The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America

What was the nature of the Great Awakening and how has it shaped history, particularly the story of evangelicalism, in America? Thomas Kidd, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, seeks to address this issue in his book. Kidd is uniquely qualified to explore his topic. Apart from his scholarly acumen, he says in his university bio, "My research interests are in eighteenth-century North America, particularly the history of evangelicalism." Kidd has written extensively on American colonial history, with books on important individuals (Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and George Whitfield) and important movements (the Great Awakening, Baptist History, and the relation of religion to the American Revolution). Kidd’s work has been widely reviewed, and he has written articles in many scholarly journals. His careful scholarship is consistently highlighted in reviews of his work, particularly his attention to original sources. The level of detail he has included in a book covering such a large topic and time period is stunning.Kidd’s scholarship is unquestioned, but his approach to the Great Awakening is not without its detractors, some of whom he answers within the pages of this book. The Great Awakening, in Kidd’s view, was not a localized and brief revival which is well-known because of the widespread publicity given to it by its supporters. Instead, the Great Awakening was an authentic spiritual movement with roots in the 17th century and roots on both sides of the Atlantic. It was not a regional work confined to New England. It was not a brief movement of the early 1740’s but spanned decades. The experiences of individuals were too widespread, the spiritual activity too intense, to confine the Great Awakening to a brief time and a limited area, or worse, to write the Great Awakening off as a fiction. Kidd’s narrative history of the Great Awakening makes a strong case that the Great Awakening was a sustained move of God across North America, from Nova Scotia to Georgia.Evaluation of the BookThe greatest strength of Kidd’s work is found in its breadth and detail. “By allowing the voices of revivalists and their opponents to speak for themselves, he tells a story of the eighteenth-century revivals that is both familiar in its general outline and rich in new detail.” Kidd has not just produced an account of the Great Awakening which limits its scope to 1740’s New England, he has convincingly shown that the movement was widespread geographically and chronologically. His means of demonstrating the breadth of the movement in time and place is the great detail of his narrative, in which he relates countless personal stories, correspondence, and events from the Awakening. The scope of detail Kidd produces forms the cornerstone of his argument for the sustained widespread nature of the Awakening. Kidd shows how the Awakening affected every class of person, from male to female, wealthy to poor, educated to uneducated, to the Native American, even to African-American slaves.Kidd also makes an important contribution to the discussion of the Great Awakening by moving from the language of “Old Lights” and “New Lights” to a tripartite description of approaches to the Great Awakening. His categories of anti-revivalist, moderate evangelical, and radical evangelical are helpful to understanding the whole time period of the Great Awakening. Kidd ably demonstrates the distinctions between the moderates and radicals and shows how these distinctions were often a distraction and sometimes the cause of disunity among those who supported the revivals.A third strength of the book is its focus on marginalized groups and lesser-known figures. We know the major figures like Whitefield and Edwards and Gilbert Tennent. But Kidd’s book exposes us to other figures who profoundly shaped the Awakenings, like the faithful pastors who carried on in local churches in the wake of Whitefield’s ministry. By focusing entire chapters on the effect of the Awakenings on African-Americans and Native Americans, Kidd brings attention to the work of God among populations whose stories are not as well documented as the stories of whites in the 1700’s. Similarly, by highlighting the role of women in the Awakenings, Kidd points to a group that was instrumental to the success of the Awakenings (women often were at the center of the spiritual experiences that have been documented) but lived in a time when most of the narratives of the times centered on men.At the same time attention is given to the marginalized, Kidd is also to be commended for not pushing key figures to the margins. The importance of George Whitefield to the Awakening is hard to overstate, and Kidd rightly gives him significant attention in the book. In addition, other key figures like Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, and James Davenport are given significant portions in the narrative. Kidd also seems attuned to pointing out the place of other figures in the Great Awakening who are well-known outside of the Awakening itself, like David Brainerd and Phyliss Wheatly. Kidd’s treatment of the connection between the Awakening and the American Revolution is enlightening and compelling. Kidd importantly shows how evangelicals did not have a uniform response to the Revolution. The Revolution revealed fault lines between the three types of evangelicals that persist into the present day. Ultimately, when it comes to the Great Awakening in connection to the American Revolution, Kidd says there is no direct connection, only that the seeds of liberty were planted in the cultural upheaval that came with the Awakening.In the end, this book