literature

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” —David, king of Israel