The Last "Great Awakening"

Fifty years ago, historian Richard Bushman wrote that twentieth-century inhabitants, if they ever even heard about it, misunderstood the nature of what historians call, “The Great Awakening.”  This was a period of religious “revival” that ran through the middle third or so of the eighteenth century.  The Lennon and McCartney of the Great Awakening were Jonathan Edwards of Connecticut and George Whitefield of England.  The fervour of the original sixteenth and seventeenth century Puritans – the ones who had made their way to Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower – believed themselves to be creating a “City on the Hill” to welcome the imminent return of Christ the Messiah, ushering in a thousand-year reign known as the Millennium.  These colonists were Calvinists, meaning that they embraced not only millennialism, but a doctrine known as “pre-destination” – it had already been determined who was going to Heaven and who was going to Hell in the eternal realm of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But how could one know if one was pre-destined for Heaven or not?  One could know by having a “second birth” of the spirit – a profound psychological experience that would leave a lasting mark on one’s psyche making it quite clear that one had been “Chosen.”  The relief from the experience or dread from not having it could, and usually was, profound.  Today, we hear of people being “Born Again” in charismatic Christian churches (and elsewhere), but most people consider this to be either fake or the ramblings of the mildly insane.  So, when one mentions this business of a “second birth” now, most people simply ignore it and carry on with their lives.  They don’t understand the implications for those having the experience during the eighteenth century’s Great Awakening.  This is what Bushman was saying.[1]

            As they established themselves in the New World, rescued by the Native Americans and with additional aid and warm bodies from the Old Country, the Puritans’ religious fervour became somewhat subdued.  They retained strict obedience to the Sabbath and condemned their Native American rescuers for licentiousness and over-indulgence in “frolicks.”  As English power waxed in this region, they even condemned to death those who resisted conversion and acculturation.  Indeed, war was made against the natives by the followers of the so-called “Prince of Peace,” and successfully, with the might of the burgeoning British Empire behind them.  But as the church hierarchy became the political hierarchy, these Puritans strayed away from the whole business of the “second birth,” creating what amounted to Protestant socio-religious clubs not unlike the Anglicans or the Freemasons or of your typical Sunday service today.

            A century or so after the landing at Plymouth Rock, this situation began to rub some members the wrong way, leaving them with an uneasy feeling that they had all strayed from the path of righteousness.  The “primitivist” return to the early church, the rock upon which their forefathers had attempted to “purify” their Christian beliefs, was forgotten, it seemed.  GewGaws and Baubles (accumulation of wealth) had become the order of the day and the inner life was neglected.  Young people were resembling the natives in their “frolicksome” ways and there was a clear need, some felt, to reverse this course which surely led to HELL. 

            Jonathan Edwards was one of the early proponents of formulating sermons pointing this out.  His famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” has often been put forward as an example of this kind of jeremiad.  Subtitled “Sermon on the Danger of the Unconverted” and delivered at Enfield, CT in July of 1741, it represents a well-refined example of the condemnatory sermon which Edwards and others had been practicing for some years at this point.  The function of the sermon was to induce a sublime terror that would propel the reprobate (one who had not experienced the second birth) into a cataclysmic psychological transformation. 

            Think of it, modern reader.  Your world has informed you that the only way to avoid HELL, which is to say being condemned to burn in a lake of fire for all eternity – what could possibly be worse!!! – is to have this second birth, for which you’ve been hoping and praying, indeed, begging the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Then, you find your way to one of these meetings where a revivalist preacher will deliver his sermon.  The fall into damnation, Edwards’s well-rehearsed sermon tells us, could come literally at any time.  Both Deuteronomy and Psalms say that no push is needed to fall into everlasting flames, the accidental slip of one’s foot could initiate the Final Descent.  Indeed, the only reason one has not fallen yet is due to the Mercy and Grace of the Divine Creator.  The all-powerful God the Creator can let the slip happen – He did not stop it from happening because YOU, SINNER, DESERVE condemnation and punishment.  In fact, you know well that your slip and fall into HELL is inevitable and may have already begun!.  Think of the things that have brought you to this realization – all the slights, the petty lies, the misdeeds, and maybe even some sins of the flesh and other major missteps.  You DESERVE HELL, and God the All-Seeing KNOWS IT.

