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Evangelicalism and the Great Awakenings
1730s – today· Religion or tradition· Judaism, Christianity & Islam
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
A Protestant movement stressing personal conversion, the Bible's authority and spreading the faith, born in 18th-century revivals.
See it on the World Religions map →What it is
The First Great Awakening (1730s–40s) swept Britain and the American colonies: George Whitefield preached to huge outdoor crowds, Jonathan Edwards described revivals in New England, and John and Charles Wesley started Methodism inside the Church of England. A Second Great Awakening (c. 1790–1840) brought camp meetings and new churches across the American frontier. Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce helped lead the campaign to abolish the slave trade and sent missionaries worldwide. Historian David Bebbington defines it by four marks: conversion, Bible, cross and activism.
Why it matters
It became a dominant form of American Protestantism and, through missions, shaped Christianity in Korea, Africa and Latin America; estimates of evangelicals today range from about 300 to 600 million.
Sources and history
Sermons, journals and letters of Whitefield, Wesley and Edwards; newspaper accounts of revivals; church membership records; and modern surveys of religious identity.
Questions and debates
Who counts as evangelical is debated, which explains the wide estimates; in the US the label has become entangled with politics, which many believers resist.
Inside this (1)
Connections (8)
▸John Calvin shaped the Puritan roots of Evangelicalism and the Great AwakeningsMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Calvin's ideas shaped England's Puritans, who stressed personal conversion, Bible study and holy living. Their heirs in New England, like Jonathan Edwards, preached the First Great Awakening, and George Whitefield was also a Calvinist. But Wesley's Methodists rejected predestination, so evangelicalism carries both Calvinist and non-Calvinist streams.
When and where
England and New England, 1560s–1740s; Puritans, then Edwards in Massachusetts and Whitefield touring the colonies.
How do we know?
Edwards' and Whitefield's writings show Calvinist theology; the Whitefield–Wesley split over predestination in 1740–41 is well documented.
Questions and debates
Historians debate whether evangelicalism continued Puritanism or was a new movement shaped by the Enlightenment's stress on experience.
▸Evangelicalism and the Great Awakenings began partly within Anglicanism and the Church of EnglandHistorical record
The connection
John and Charles Wesley were Church of England priests who began Methodism as a renewal movement within it, and George Whitefield was Anglican too. Shut out of many parish pulpits, they preached outdoors. Methodists separated after John Wesley's death in 1791, while an evangelical wing stayed inside Anglicanism, including abolitionist William Wilberforce.
When and where
England, 1730s–1790s; Oxford's 'Holy Club', the Wesleys and Whitefield; John Wesley's conversion experience at Aldersgate, London, in 1738.
Historical evidence
Wesley's journals, Methodist conference minutes, and Anglican records of ordinations and the eventual split.
Questions and debates
Historians debate whether Wesley intended a separate church; his ordaining of ministers for America in 1784 is seen by many as the decisive break.
▸Evangelicalism and the Great Awakenings grew out of Protestant ReformationHistorical record
The connection
Evangelicalism inherited the Reformation's core claims: the Bible as final authority and salvation by grace through faith. Its new emphasis was on a felt, personal conversion and on actively spreading the faith. The German word for Protestant, 'evangelisch', reflects that shared root in the 'evangel', the gospel.
When and where
Britain, Germany and America in the 1700s; German Pietists and Moravians, heirs of the Reformation in Germany and Bohemia, influenced John Wesley.
Historical evidence
Evangelical preachers cite Luther and Calvin; Wesley's 1738 conversion came while hearing Luther's preface to Romans read aloud.
Questions and debates
Historians debate whether evangelicalism is the Reformation's natural heir or a new 18th-century movement shaped by Pietism and the Enlightenment.
