In August 2012, several Sikh worshippers were shot to death by a white man in Wisconsin. This reflects that there is a need to increase empathy among religious communities in America (Kaur)
These waves have coincided with increases in economic prosperity and materialism that have caused people to view religion with less interest. It began in the 1930s as disunited attempts at religious revival and in the 1940s had matured into "the remarkable Revival of Religion" (Lambert, p
The most recent example of the damaging effect of human greed in modern times is the 2007 global economic crisis that originated from overextending credit in the American housing sector. This was a belief in trying to create more wealth by making decisions based on greed in the face of great risk (Shah)
Ben Franklin wrote of George Whitefield: He was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches; but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon refus'd him their pulpits, and he was oblig'd to preach in the fields. The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers (Brannan 1998)
These preachers heavily stressed that an individual's salvation experience was of greater value than official church sanction. These preachers claimed that all people of faith were equal in God's eyes, a direct refutation of the Congregationalist idea that God bestowed favor upon man in life as well as in Heaven (Kidd 2007)
Up to that time, a Congregational minister was a kind of public employee. His responsibility was to be the town's spiritual leader, "He guided his parishioners as a shepherd tended his flock, functioning as a symbol and focus of religious purpose within his community (Kirsch 1980)
The established plutocrats found the new religious movements threatening, and thereby controversial. This paper seeks to address the Great Awakening as a controversy between the existing, moneyed classes and the "local traders, artisans and the laboring poor (McCormick 2007)
One of the most threatening elements in the Baptist religion to the reigning landowners was that Baptists accepted slaves and freed blacks into their fold. As a result, Baptism also questioned the ethical reasoning behind slavery, which was threatening to the core of Virginian society (Scruple 1810)
In the previous, Calvinist and Puritan-dominated ethos in Virginia, religious rectitude was demonstrated by honor, display and wealth. Since the lower classes could not compete with these parishioners, they reached for a different kind of expression of piety and religious belief, which included loud professions of faith, rapture, and devoted following of effective religious teacher (Spangler 2001)
was not able to observe them. There had also prevailed in the town a spirit of contention between two parties, into which they had for many years been divided, by which was maintained a jealousy one of the other (Thompson 1861)
In 1737 the revival declined in the area and the congregation fired him, but The Great Awakening had already begun to spread. Edwards' most influential sermon and also considered the most famous sermon in American history was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in which he expounds God's judgment on sinners and then offers salvation to those who repent (Prescott)
The basic assumption was faith in the power of human reason. If it was possible to discover the God's universe's laws (as Issac Newton discovery of universal gravitation) then humanity could also discover the laws of nature and society (Tackett)