            So, there you are, your life has not gone as you had hoped, or perhaps you’re too young to have had much experience one way or another.  The shame-based culture that relies on making you feel bad about yourself in order to control you has set you up for vulnerability to this message.  That you have failed to follow the path God set you on has brought you to the precipice of eternal suffering beyond belief with NO HOPE of escape.  NO HOPE of averting the flames that will keep you in agony without end.  The bottomless pit of hopelessness and agony looms.  Your fate is far worse than death – O! come sweet Death if it means averting this horrid fate!!  But no, your luck, like your hope, has flown, forever.

            You remain in this state of despair for . . . minutes?  Hours?  Days?  Who can tell with certainty and, anyway, what does it matter.  And yet, here you sit, not in flames, still breathing the clear air of earth.  Your heart is beating; your loved ones are still with you.  Could it be . . . COULD IT BE??? that you, dare you even think it??? that you are NOT going to HELL.  What is this?!?! – a light appears in your consciousness – a bright, white, pure light.  You feel as though water is being poured over you.  It’s as if you’ve entered – Praise God it’s the Second Birth!!  I’M NOT GOING TO HELL!!!  The relief is beyond description.  A cool wind blows through your soul expelling all impurities and revealing to you your own immortality – the world of the atoms and of deathless energy swirls through you.  That is YOU and you will live with this blissful state FOREVER – IF you don’t stray from the path God has laid out for you.  You now know that horrible fate that awaits if you don’t seek out God’s will for you on a daily basis.  This is what you will do – no more taking chances, rolling the dice with your eternal soul as a bargaining chip.  You have become, and will remain, one of the Chosen.

            This is not an unusual psychological journey for humans on Planet Earth.  The context can vary; the agency can vary.  Bushman implies it in his essay when he compares the Great Awakening to the ‘60s Civil Rights and anti-war movements.  Such experiences can be induced almost routinely by psychotropic substances like LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote cactus buttons, etc.  Getting one’s life back on track, getting society back on track, having a sense of mission for changing the world – these are the results of such profound psychological experiences.  It doesn’t happen for everyone, but it happened to a significant percentage – Bushman estimated up to twenty or thirty percent of a town could be converted to the “New Lights” in one pass by George Whitefield.  In the 1960s, the Vietnam War was the largest source of discontent, along with civil rights for minorities and women.  In the 1740s, it was the coercive religious policies of the Crown as well as the profound enigma of what was generally viewed as the American Wilderness and its “savage” inhabitants whose worldview was beyond the ken of nearly all Anglo-Americans.  Both of these represented psychological problems for inhabitants of the colonies – and some in Britain, as well – and the Great Awakening provided solid footing and direction in a world that was difficult to understand, much less navigate.

            Now, in the twenty-first century, we have the reality of Climate Disruption and cataclysmic change staring us in the face.  We have been denying this for decades if not generations.  The “slippery slope” that Jonathan Edwards used to induce the transformative “second birth” is no longer metaphorical.  We are sliding.  “God,” i.e., “Reality” cannot be denied.  He/It is all-powerful and the only one who can “save” us – from ourselves.  This awakening will likely be the last unless profound change is undertaken as soon as possible.  We’re too late to prevent much of the cataclysmic disruptions to come which we have done to our Mother in the name of profit and convenience.  But we can still mitigate some of it.  We still have some agency, but it is slipping away daily.  This is the Last Great Awakening.  Its beginning can be traced back generations, but its appearance into the public consciousness still hasn’t even happened in some quarters.  Let us hope that we can retain some of our agency and turn things around or at least slow the slide down the slope.  It’s not just humanity that is sliding, it’s the entire planetary ecological network as well as future generations.  This is the REAL DEAL, and everyone is responsible now.

©Douglas Harvey 2019

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[1] Richard Bushman, ed., The Great Awakening: Documents on the Revival of Religion, 1740-1745 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989; originally published New York: Athenaeum, 1970), xiv.

Tyranny Baked into the Cake

The United States has become a full-blown tyranny.  This was built-in from the creation of the Constitution.  When the battle for economic democracy was lost in the 1780s, the die was cast for a bourgeois oligarchy that has run the power structure ever since.

This bourgeois oligarchy (or, if you prefer, the merchant-banker class) existed before the American Revolution, as well, when their practices were known as the "Mercantile Code."  Looting the public purse through various tax schemes that amounted to subsidies for imperial expansion (more looting elsewhere) was the heart of the bourgeois project.  In this way, they could establish control over numerous wealth-producing projects.  The Atlantic slave trade, for example -- both the trade in human livestock and the "staple crops" they produced were quite lucrative.  Opulent neighborhoods were built up in many cities around the perimeter of the Atlantic Ocean by this trade.  The wealth thus produced financed the Industrial Revolution, although imperial apologists remain largely in denial of this well-documented point.