▸Christian fundamentalism emerged within Evangelicalism and the Great AwakeningsHistorical record
The connection
Fundamentalism grew out of conservative American evangelicals: Princeton's doctrine of biblical inerrancy, end-times teaching and Bible conferences. After losing 1920s battles with modernists in Baptist and Presbyterian churches, many separated. In the 1940s and 1950s moderates such as Harold Ockenga and Billy Graham called themselves 'evangelicals' to distance themselves from fundamentalist separatism.
When and where
US, 1870s–1940s; Niagara Bible Conferences, J. Gresham Machen, Curtis Lee Laws; the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942.
Historical evidence
The Fundamentals volumes, denominational records, and histories by George Marsden and Joel Carpenter.
Questions and debates
Where to draw the line between fundamentalist and evangelical is debated, and many people now use both words loosely or as insults.
▸Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) arose in the revivals of Evangelicalism and the Great AwakeningsHistorical record
The connection
Joseph Smith grew up in western New York's 'burned-over district', named for the revival fires of the Second Great Awakening that swept it again and again. Competing Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian revivals left him unsure which church was true; Latter-day Saints teach that this question led to his 1820 First Vision.
When and where
Palmyra and Manchester, New York, in the 1810s–20s; the church was organized in Fayette, New York, on April 6, 1830.
Historical evidence
Smith's own 1832 and 1838 accounts describe the revival setting; church records and newspapers document the region's intense revivalism.
Questions and debates
Historians debate which revival Smith meant, since records of an 1820 revival in Palmyra itself are thin; Latter-day Saint historians point to revivals in the wider area.
▸Pentecostalism (Azusa Street Revival) grew out of Evangelicalism and the Great AwakeningsHistorical record
The connection
Pentecostalism grew from the Holiness movement, a Methodist-rooted strand of evangelicalism that taught a 'second blessing' after conversion. Charles Parham and William Seymour taught a further experience, baptism in the Holy Spirit, marked by speaking in tongues. Pentecostals kept evangelical basics: the Bible's authority, personal conversion and fervent revival preaching.
When and where
Topeka, Kansas, in 1901 under Parham; Houston, where Seymour sat in on his classes in 1905; and Los Angeles's Azusa Street from 1906.
Historical evidence
Early Pentecostal papers, Holiness publications and the founders' sermons trace the line clearly; most Pentecostal churches describe themselves as evangelical.
Questions and debates
Some historians stress Black church worship traditions as roots alongside white Holiness theology; whether Parham or Seymour deserves the title of founder is debated.
▸Evangelicalism and the Great Awakenings sent missionaries to build Christianity in KoreaHistorical record
The connection
American evangelical missionaries, mostly Presbyterian and Methodist, brought Protestantism to Korea. Horace Allen, a doctor, arrived in 1884; Horace Underwood and Henry Appenzeller landed at Incheon on Easter Sunday 1885. They founded schools, hospitals and churches, and their revivalist, Bible-centered style still marks Korean Protestantism.
When and where
Seoul and Incheon from 1884–85; Paichai school (1885), Ewha (1886) and the forerunners of Yonsei University and Severance Hospital grew from their work.
Historical evidence
Mission board reports, missionaries' diaries and letters, and the founding records of schools and hospitals.
Questions and debates
Scholars debate how much its character comes from missionaries versus Korean converts, who often evangelized ahead of them under the self-supporting 'Nevius method'.
▸Jehovah's Witnesses grew from Adventist circles in Evangelicalism and the Great AwakeningsMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
From Adventists such as Jonas Wendell and George Storrs, Charles Taze Russell took key ideas: an imminent end of the age, no eternal hellfire, and the dead unconscious until resurrection. Adventism grew from William Miller's movement, which expected Christ's return in 1843–44, amid the revival fervor of the Second Great Awakening.
When and where
Pittsburgh, around 1870, where Russell heard Wendell preach; in 1876 he partnered with the Adventist Nelson Barbour, before starting his own magazine in 1879.
How do we know?
Russell's own recollections credit Wendell and Storrs, and the publications he shared with Barbour survive.
Questions and debates
Whether Adventism counts as part of evangelicalism or a separate stream is debated, as is how original Russell's system was.