Essay on Great Awakening

The first reason is that the slave masters feared their slaves would use the new ideal of religion to demand for equality and freedom. Secondly, most of the slaves still worshiped in their ancestral ways and so paid no attention to Christianity. The Great Awakening brought about a general conversion process among the African American. They linked the spiritual message preached by ministers to hope for equality and further tied the soul’s salvation to the body’s liberation. The African American Christians realized the resemblance in the style used by evangelists during preaching with their traditional West African preaching that entailed “spirit possession.” Just like in West African, North American revivalism in the eighteenth century laid much emphasis on singing with movements, personal rebirth and emotions. The Baptist church derived its name from the practice of immersing the whole body in a pond, lake or river, just as it is in West African water rites.
The Great Awakening fostered mutual white-black acculturation because of its influence of the African American society. This period saw revivalists appealing to people of all races emphasizing on equality in spirit. It was also during this period that the Baptist, Presbyterian, evangelical Anglican and Methodist churches allowed black people to worship together with the Whites and the members of these biracial churches referred to each other as sister or brother. The black church members served