Even after emancipation, bourgeois investments in Brazil, the legal slavery of prison labor in the U.S., and the wage slavery of textile mills, steel mills, railroad construction, and food processing -- all financed by the wealth originally produced by slaves -- meant a continuation of the ruling class's lock on power.

But back to the eighteenth century.  Enter the young George Washington -- errand boy, surveyor, and land agent for the consortium known as the Ohio Land Company -- who saw an opportunity to fulfill his desires of becoming a Great Planter and Land Speculator Extraordinaire in the years after King George's War (one cannot resist mentioning the ironic twist in that name).  When Washington hoofed it over the mountains in the employ of the Ohio Company with guide Christopher Gist, his path to "greatness" unfolded before him in the form of the Ohio Country -- the fertile land west of the Alleghenies that the French were in the process of claiming with their native trading partners in the "pays d'en haut," or "high country" above the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Valley.  In short order, Washington was sent to the recently constructed Ft. LeBoeuf on the Allegheny River north of the forks of the Ohio River with a warning to the French to vacate that country being claimed by the Virginia consortium.  The French laughed and sent him home with a counter warning.  The end result was the outbreak of the French-Indian War, which was the culmination of a string of imperial wars dating to 1689 and the start of King William's War.

At this point, it is useful to recognize whose ends are served by war.  One of the characteristics of the bourgeoisie is, of course, the accumulation of fluid wealth -- money and goods -- a process dating back to the twelfth century or so.  This accumulation of money by this rising merchant-banker class allowed for the opportunity to sell loans and insurance to European aristocrats and monarchs who were perennially needed to finance their extravagant lifestyle.  But the most pressing need, especially for monarchs, was financing for war.  The bourgeoisie were happy to assist, and at low interest as well as the prospect of increased access to power.  By the late seventeenth century in the English-speaking world, the bourgeoisie had grown frustrated at their lack of control over the London government.  With the useful rationale provided by the unpopularity and religious preferences of King James II (a conservative Catholic king), a coup was fomented.  The plan centered on bringing James's daughter Mary and her merchant-banker prince of a husband, William of Orange, to the throne.  The new monarchs, however, would have to agree to sharing power with Parliament where the House of Commons was under the control of the bourgeoisie.  Now, with control of the levers of power and access to the public purse, the military could be used to both run up the government's debt to the bourgeoisie, and to pursue their own ends: opening up new resources and markets.  This was the essence of the "Glorious" Revolution of 1688, so named, and understandably so, by the bourgeoisie.  The first in this series of imperial wars broke out the following year.

Meanwhile, back in Virginia some seventy years later, after several "wars of empire" involving primarily the English, French, and Spanish, the well-connected Ohio Company started a war with France and their Indian allies.  Aided by messenger boy, agent, and emerging militia officer George Washington, this war would culminate in the French being ousted from North America in 1763.

How was this done?  The answer is: war debt.  Prime Minister William Pitt made the war so expensive for the French by opening up multiple fronts that the French government, still steeped in the ancien regime of absolute monarchy and not up to speed with bourgeois high finance, had to surrender its holdings in North America.  The war was expensive for the British as well, and the bourgeois creditors demanded that the debt be "serviced."  This would be done through taxes and tariffs that would fall heavily on the colonists who had fought much of this war.  Basic American history tells us how that turned out.  In an act that would lead to a protracted civil war, the thirteen colonies, led by now-General Washington and financed by the Master of the "Mercantile Code," Robert Morris of Philadelphia, started their own country.

After this successful revolution, a struggle for power ensued that goes on to this day: who will rule -- the people or the bourgeoisie?  Until the Constitution emerged in 1787 and ratified the following year, this was a genuine question that remained undecided.  But the Constitution was a cake baked by the bourgeoisie.  Leave economic decisions beyond the reach of voters.  Let the property-owning white males have the franchise, and don't disrupt the gravy train of slavery and the Mercantile Code -- the maintenance of permanent government debt, control of a standing army to be used for pursuing resources and markets funded by the "power of the purse," i.e., taxpayers.  Tell them it's all on the side of the angels -- whisper sweet nothings about freedom and democracy into their ears -- they'll eat it up.  And they did.  Washington's project was so successful that upon his death he rose to his seat next to the Divine Throne itself, opposite his predecessor, Jesus.  The bourgeois project in the New World was now beyond serious question, and so it more or less remains 230 years later.  And yet, there are those who question the divinity of this project . . . it's almost as if they don't believe it.  Their predecessors -- the true democrats (small "d") who envisioned a people's republic, weren't in the kitchen when the cake was baked -- they weren't invited.

