Democracy
The First Great Awakening democratized religion by redressing the balance of power between the minister and the congregation. Rather than listening demurely to preachers, people groaned and roared in enthusiastic emotion; new divinity schools opened to challenge the hegemony of Yale and Harvard; personal revelation became more important than formal education for preachers. Such concepts and habits formed a necessary foundation for the American Revolution.
Read more about this topic: George Whitefield
Famous quotes containing the word democracy:
“Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.”
—William, Lord Beveridge (1879–1963)
““Give me the resurrection of the body!” said Dukes. “But it’ll come in time, when we’ve shoved the cerebral stone away a bit, the money and the rest. Then we’ll get a democracy of touch, instead of a democracy of pocket.””
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The chief lesson of the Depression should never be forgotten. Even our liberty-loving American people will sacrifice their freedom and their democratic principles if their security and their very lives are threatened by another breakdown of our free enterprise system. We can no more afford another general depression than we can afford another total war, if democracy is to survive.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)