The Great Awakening: contributions to the separation of Church and State

The Great Awakening was an extremely large religious movement in American history. At this time (the early eighteenth century), many of the American churches were sagging under the effects of liberal ideas, such as free will, rather than predestiny, determined a man's eternal fate. To counter this, Jonathan Edwards, a preacher from Northampton, MA, proclaimed and affirmed the need for complete dependence on God's grace rather than good works. This started off a domino effect that led to the Great Awakening. In the end, the Great Awakening even contributed to the separation of church and state.

The GA contributed to the separation through the work of one itinerant English parson, George Whitefield. Whitefield had the amazing gift of speech that enthralled every individual who listened to his sermons. Through his speech, people began to have personalized religious experiences unique to themselves. Because of this, people began to view religion as something to be protected by the meddling of bureaucracy. With the protection from politics, the separation was beginning to occur.

Thanks to Jonathan Edwards, the revitalization of religion began through the GA. Thanks to George Whitefield, parishioners began having individual experiences. And thanks to the uniqueness of experiences, religion began to be protected from politics, causing the separation of Church and State.