Theodorus Frelinghuysen: The Great Awakening In America

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Before the Great Awakening, Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen; a pastor’s son, born on November 6, 1692 in Lingen, Germany answered the call to theology. Through his studies at the University of Lingen and his pastoral associates during his first pastorate in East Friesland, Frelinghuysen had acquired many of the theological leanings of a confessional pietist, among which was a view of the conversion process. Although never officially systematized, confessional pietists in the German Lutheran, Dutch Calvinist and Puritan communions were in general agreement on the nature of Christian conversion.
Consequently, the theology of Frelinghuysen spread to other denominations throughout the colonies in America, and brought about a restructuring of the religious doctrine, beliefs, and practices during the 17th and 18th centuries in England and in North
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Also, the Great Awakening in America thrust Calvinistic religious doctrine into the spotlight, thereby changing the way people believed. The Great Awakening permeated the colonies in America influenced by Frelinghuysen and notable preachers such as Gilbert Tennent, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards and others. For example, E. B. Holifield acknowledges in Theology in America, Frelinghuysen’s apparent influence on Gilbert Tennent during the Great Awakening. Even the well-known preacher, Jonathan Edwards in his Narrative of Surprising Conversions in New England, acknowledges Frelinghuysen’s contributions as a catalyst for the Great Awakening in America. Also, George Whitfield remarked, among others who came to hear the Word, a Dutch minister named Frelinghuysen pastor of a church around these parts is a worthy soldier of Jesus Christ, and began the great work which I trust the Lord is carrying in here, in the article Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen: the Father of American