# The Great Awakening



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*The "Great Awakening"* of the 1730s and 40s, in the newly-founded American colonies, was an important turning point in religion in America. Not a unified movement, but led by individual ministers, it was a spontaneous dissention from the rigid civil _and_ religious traditions of their forebears.
In place of the Latin music of the Church of England, the Puritans adopted the Calvinist psalms of France and Holland. They were sung to tunes based on European secular folk tunes. The first book they used was The Ainsworth Psalter, which had hymns we still use today, such as The Old Hundredth.
This type of psalm singing persisted for a time, then in England, Isaac Watts broke away and began and wrote hymns which were called "man-made," instead of being literal renditions of the psalms. These were considered daring, but gained popularity in America.
At this same time, many Germans were immigrating to America, and brought with them very singable church music popularized in Germany by Martin Luther. These were based on German folk music, and contained many examples of the "man-made" hymn.
Thus, with the Great Awakening, the folk hymn, which sprang from the people like the ballad and folk song, came into being.

Thus we see* sacred music* as emanating directly from the sacred awareness and spiritual expression of the individual man, in dissent against rigid ideologies of The Church. This is American as apple pie; this is our heritage, this is our religious and spiritual inheritance, this is our living legacy.

With this in mind, I'm surprised at the many protests and arguments that I seem to have started here in this forum, by those who seem to disparage the idea of religious freedom and dissent from rigid ideology as being somehow "maverick" or tainted by some notion of Eastern spirituality or even the occult.

We are all Americans, and let us not forget our heritage, which is largely based on civil and religious dissent.


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