In his chapter on the religious revivals that transpired in British colonial America during the eighteenth century, Taylor debunks the popular myth that North America was colonized solely for the purposes of religious freedom. Aside from the Quakers, who genuinely sought a plurality of religions in the colonies, the majority of the colonists who settled North America intended to replicate the homogenous religious atmosphere that dominated England during this time period (339). He explains that every region of colonial America was peppered with different congregations, each competing for religious dominance. The Congregationalists primarily dominated New England, the Anglicans largely controlled the South, while the Quakers and the Presbyterians composed the largest denominations of the Protestant faith in the middle colonies (342).<\/p>\n
As the author of \u201cReligious Awakening in the Colonies\u201d astutely notes, religion in the colonies was far more complex than numerous denominational divisions. In addition, each congregation was internally divided between rationalists and evangelicals. The rationalists rejected the traditional foundations of Christianity, opting instead to focus their faith on science. They believed that God never interfered with the laws of the natural universe since he had created it. Therefore, rationalists believed epidemics and natural disasters to be \u201cnatural\u201d instead of interpreting them as divine anger. Additionally, rationalists preached eternal salvation through good behavior (344 \u2013 345). Evangelicals, on the other hand, believed eternal salvation could only be attained through God\u2019s grace. The evangelicals emphasized emotions and individualism, disturbing listeners with images of terror during their sermons to remind them of \u201ctheir impending and eternal sentence in hell.\u201d They balanced these depictions however, with images of eternal joy in heaven. The purpose of these \u201crevivals\u201d was to get their listeners to surrender to God and ultimately feel the exhilaration of God\u2019s saving grace (345). Known as the Great Awakening, these series of revivals were led by prominent religious figures such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Gilbert Tennents.<\/p>\n
The evangelicals would eventually be referred to as the New Lights while their opponents \u2013 those who dismissed the emotional sermons of the evangelicals and defended the traditional foundations of the Christian faith \u2013 became known as the Old Lights (351). In addition to this divide, the evangelicals split into moderates and radicals. The moderates rejected the radicals\u2019 belief in the free flow of divine grace and attack on the establishment of the Christian church. They accepted evangelical preaching, conversions, and most of the professional clergy who supported the revivals, but denounced the emotional outbursts of the poorly educated exhorters in order to maintain their own power and authority in colonial society (353). Overall, I enjoyed and favorably received Taylor\u2019s take on the Great Awakening. His account thoroughly dissected the religious complexity of colonial America that is noticeably absent from traditional American history texts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his chapter on the religious revivals that transpired in British colonial America during the eighteenth century, Taylor debunks the popular myth that North America was colonized solely for the purposes of religious freedom. Aside from the Quakers, who genuinely sought a plurality of religions in the colonies, the majority of the colonists who settled … <\/p>\n