THE SOCIAL AND COMMUNAL INDIVIDUAL

 

In the last posting, this blog left the reader with the claim that the First Great Awakening was not antagonistic toward federalist values, but if anything, was supportive of them in a parochial way.  One might question that claim in that the spiritual experience promoted by the Awakening was described as a personal, individual one; a person on a his/herself basis accepts God’s grace. 

This smacks of being individualistic and not communal as federal values emphasize.  But the outward manifestation of this process – acceptance of God’s grace – was very social and celebrated out in the open.  Here is how Allen Guelzo describes this,

 

The promotion of piety became [Jonathan] Edward’s particular burden in the 1730s, especially when, in 1734, “a very remarkable blessing of heaven” fell on Northampton.  In the Puritan past, the experience of religious conversion had been largely a matter of individual spiritual renewal, under the careful direction of pastors and family elders.  The novelty introduced by the awakeners of the 18^th century was to turn the experience of grace into a communal experience, a group revival of religion that could involve whole towns, sometimes entire regions … Not only the numbers [of participants], but the character of the revived was, Edwards said, “unprecedented.”  It involved, not only males and females alike, but children as young as four years, and outbursts of enthusiasm in worship.[1]

 

And this distinction between individualism in terms of one’s relationship to God and the communal essence of revivals should be unraveled a bit. 

Regarding this aspect of the individual – his or her religious commitment – it reflects more an aspect of federal theory that this blog tends to ignore.[2]  That is, federal theory, along with its emphasis on communality is equally concerned with what constitutes the individual’s integral self.  This blogger’s interpretation is that that individualism associated with Puritanical worship was not a promotion of self-interest, per se, but an attempt or actualization, in terms of the belief, to define one’s integrity. 

Federal theory holds as of equal importance with one’s federation with others that that associating be the product of one’s individual commitment.  In turn, that counts on a person establishing to him/herself, and to others, that person’s individual integrity and that includes his/her beliefs and priorities.  Those beliefs are that integral to who the person is.  Puritanical commitment to a bonding with God is so self-defining, it contributes self-awareness.  And along these lines, Edwards provided, through his written work, clarification as to what this self-identity means.

          In his best received philosophic work, Freedom of the Will, he takes on an Enlightenment argument that has profound implications on all Christian theology.  The subject of that argument is rooted all the way back to the ancient Greeks, more specifically the Stoics.  That is the argument that claims that all of reality is material, as opposed to spiritual, and that includes human behavior and the processes by which behavior is determined.  In a few words, it denies the existence of free will.  That argument was taken up by Thomas Hobbes and to a more moderate degree by John Locke.  During the mid-1700s, the concern over free will was an active topic of discussion.

          So threatening was this denial of free will, that even predestination Calvinists felt they had to come out against this anti free will position.  Edwards, through the use of logical claims, bridged the gap between the belief that God determines everything and the claim that people are free to behave as they choose, i.e., they have freedom or free will.  And by doing so, he provided the rationale that one could hold on to spiritualism and avoid devolving into materialism. 

In this, one should see Edwards not as an enemy of the Enlightenment, but one who respected the philosophic tradition that movement was establishing.  He, Edwards, did not rely on the scholastic model – based on biblical text – of rational thought, but built his claims on psychological arguments.  And in that, he relegated the sole attractiveness of reason and nature – that Enlightened thinkers held – as being superficial.

          What was needed to enrich pure reason was the incorporation of emotions.  What Puritanical thought – especially among awakeners – argued for was to upgrade what one believed to what one might describe as a conversion of the heart.  In that effort, Edwards is a rare thinker who was able to generate a creative fusion between the Enlightenment and piety (or stated another way, coalescing reason and un-reflected beliefs).[3]

          Despite the work of such leaders as Edwards, and on another front, the Great Awakening did cause conflicts among religious communities.  These became serious.  The outbreak of schisms became somewhat common.  Usually, these pitted supporters of revivalist groups, “New Lights,” and those offended by these newer upstarts, “Old Lights” against each other.  The more established leaning believers saw New Lights as disruptive, over emotional, and non-anchored, i.e., being ministered by traveling preachers.  This all seemed to Old Lights as upsetting the established order in their churches, that they wished to preserve. 

In response, it became common for the established church goers to categorize revivalists as ignorant, unruly (needlessly attacking the orthodoxy of their beliefs), and/or, more cynically, out and out con artists.  In return, New Lights attacked the establishment church goers as overconcern with their statuses and with not having enough concern for the welfare of the souls of their church members. 

In terms of their reliance on traveling preachers, New Lights seemed to hold with little regard the territorial allocation that ministers honored among themselves – one minister had an area to minister to and avoided transgressing into their neighboring ministers’ areas.[4] 

Overall, the area that experienced the highest incidences of these schisms was New England and given those colonies’ association with Puritanism, this was not surprising. A denomination that experienced increased membership from these events was the Baptists especially in New England. [5]

To reiterate, this is not meant to be an exhaustive review of the First Great Awakening and its theological positions.  This blogger is attempting to sypher out those elements of the movement he feels had a political effect on colonial Americans and to give an overall description of those elements.  The next posting will review the social impact it had on woman and African Americans of that time.  These two groups and their social statuses changed as a result of the First Great Awakening. 

While the separate effects of this religious movement varied in their influences, the main goal here is to outline which effects strengthened or weakened how people held onto federalist values of that time.  In doing so, this blog will highlight how religion affected political thinking and its related values.  It will point out, as matter of course, that federalism focuses on two levels of the human experience:  on the humanness of the individual as he/she chooses to federate under communal bonds.

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[1] Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I – transcript books – (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005), 55.

[2] The reason for this bias has to do with this blogger seeing the main challenge to federalist thinking is self-centered behavior by Americans.  This is usually addressed as being a product of the prevalence of the natural rights construct.

