THE GREAT AWAKENING-something I hate doing

"Assess the extent the Great Awakening, an intensely religious movement, contributed to the development of the separation of Church and State in America"

I will do just that!

The Great Awakening was a religious revival in the 1730's and 1740's. It impacted places all over Colonial America and it intensified the people's religious fervor. People started to actually care more about religion then they had in the past. As "heretics" came about, such as Jacobus Arminius who preached free will saves you, not predestination, churches had to adapt and correct. Basically, it sapped all life out of the churches. It was extremely boring. Things needed changing. Then, Jonathon Edwards appears. He is a preacher who was very intense in his sermons. He wrote "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" as part of the Great Awakening. People copied him. Another preacher, George Whitefield, had his own style which persuaded Benjamin Franklin to give money! People were intoxicated with his sophisticated speaking and pronunciation and he enticed many people to the point that people would have, as I say, religious seizures. The Great Awakening, and it's new Light Centers, is the reason many colleges were formed, but it was also the first mass movement for Americans. It united us.

But how does this "Great Awakening" bring along separation of Church and State? The Great Awakening brought a "spiritual high" to many people. The idea that religion was a person's own spiritual thing came about. In order for someone to be very religious, it had to be very personal. Well, having the government involved in religious affairs was not very personal. People did not want the government to infect their very personal experience. Who would? So, as people began to be overwhelmed with the faith, they began wanting the religion to be personal, and so the split in Church and State formed. The government was losing control to the minister. But there was another factor.

The Great Awakening created many different denominations of religions. The churches had to compete with each other for membership. How would the government support so many different churches? They could not. As churches started forming, the government would eventually have to say no. They simply could not pay for all that religion. As the number of churches went up, the money that the government used on churches went up with it. The state could not keep up and just made 2 tax-supported churches: Anglican and Congregational. Eventually, it was too much and the Church and state were separated over a period of time. The personal and the financial reasons contributed a great deal to the separation of Church and state. Before the Great Awakening, church was very much woven into the government (shown in Salem). Afterwards, well, it was less. This would be very evident in about 50 years when the constitution was written allowing freedom of religion, by that, not controlled by the government. THe government is the Pontius Pilate that washed its hands of Jesus' outcome. Jesus being religious interference. The government left it alone.