Postition Paper

In the early 1700's spiritual revivalism spread rapidly through the colonies. This led to colonists changing their beliefs on religion. The great awakening was the level to which the revivalism spread through the colonists. Even with this, there was still religious revivalism in the colonies. One major reason for the Great Awakening was that it was not too long before the revolution. The great awakening is reason to believe that William G Mcloughlin's opinion and this shows that there was a cause to the American Revolution.

Even with this, there were still religious arguments." No one doubts that the Americans were basically very religious people." This is how William G. McLoughlin, starts off his argument saying that America basically wanted to be a nation of Christians, McLoughlin also believes that a religious movement like the Great Awakening could not avoid having assumptions that worry the right and wrong ways in which power and authority can be used in a certain way. As he starts to get into his argument, he says after understanding the anthropological definition of religion, it will become a lot more easier for one to understand why the Great Awakening was so important and why it had such an impact on the American Revolution. For example He describes certain things like how the town meetings had quarrelsome affairs and they frequently had become a part of affairs that had to be solved within the town or city, because the local judicial and political systems could not. This could have or maybe led to some corruption because of the British not helping to solve the problems of the English colonists and led to the English showing they were not capable of running such a place like their own colony by themselves. Afterward in his argument, McLoughlin writes" As the opinion (the great awakening) spread after 1742 throughout the colonies, many came to believe that Americans could not effectively fulfill this mission so long as they were tied to a corrupt, oppressive, and tyrannical monarch and Parliament in England " The general effect of this Great Awakening had the outcome that the colonies were able to develop a new kind of neocolonial unity. This could have also been part of the resistance to the laws and such if the British. Lastly, McLoughlin says that the revolution in a way can be described as the political revitalization of a people whose religious regeneration began in the Great Awakening. This shows that yes there was the effect of the Great Awakening that had led to the starting of the American Revolution. The author of "Enthusiasm described and decried" Jon Butler believes that there was no evidence that proved that the Great Awakening Actually played a part in the American Revolution. Butler also sees that the Connecticut New Lights and the Pennsylvania Presbyterians taking part in the colonial protests did not really have or show any affect that can be related to the rivals themselves playing any part in the starting of the American Revolution in any important way. Last but not least he believes that the connection between the two concepts of the revivals and the American Revolution is virtually no existent to a person like himself and others.

Butler believes that the Great Awakening only persisting through the 18th century is obvious that the so called revivals "swept" through certain parts of the mainland colonies not what McLoughlin says when he says that it had spread through them all. He also thinks that the revivals democratized the relations between