[3] Guelzo, The American Mind..

[4] Howard John Smith, The First Great Awakening:  Redefining Religion in British America, 1725-1775 (Vancouver, British Columbia:  Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015), this source addresses the First Great Awakening as a legitimate movement AND Thomas S. Kidd, The Great Awakening:  The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2007).

[5] Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People – 2^nd ed. (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1972).

A REACTION

 

As this blog continues the story of the political culture in America and how it either promoted or discouraged a federated view among its people, the next chapter concerns a great reaction.  The First Great Awakening, beginning roughly in the late 1720s – with a definite presence in the 1730s – can mostly be seen as a reaction.  That reaction was to the Enlightenment.  But as was the case with most other movements in America of that time, its origins can be traced to Europe.

          As this posting will describe below, religious Protestants and some Catholics found the secular arguments of Enlightened thinkers as being either blasphemous to God or out and out mistaken.  In the United Kingdom, the reaction took on the name Evangelical Revival.  In America, the term American evangelicalism was used to denote a trans-denominational reaction constituting this Great Awakening.  And this thrust was aimed not at a group level of focus, but at the personal – individual – level.

          Commentary here is limited to the Awakening’s effects on the political culture of the colonists.  The messaging by such leaders of the movement as George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards centered on having believers look introspectively at their morality.  What they called for was a personal conviction and how each is dependent on salvation secured by Jesus’ sacrifice.  They rebelled directly to Enlightened thinking and its view of objectifying reality or what was believed to be reality. 

Instead, these Revivalists emphasized a conversion not based so much on intellectual acceptance, but on a “new birth” which one experiences in the heart.  This appealed to those who looked at the importance of having an emotional commitment.  This placed a heightened emphasis on the practice of revivals – open demonstrations of emotional commitments.  And by doing so, it appealed to common folks not privileged to have higher educational experiences.  So, for example, in England, evangelical Anglicans took on prominence within the Church of England.  There were contingencies within Methodism (influenced by the work of Whitefield and Wesley).  Denominations not so affect were Lutherans and initially Quakers.[1]

Another point of note in terms of the developments in England was certain retention of what this blog has described as basic Puritanical beliefs.  The evangelistic move, in effect, meant increased pastoral or spiritual guidance by church ministers.  This led to appointing or naming non ministers to take on these responsibilities.  It also meant an increased effort to seek out those shunted by the established Church of England, democratizing these religious concerns.  Part of the message was that Christianity was also meant for the “neglected.”

More specifically, Methodist congregations or societies arranged themselves around “classes.”  Those were meetings in which individual attendees were urged to confess their transgressions to others and, by doing so, the aim was to bolster each other.  In addition, meetings would conduct “love feasts” in which practitioners shared testimonies.  This had the effect among many to develop an associated identity – a federal aim.  Here, the Methodists proclaimed three beliefs:

1.    People are, by their nature, “dead in sin.”

2.    Only faith can “justify” them.

3.    The faithful exhibit, both inwardly and outwardly, holiness.[2]

This might remind the reader of Puritanical beliefs (TULIP) in that it is not good works that merit a heavenly reward, but in this case faith – in the case of Puritans it was being chosen by God.

          So, what did this movement find when it first hit the colonies?  The Great Awakening found a willing public but a diverse audience.  As this blog has already established, the New England colonies had adopted a Puritanical, congregational view.  The middle colonies, being more tolerant, had established a more diverse religious landscape populated by Quakers, Dutch Reformers, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and Baptists.  They were all treated equally by law and conducted their services openly.  And in the Southern colonies, one found an official Anglican church, but also a good number of Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians.[3] 

But it has also been recorded that at that time a general low level of church membership was prevalent due to population growth – high immigration – and the effects of the Enlightenment.  Many, especially among the higher educated, turned to atheism, Deism, or Unitarianism, this last belief rejected the trinity (belief in the three-person God) and predestination.  This state of affairs, of course, stirred a reaction by those attending established churches.

That reaction took on the revivalist ideas described above.  Led by New England Puritans, Scots Irish Presbyterians, along with a belief in European Pietism, the faithful took on the messaging of revival and piety which was making their way across the Atlantic.  The result was an American version of evangelical Protestantism.  This placed an emphasis “on seasons of revival, or outpourings of the Holy Spirit, and on converted sinners experiencing God’s love personally.”[4] 

Some of these activities can be traced in New England to the 1710s.  But given the limited means of spreading the “good news,” such activities were limited in New England to local occurrences.  Interestingly, an earthquake and the ensuing “press” coverage led to the dissemination of these practices beyond local churches.  And with the “importation” of European developments, the Great Awakening took off in America.

For readers who might be interested in these developments, they might look up the work of a couple of early ministers.  They are Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen and William Tennent.  The first, ascribed by some as the “father” of America’s version of the Great Awakening, influenced the second who argued that one needed a definite personal conversion to a faith experience followed up by an “assurance of salvation” which was necessary to claim one’s Christianity. 

Through Tennent’s efforts, one finds the ideas of the Great Awakening making their way to the New Jersey/New York area[5] and one cannot deny how this would affect political ideals of Americans in general.  The next posting will continue in this vein.  To this point, though, one can but identify that these developments had no to little effect on how Americans felt about their federated values – if anything, they were strengthened but in a parochial way.

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[1] Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People – 2^nd ed. (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1972).

[2] Alan Taylor, American Colonies:  The Settling of North America (New York, NY:  Penguin Books, 2001).

[3] Howard John Smith, The First Great Awakening:  Redefining Religion in British America, 1725-1775 (Madison, NJ:  Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015).

[4] Thomas S. Kidd, The Great Awakening:  The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2007), xiv.

[5] Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People.