The First Great Awakening in America, 1726-1742, opened up most of the new colonies to a new level of spiritual awareness and revival spirit. It was a revival that was desperately needed. The churches were empty, second and third generation Americans were spiritually apathetic, and the great expectation of God’s kingdom seemed less and less a possibility.
Concerned men of God—Gilbert and William Tennent, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield—began to faithfully preach the Word of God—sin and judgment, mercy. And the walls came tumbling down. Revival spirit rained down on a thirsty nation.
By 1742, the revival was over but it had lasted long enough to establish a pattern for continuing revivalism. In fact, it had introduced a number of characteristics that would continue to shape American revivalism into the modern period. One of the more important of these was cooperation.
Then and now, American Christians have found it possible to forget their differences long enough to join hands in their quest for revival spirit. But, paradoxically, that first revival also caused divisiveness. The Presbyterians split into New Side and Old Side over questions of polity, and the Congregationalists divided into New Lights and Old Lights over questions of theology. Is revival, by its very nature, alien to a Reformed or Calvinistic theology?
But, more importantly, two Baptist groups left the Congregationalists to begin entirely new movements. The Separate Baptists, led by Shubal Stearns and Daniel Marshall, still Calvinistic like their Congregational parents, moved into Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky.
In New England, Elder Benjamin Randall charted an entirely new course. He not only rejected infant baptism in favor of believer’s baptism, but also adopted a message of general atonement as opposed to the election and predestination of the Congregationalists. In 1780, Randall founded the first Free Will Baptist church in New England. Now the Palmer Free Will Baptists in North Carolina had a sister movement in the north. Soon, Randall’s churches could be found in all of New England and as far West as Ohio and Kentucky.
About the Writer: William F. Davidson was professor of Church History at Columbia International University, in Columbia, South Carolina. Dr. Davidson is an alumnus of Peabody College, Welch College, Columbia Bible College, Northern Baptist Seminary, and New Orleans Baptist Seminary. The Ayden, North Carolina, native also served as pastor of Free Will Baptist churches in Kentucky and Virginia.
