Democracy
The First Great Awakening democratized religion by redressing the balance of power between the minister and the congregation. Rather than listening demurely to preachers, people groaned and roared in enthusiastic emotion; new divinity schools opened to challenge the hegemony of Yale and Harvard; personal revelation became more important than formal education for preachers. Such concepts and habits formed a necessary foundation for the American Revolution.
Read more about this topic: George Whitefield
Famous quotes containing the word democracy:
“Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism—that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“As for piracy, I love to be pirated. It is the greatest compliment an author can have. The wholesale piracy of Democracy was the single real triumph of my life. Anyone may steal what he likes from me.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)