What was the great awakening and why did it occur?

The First Great Awakening (sometimes Great Awakening) or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its Thirteen Colonies between the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion.

First Great Awakening

In the 1700's, a European philosophical movement, called the Enlightenment, swept America. Also called the Age of Reason, this era laid the foundation for a scientific, rather than religious, worldview. Freedom of conscience was at the heart of this struggle against old regimes and old ways of thinking, and it changed the way people viewed authority. In the same way, a religious revival, called the Great Awakening, changed the way people thought about their relationship with the divine, with themselves and with other people. The Enlightenment engaged the mind, but the Great Awakening engaged the heart.

The First Great Awakening affected British North America in the 1730s and 40's. True to the values of the Enlightenment, the Awakening emphasized human decision in matters of religion and morality. It respected each individual's feelings and emotions. In stark contrast to Puritanism, which emphasized outward actions as proof of salvation, the Great Awakening focused on inward changes in the Christian's heart.