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Episode 12 – Awakening

A Great Awakening spread throughout British North America from the 1730s-1790s. It was this ember, reignited by God that plowed the fallow ground and birthed a nation.

Join me and learn about two names involved in that move of God and examine the after effects.

https://landmarks.podbean.com/e/awakening/

George Whitefield b1714-d1770

“He believed that every truly religious person needs to experience a rebirth in Jesus; aside from this, he cared little for distinctions of denomination or geography. He played a leading part in the Great Awakening of religious life in the British American colonies and in the early Methodist movement.”

https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Whitefield

He was accused by the establishment of being emotional and demonstrative, of aliterate of the subject (Bible). A wonderful example of his message was the use of a conversation between Father Abraham and himself.

Father Abraham, whom have you in heaven? Any Episcopalians?
No!
Any Presbyterians?
No!
Any Independents or Methodists?
No, No, No!
Whom have you there?
We don’t know those names here. All who are here are Christians…
Oh, is this the case? The God help us to forget your party names and to become Christians in deed and truth.

As in all cases, read the first person, primary sources for yourself. Here are two Whitefield sermons for your review. Repentance and Conversion and The Duty of Searching the Scriptures. Also an excellent Jonathon Edwards sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. This sermon is from the Yale University archive, how far has the fruit devolved from it’s original creation.

Other resources on the Great Awakening and it’s impact on British North America are from Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: the Bible and the American Revolution by James P Bryd, Assistant Professor of American Religious History and Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Research at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. Also American Insurgents, American Patriots: the Revolution of the People by T. H. Breen, the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University. Both are interesting and informative using first person accounts contemporary to the Awakening and War. The links take you to AbeBooks where you may find new and used copies.