Explain what the Great Awakening was. Assess the extent to which the Great Awakening, an intensely religous movement, contributed to the development of the separation of church and state in America.The Great Awakening was one of the largest religous movements that put fear into the bellies of the people and brought them closer to their faith. Just before the time of the Great Awakening, which occured during the 1730s and 1740s, liberal ideas such as more scientific ideas and doubts on predestination along with the need for good works. What made this threatening to the Puritan Church was when Dutchman Jacobus Arminius preached that free will, not divine decree would judge a person's fate. This led to a large religous revival around the entire New England which was lead by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield. Edwards wrote 'Sinners in the Angry Hands of God,' which even though had a brutal story of hell and scared people, it brought them closer to God. George Whitfield took a more calm approach and used his magnificent voice to make the people of New England weep but repent their sins and go closer to the church. Even though the Puritan religion became more passionate about their religion, this led to a split between church and state.
Prior to the Great Awakening, Puritans basically ran almost every colony in New England. They enforced strict laws over the people such as Calvin did in Geneva. They also issued new lands to proprietors who were ready to start new towns. As time passed by and Puritans scattered to outlying towns, the Half Way covenant was issued which took away full communion, giving the people more civil liberties. Soon, people began to liberalize and so did government with ideas about more schools and universities. As soon as these ideas affected going to church, the Puritan leaders rebelled and brought the people back to normal, but there were still those who were very educated and did not want to go back to old times and government was one of those people. This is when the church and the government were separated from each other for good. This hardly happened before since in Europe, religion had a huge impact on government (Anglican in England or Catholocism in Spain and France). Without the Great Awakening, religion might still play a big part in how government decided affairs. There might not be religous toleration to the extent that it is today and minorities like Jews and Muslims might not be treated with the same respect that if the Great Awakening occured. The Great Awakening was the time when state had to move on to becomming independent from religion and that helped influence society today.
The Great Awakening was a very rousing and religious revival that brought the people back to the Puritan Church but it was the time when state had to move on. State was more focused on education and liberalizing instead of being brought back under the spell of Puritanism which caused the separation of church and state. Though this decreased their power over the colonies, the Puritans were able to work peacefully with the government in New England. This was great because today, the U.S. Government are tolerant to each and every religion out there. The Great Awakening could be just another reason why there isn't a crusade yet.
Thanks for making the effort to provide a thoughtful response. There are a few issues here, however. In particular, the emphasis on Puritans does not allow you to discuss the extent to which the G.A. was an event that swept across the colonies -- an early "mass movement." Also, the result was not at all to bring people back to the Puritan church. In your conclusion, you may be giving the G.A. a bit too much credit a the source of the existence of religous toleration today. It is, in fact, connected, as the toleration we experience IS because of the separation of Church and State, something the G.A. DID in fact contribute to the evolution of.
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