page_title: Evangelicalism in the United States
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: Evangelicalism in the United States / History / 18th century
context_page_description: In the United States, evangelicalism is a set of spiritual principles practiced by Protestant Christians who believe in the necessity of being born again, emphasize the importance of evangelism, and affirm traditional Protestant teachings on the authority as well as the historicity of the Bible. Comprising nearly a quarter of the US population, evangelicals are diverse group drawn from a variety of denominational backgrounds, including Baptist, Mennonite, Methodist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Reformed and nondenominational churches.
  Evangelicalism has played an important role in shaping American religion and culture. The First Great Awakening of the 18th century marked the rise of evangelical religion in colonial America. As the revival spread throughout the Thirteen Colonies, evangelicalism united Americans around a common faith. The Second Great Awakening of the 19th century led to what historian Martin Marty called the "Evangelical Empire", a period in which evangelicals dominated US cultural institutions, including schools and universities. Evangelicals in the northern United States were strong advocates of reform.
context_section_description: The roots of American evangelicalism lie in the merger of three older Protestant traditions: New England Puritanism, Continental Pietism and Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism. Within their Congregational churches, Puritans promoted experimental or experiential religion, arguing that saving faith required an inward transformation. This led Puritans to demand evidence of a conversion experience (in the form of a conversion narrative) before a convert was admitted to full church membership. In the 1670s and 1680s, Puritan clergy began to promote religious revival in response to a perceived decline in religiosity. The Ulster Scots who immigrated to the American colonies in the 1700s brought with them their own revival tradition, specifically the practice of communion seasons. Pietism was a movement within the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Europe that emphasized a "religion of the heart": the ideal that faith was not simply acceptance of propositional truth but was an emotional "commitment of one's whole being to God" in which one's life became dedicated to self-sacrificial ministry. Pietists promoted the formation of cell groups for Bible study, prayer and accountability.
  These three traditions were brought together with the First Great Awakening, a series of revivals occurring in both Britain and its American Colonies during the 1730s and 1740s. The Awakening began within the Congregational churches of New England. In 1734, Jonathan Edwards' preaching on justification by faith instigated a revival in Northampton, Massachusetts. Earlier Puritan revivals had been brief, local affairs, but the Northampton revival was part of a larger wave of revival that affected the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches in the Middle Colonies as well. There the Reformed minister Theodore Frelinghuysen and Presbyterian minister Gilbert Tennent led revivals.
  The English evangelist George Whitefield was responsible for spreading the revivals through all the colonies. An Anglican priest, Whitefield had studied at Oxford University prior to ordination and there befriended John Wesley and his brother Charles, the founders of a pietistic movement within the Church of England called Methodism. Whitefield's dramatic preaching style and ability to simplify doctrine made him a popular preacher in England, and in 1739 he arrived in America preaching up and down the Atlantic coastline. Thousands flocked to open-air meetings to hear him preach, and he became a celebrity throughout the colonies.
  The Great Awakening hit its peak by 1740, but it shaped a new form of Protestantism that emphasized, according to historian Thomas S. Kidd, "seasons of revival, or outpourings of the Holy Spirit, and on converted sinners experiencing God's love personally" [emphasis in original]. Evangelicals believed in the "new birth"—a discernible moment of conversion—and that it was normal for a Christian to have assurance of faith. While the Puritans had also believed in the necessity of conversion, they "had held that assurance is rare, late and the fruit of struggle in the experience of believers". 
  Its emphasis on the individual's relationship to God gave it an egalitarian streak as well, which was perceived by anti-revivalists as undermining social order. Radical evangelicals ordained uneducated ministers (sometimes nonwhite men) and sometimes allowed nonwhites and women to serve as deacons and elders. They also supported laypeople's right to dissent from their pastors and form new churches.
  The Awakening split the Congregational and Presbyterian churches over support for the revival between Old and New Lights (see also the Old Side–New Side Controversy). Ultimately, the evangelical New Lights became the larger faction among both Congregationalists and Presbyterians. The New England theology, based on Jonathan Edwards' work, would become the dominant theological outlook within the Congregational churches. In New England, radical New Lights broke away from the established churches and formed Separate Baptist congregations. In the 1740s and 1750s, New Side Presbyterians and
caption: Jonathan Edwards was the most influential evangelical theologian in America during the 18th century[22]
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