Persuasion in the Great Awakening vs. Present-day Persuasion

Companies use their years of establishment to convince the public that they have experience.

Ads sometimes use celebrities to convince people to perform a behavior.

      To say that the way the human mind works is “interesting” would be an understatement. Our minds are so complex that much research and study has to be done to understand why people choose to believe in some things and not in others. The art of persuasion is one that is important in situations ranging from convincing a child to eat his vegetables to completely altering the public’s view of the world. After reading “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, I became interested in society’s reception to the message of Jonathan Edwards. Why were they convinced by what he said? How do the methods Edwards used compare with those used by people who hope to influence the public today?

       I began researching to find out what the basic methods of persuasion were, and found some good examples on http://medialiteracyproject.org/language-persuasion. The first method that I thought was used to convince people in the Great Awakening that is still used today is the use of experts. People during the Great Awakening viewed preachers like Edwards as experts on God’s word and will. This could be one reason why his sermon was so influential. This form of persuasion is often used in commercials by companies advertising things like toothpaste, vitamins and medicine. “#1 doctor recommended” and “4 out of 5 dentists agree” are phrases that often cause the public to believe that people who have more knowledge than they do recommend products or use them themselves.

       Another one that really stood out to me, because of the extreme way Edwards used it, was fear. Edwards used scare tactics in order to convince his audience that they were not doing God’s will. He used vivid imagery about eternal damnation as a result of sin to capture the crowd’s attention and convince them to repent and be saved. Some churches still use this method, and there are people today who have been saved in similar ways. (http://www.intoutreach.org/testimony4.html) This method is also used today in lesser ways. For example, a commercial advertising gum might show someone with bad breath being rejected or embarrassed in public. If people fear that might happen to them, they are more likely to buy gum that says it will prevent those embarrassing situations.

       In some ways, Edwards also used the “slippery slope” technique. He tells the people that while they may not see the effects of their sin now, their continuance in sin will eventually result in God's wrath and it will be too late to fix. These type of arguments are seen all the time in politics. I once heard a member of the Libertarian party use this argument against President Obama’s healthcare plan by saying that if the government can tell us to buy healthcare because it’s good for us, eventually they could tell us to buy broccoli because it’s good for us.

The methods of persuasion haven’t changed much over the years, only the form in which they are presented (commercials, radio, etc). It is apparent that Jonathan Edwards knew how to present his information in a way that people responded to, because the public response was so great.

Picture 1: http://customerfirst.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341ce54153ef00e553d78d6c8834-250wi
Picture 2: http://halfbakedart.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/picture1.jpg
Picture 3: http://www.obama-health-care.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama-healthcare-public-option.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULR68LTmbw&feature=related