What was it like to live through an extraordinary time?

The 1740s and 1750s proved to be an extraordinary time for many ordinary New Englanders. It was a period when itinerant preachers swept through the region and asked its people to question the fundamental assumptions of their religion: What did it mean to be a Puritan? What did it mean to be a Protestant Christian?

Douglas Winiarski, a Professor of American Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Richmond and the author of the Bancroft prize-winning book, Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England, helps us explore the religious landscape of New England during the 18th century and how New Englanders answered these powerful questions during the extraordinary period known as the Great Awakening.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/182

 

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 025: Jessica Parr, Inventing George Whitefield
• Episode 073: Mark Noll, The Bible in Early America
• Episode 135: Julie Holcomb, Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy
• Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
• Episode 169: Thomas Kidd, The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin

 

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