The Inner Language of the "Eternal Now"

I saw a Facebook meme today where a professor at the University of Calcutta estimated a tree to be worth $193,250.  This was broken down into the various values stemming from various uses by various species.  This is the calculus of capitalism -- everything can be translated into a monetary value, even a robin building a nest and laying her eggs.  Contrarily, I submit that a life is priceless, regardless of what form it takes.  One squashes a bug is if it is of no consequence, but it's nevertheless a life like any other.  The human brain will not like this formulation and will race to provide a justification as to why the human is worth more than the bug; indeed, why some humans are worth more than others.  This is the path to the capitalist calculus.  From the perspective of All Creation, there is no difference between the life of a water beetle and that of a human being or of a tree -- all represent a brief span of consciousness that is quickly extinguished in one way or another.  From this perspective, Earth can be seen as billions of life forms opening (birth) and closing (death) their eyes over the course, from the human perspective, of eons.

We have lost the sense that what we eat -- animal or plant -- is a life that has been taken (with exceptions that the reader can work out) and is an act of profound significance that needs to be acknowledged as such.  Not to do so seems, well, to be living in a circle of hell.  Indigenous peoples typically acknowledged the profound act of taking a life for survival, whether it was killing a deer or harvesting the corn.  "Other-than-human persons" were equals to be respected and honored.  Modernity has jettisoned this as wasteful sentiment, with a correlating decline in awareness.

The fact that lives are a commodity makes this society one bereft of meaningful connection to what I like to call the "Eternal Now."  One cannot put values on things in the totality of the Eternal Now, the reality underneath the temporal rounds of life and death.  Society concerns itself with the ever-fleeting linear equation of time; indeed, we keep track of it and fill our libraries with this keeping track.  The Eternal Now just is.  Always and constantly.

Placing the temporal in the foreground while ignoring or denying the Eternal Now is, for me, a completely unacceptable way of traveling through the brief span of time with which we have been gifted.  To think the realization of the timelessness of the winds pushing the clouds across the sky through the force of the earth's rotation -- in itself a cosmic story of incredible orders of magnitude -- should be outside one's basic awareness . . . again, it seems a circle of hell.  To drive past a rock outcrop or bluff without a sense of wonder about the eons represented by this phenomenon, and that one might go through life without a sense of such wonder . . . also a circle of hell.  Awareness of the Eternal Now and finding the wonder in what this society calls "mundane" seems the proper way of being in one's skin for as many seconds per day as possible.

To be fully human is to nurture the inner language of the timeless Eternal Now and bring it into the temporal realm.  But, as the comparative mythologist and all 'round wise man Joseph Campbell used to say, "The function of society is to confound the mystic."  To be thus confounded is to find oneself in . . . a circle of hell.

Putting a monetary figure on a life is what capitalist economics is.  Lives that don't produce a surplus value to be harvested like the Grim Reaper are worthless.  Roadkill -- non-surplus-value-producing lives -- are irrelevant and to be ignored (unless, of course, they serve some use-value).  Nevertheless, there lies the remains of a life -- the "final track," as tracker Tom Brown, Jr. would say.  Another window into the Eternal Now that has closed and will not open again.  And the human realm cares not a wit other than to clear the remains out of the way and forget it as soon as possible.  Because we have things to do, places to go, people to see, paychecks to garner, profits to take; all the while missing the Eternal Now that gives life its magic.

Life is art -- incorporating the Eternal Now into this fleeting life so that our awareness, our compassion, and our joy might be maximized.  This can be found under such headings as "social welfare" or "quality of life," although capitalism isn't, as a rule, interested in these things insofar as they can't be bought.  Society is not particularly interested in your life art unless your incorporation is salable and, through "marketing," profitable.  To pursue this art for its own sake is, in capitalist society's eyes, a fool's errand.

So -- fool that I am, I shall carry on as best as I can from day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, second-to-second trying to appreciate this fleeting gift of being awake in the world.  Not easy given the potentially derailing distractions of society, but possible.  Getting knocked off the tracks is normal, as is getting back on.  And I may be a fool to find quality of life somewhere besides the size of my portfolio or paycheck, and society may consider my life to be some kind of joke.  But I think, in the end, as the song by Blue Oyster Cult, "Flaming Telepaths" says: "the joke's on you."  Too bad it's not funny.  And, to return to our tree, does the calculus include what it might be worth to climb to the top of said tree, swaying in a gentle breeze in the night, watching the stars glowing in the Eternal Now?