ably answers the charge that the Great Awakening was an “interpretive fiction.” By linking the stories of leading figures in the Awakening together, while at the same time showing the common characteristics of revival over a wide area and a long time, Kidd shows that something special did happen in the religious life of Christians in America in the 1700’s, which can be properly understood as an authentic work of God.However, whether the concept of a Great Awakening is valid is a debate that will likely continue to rage among scholars. Indeed, the breadth of Kidd’s account which is such a strength of the book, is also a weakness in that it seems to level out the revival movements such that any coherent idea of a Great Awakening is lost. This is the chief criticism of Chamberlain, when she writes, “Kidd's expansive definition of the "Great Awakening" effectively eliminates the usefulness of the concept.” While Kidd helpfully points out connecting threads between the First and Second Great Awakenings, his contention that the Second Great Awakening is not a reality, but is really just an expansion of the First Great Awakening, casts doubt on whether we can meaningfully think of the movements of the 1700’s as unified in any way. That there were widespread spiritual movements in the Colonies in 18th century America Kidd has convincingly shown. How these movements relate to one another is less clear. My conclusion is that the Great Awakening is best defined as a special work of God in 1740’s New England and the Middle Colonies with revivals in other regions springing directly from those who had been affected by the earlier Awakening. In this construct, the time frame of the Awakening is more limited than that which Kidd posits, but the effects of the revival are not limited.While the nature of the Great Awakening is a matter of debate, Kidd’s contention that the Great Awakening is largely responsible for the burgeoning evangelicalism evident in America even today seems less debatable. I do indeed see the “roots of evangelical Christianity” in the Great Awakening. J. Douglas Hankins sees Kidd’s thesis as being “that the First Great Awakening, although generally believed to be placed within the 1740 to 1743 time frame, was part of a much larger and longer lasting effort on the part of Evangelicals to see the colonies come to repentance through covenant renewals, working of the Holy Spirit, conversion of ministers, and revival in congregations.” The results of the revivals fit very well with David Bebbington’s well-known four-fold definition of evangelicalism: conversionism, activism, Biblicism, and crucicentrism.The Importance of The Great Awakening for Today’s ChurchEvangelicalism today is a movement in search of itself. Is it characterized by the Young, Restless and Reformed? Are progressive Christians part of the fold? What of the explosive Charismatic movement? Can Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Jim Wallis both be rightly called evangelicals? The website Patheos, a clearinghouse for religious blogs, has an evangelical tab. Within that tab there are wildly divergent personalities, approaches to ministry and theological positions. At times it feels like the term evangelical has lost all meaning. Kidd’s book may help us regain some confidence in calling ourselves evangelicals if we remember its roots in the Great Awakening. Perhaps a return to an emphasis on conversion and on the expectant reality of God’s moving would breathe fresh life into a well-worn term. At the same time, Kidd shows us that factions have always been present within evangelicalism and that there have always been multiple reasons for those factions. Where certain items are emphasized and others diminished, a distinct approach to life and ministry will emerge. And just as in the days of Davenport and Chauncy, it is tempting to denounce those who name the name of Christ but take a different approach to living for Him. It is easy to write off those who do not think like us or feel like us or act like us. While we should be wary of false teaching, we should also avoid foolish controversy. At times, the revivalists of the 1700’s veered into foolish controversy, even as other times saw them face down issues of critical importance. We must learn from them and ask God for deep discernment. In our country, there is far too much splintering among evangelicals, as we identify more with our churches or theological emphases than with our allegiance to Christ. The tribalism of our day may be helped by a return to first principles like those laid out by Bebbington and affirmed by Kidd and modeled by many of the leading figures of the Awakening.Kidd’s book is important as well because it reminds us that the culture and the leaders of the Awakening had blind spots, and so do we. Will we as evangelicals be aware of and willing to acknowledge and address areas of blindness when they are revealed, or will we become defensive and reactionary? Will we find ways to come to agreement and engagement, or will we break off into groups, as with the radicals and moderates in the 18th century?Finally, Kidd’s book should put to rest the idea that the Great Awakening was an “interpretive fiction.” Regardless of how one might define the extent of the Awakening or how one might choose to label it, Kidd leaves little doubt that there was a substantive and lasting spiritual renewal in the Colonies in the 18th century. As the Church in the first half of the 21st century, might we not cry out to God, “O Lord, revive us again”? Reading the story of the First Great Awakening should stoke the desire of every believer for a similar move in our day. May we have the wisdom to welcome the winds of revival in our time.

