Page 125 - American Stories, A History of the United States

4.1 Read the Document Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

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JoNaTHaN EdWardS the Reverend jonathan edwards (1703–1758) was an influential author and theologian
whose preaching contributed to the Great Awakening.

“shared enough with traditional African styles and beliefs such as spirit possession
and ecstatic expression . . . to allow for an interpenetration of African and Christian
religious beliefs.”
With religious contention came an awareness of a larger community, a union of
fellow believers that extended beyond the boundaries of town and colony. In fact, evan-
gelical religion was one of several forces at work during the mid-eighteenth century
that brought scattered colonists into contact with one another for the first time. In
this sense, the Great Awakening was a “national” event long before a nation actually
existed.
People who had been touched by the Great Awakening shared an optimism about
Quick Check the future of America. With God’s help, social and political progress was possible, and
What message did evangelical from this perspective, the New Lights did not sound much different than the mildly
ministers bring to ordinary rationalist American spokesmen of the Enlightenment. Both groups prepared the way
Americans?
for the development of a revolutionary mentality in colonial America.
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