Let’s Start a Revolution

Synopsis: Tensions increased throughout the colonies until the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776.

Let’s Start a Revolution part 1

Reason and Religion

The period known as the “Enlightenment” in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the development of new ideas scientific thought as well as about the rights of people and their relationship to their rulers.

This intellectual movement had worked its way into the minds of the American people. Enlightenment ideas traveled to the colonies through books. Literacy was high in New England because Puritans supported public education so that everyone could read the Bible.

Although the Puritans influence on the New England Colonies had dwindled, a new religious movement had begun. This movement led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield would become known as “The Great Awakening”.

The emphatic style and methods of preaching in this movement was designed to help people break away from the boring church services they had grown accustomed to and spark interest in their faith and relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Despite the persecution of evangelical preachers in Virginia, The Great Awakening’s effects in the colony would result in the end of the state’s establishment of religion.

The Great Awakening taught people to question traditional authority. It emphasized reason by asking people to think for themselves, and deemphasized the role of Church authority.

The combination of the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening would help provide the intellectual courage that would inspire the colonies to break away from Britain.