As in Europe, Pietistic currents were brought to North America. Presbyterians became divided over those who believed in the strict adherence to the teachings of Westminster, and those whose emphasis was on the experience of redeeming grace; the old side and the new side. The controversy would lead to schism, which would become known as the Great Awakening.

Gonzalez describes the leaders of the Great Awakening to be orthodox Calvinists, devoted to devotion, doctrine, and spiritual strictness. This may have been why the need for a passionate religious experience, thought to be important for Christian life, was difficult to grasp right away. Johnathan Edwards was a pastor in the colonies, and preached on the need for an experience of conviction of sin and of divine forgiveness. Gonzalez talks about the tremendous religious and emotional zeal that was brought forth during sermons, not just from Edwards but other pastors of the new side as well. “People wept in repentance for their sins, some shouted for joy at having been pardoned, and a few were so overwhelmed that they fainted” (Gonzalez, 289). He goes on to say how Edwards’s sermons were “not emotive harangues, but careful expositions of profound theological matters.” Also, “Edwards believed emotion was important. But such emotion, including the high experience of conversion, should not eclipse the need for right doctrine and rational worship” (Gonzalez, 289). Although the movement was led by Presbyterians and Congregationalists, however, Baptists and Methodists would profit the most from it. One example of this is how many Presbyterians or Congregationalists, led by the Awakening’s emphasis on personal experience, would reject infant baptism and convert to become Baptists. Further, “it was the Baptists and Methodists who, imbued by with the spirit of the Great Awakening, took up the task of preaching to Western settlers and organizing their religious life” (Gonzalez, 290). Therefore, the main effects of the Great Awakening were that many Baptists and Methodists moved to the Western frontier, and most importantly, the hope for an “awakening” became a typical part of North American Christianity.

In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edward describes people as wicked, sinful, awful people, who god is angry with, and who are basically dangling over the pits of hell, being held by the hand of God. He says that we have done nothing to deserve the love or forgiveness of God, and we are simply sin filled beings, without anything to take hold of. God is letting us have our free will, to do as we please, and is angry at the decisions we are making. At least, this is the case for people who have not yet had an awakening. Edwards says, concerning God and hell; “There is a dreadful pit of glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up” (Edwards, 201). Similar elicit passages were spoken by other pastors as well, evoking an emotional spark in people. Edward is saying that although we are filled with sin and deserve hell, if we have an “awakening”; a tremendous personal experience, we can become true Christian, spiritual people, committed to devotion, and escape the depths of hell. Edward’s goal in describing God and humans this way is to show how we are helpless, awful beings in need of a savior. By using intense rhetoric and elicit stories or phrases, Edwards and other preachers of this time were trying to evoke from people an intense spiritual connection with God. This was believed to be the one true path to salvation, and the only way someone would truly feel absolutely called to dutifully give up their life to devoted religious living. The pastors want people see themselves as sinful beings, investigate who they really are, and have strong emotions to change their way of life and become God’s servant. All of theses examples of a call for internal, spiritual momentous change, is the reason for calling this time the Great Awakening.