The "father" of the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards. He wrote a sermon called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which became very famous. A religious historian writes, "In that sermon he used the image of a spider dangling by a web over a hot fire to describe the human predicament. His point was that at any moment, our hold on life could break and we'd be plunged into fires of eternal damnation" (Matthews). While many people were critical of his sermons, others began to listen to him and to attend his church. They also began to "convert" to Edward's church because they were disappointed with their own Puritan churche

As more people converted to these men's ideas, the conversions spread to other areas and other churches. This has been called a time of revivalism in American religion. Denominations like Calvinist, Puritan, and Congregationalist began to be replaced by a general acceptance of Christianity and Christians. Many preachers maintained that there were no denominations in Heaven, just believers who believed in Jesus (Matthews). This was a radical change from the more formal religions of Puritanism and Calvinism that were the foundation of early American society. As this new type of religion spread, it became increasingly popular in many areas of the country, including New England and the Mid-Atlantic. In fact, in many areas it virtually replaced Puritanism.

There was one area that seemed to let the Great Awakening simply pass them by, and that was the tidewater area of the Chesapeake. Historian Matthews notes, "In areas that were nominally Anglican (the tidewater) it had little impact. In part this was because the residents of the tidewater had just enough religion to inoculate them from catching the real thing" (Matthews). Church authorities in that area also had more control over their congregations, and kept them from being swept up by the evangelists. While areas like the tidewater shied away from radical changes in religion, most of the rest of Americans were looking for something new and different, and the revivalists were what they were looking for.

The biggest effect the Great Awakening had on colonial society was that it freed the people from the bonds of one religion. It created more religious tolerance and acceptance in the country. People accepted more religions, like Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, and people began to realize that more than one type of belief was still Christian and good. It also changed the way people looked at salvation. In the Puritan religion, people felt that God was responsible for man's salva

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