I really give this book 3 and a half stars. Although this is an informative account of the Great Awakening, I cannot wholly endorse it. While Kidd is a great scholar, the book suffers from several things. Before I discuss those, let me first say that Kidd does a good job of surveying source materials for the Great Awakening and we learn a great deal about many of the American participants in the revival. He evenly treats the revival's impact across the colonies without undo focus on New England, as is sometimes the case. He also shows the connection of the revival to the American Revolution and many subsequent developments such as the rise of Baptists in the south and the impact of the revival on African and Native Americans. I like the fact that he shows how the revival demonstrated some of the first attempts at addressing the abolition of slavery in the American colonies (It is of interest that the parallel Awakening in England directly led to the abolition of slavery there thru the efforts of William Wilberforce and others).Having said that, here are three problems I had with Kidd's analysis. First of all, perhaps because the book is strictly a scholarly treatment, he does not capture the marvelous aura of the revival and what a remarkable work it was. While his writing was not necessarily dry, it was not exactly inspiring either. I am not of the opinion that works of historical scholarship have to be dry and uninspiring, even for a specialized audience. Furthermore, although Kidd claims an Evangelical faith, he tends to treat the revival strictly as a human work with some strange phenomena that is not easily explained. As a Christian, I believe the main thrust of the revival was a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon a nation whose spiritual condition was in serious declension. Kidd fails to capture this reality. Unfortunately, I believe he falls into the category of many Evangelical historians who tend to ignore divinely providential explanations of history in favor of strictly human ones. This is one era of history where that simply doesn't work. There are too many remarkable coincidences and phenomena that cannot be adequately explained apart from divine intervention. But of course this approach to history does not sit well in the secular dominated Academy and this is the milieu out of which Kidd operates. As a Christian I believe this skews the whole enterprise of historiography. If God is the God He has revealed Himself to be in the Bible, a Christian historian must recognize His providential control and purposes in history or risk misinterpreting history as something merely anthropocentric.Secondly, I felt like Kidd focused too much on the strange and extreme aberrations of the Awakening - i.e. the 'enthusiastical/ fanatical' aspects that tended to sour the Awakening. Reading his account, you almost get the impression that the Awakening was marked primarily by religious hysteria. While such things prevailed in some quarters, I feel as though Kidd gives the impression they represented the main thrust of what was happening. He also provides woefully inadequate treatment of Jonathan Edwards' reasoned response to such extremes. Edwards was the preeminent leader and shaper of the interpretation of the revival's impact which had a profound influence on subsequent Evangelical history. Kidd underplays this important reality. If this is the only book you read on the Awakening you might walk away thinking it was a period of a great deal of uncontrolled religious hype and foolishness. In fact, I think Kidd fails to demonstrate how the Awakening birthed modern Evangelicalism.This leads to my third criticism. Kidd fails to place the revival in its broader context. I realize he is narrowly focused upon the revival as it unfolded in the American colonies, but this is short-sighted. The revival in America was intricately tied to similar events in Great Britain, with simultaneous awakenings in England, Wales, Scotland and to some extent, Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the role of the Moravians (Germany) was instrumental in what took place both in America and Great Britain. These things receive little or no notice. Although much is said about George Whitefiled in America, we learn little of other key leaders like Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland in Wales; James Robe and William McCulloch in Scotland; and other leaders like the Countess of Huntingdon in England. John Wesley is given some mention, but his role in the broader Awakening is underplayed. In this regard, Mark Noll's book, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (History of Evangelicalism Series)  does a better job of drawing these connections. Furthermore, it is much more readable than Kidd's book, probably because it is addressed to a general audience. Also, Noll makes a better case for how the Awakening shaped modern Evangelicalism.I don't dismiss Kidd's work altogether because much is learned here that is not readily available elsewhere and he does draw some important insights into the revival. But I would compliment his treatment with Noll's book. I also highly recommend an older work on the Awakening, A. Skevington Wood's  The Inextinguishable Blaze: Spiritual Renewal and Advance in the Eighteenth Century (Advance of Christianity Thorugh the Centuries) . Wood is an older Wesleyan scholar whose book focuses mainly on the Evangelical Revival as it is called in Great Britain, particularly England. But he also does a good job of showing the broader context to what was happening elsewhere that Kidd does not. What I also like about Wood is that although his treatment makes use of the scholarly sources available at the time (1960), his narrative of events is warm, inspiring and not afraid to demonstrate that the revival was largely a work of the Holy Spirit. He combines scholarship with a pietistic fervor for the sort of revival fires he describes. As a Christian, he views history as something God orchestrates and thus it serves to encourage Christians by its examples for our spiritual edification and not for mere historical interest or intellectual reflection. I had hoped Kidd's work would have done the same. Sadly, it did not. It left more of a bad impression about the Awakening and that is very unfortunate, because in spite of some of its unhappy excesses, it was a wonderful work of God that is sorely needed again in our time. O God, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us again!

You're not going to read this book for entertainment. You're going to read it for the impressive detail and historical breadth. I appreciate the way he has written the book with chapters divided by subject, then chronology, rather than chronology first.

Kidd is a great historian and this work is wide-ranging, esp in treating various groups caught up in the great awakening. Also, he nuances the often overly simplistic approach to the awakening of old vs new light debate and shows there is more of a spectrum.

Kidd's scholarly side shows itself in this concise, clear, and historically honest work on the Great Awakening. If you want a more robust view of Christianity in American History, this book is a great start.

Comprehensive research on the Great Awakening. One of the most indepth I've been able to find. It greatly helped me in my Masters of History Program.

My interest in early American history as it relates to God in the midst is at the top of my reading lists.

The index and textual notes are NOT hyperlinked, and the text is only measured by location (not page). So not only is it more complicated/difficult to use the index or check the endnotes than in the physical book edition, anything a researcher might want to use needs to be found in a print edition to determine page number, because references/citations require page number. And if you will need to check the printed book, anyway, why buy the electronic book?