THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK

“This book should be required reading in every school and college in America” is a comment I often hear from those who have read 1726: The Year that Defined America. This book, published in 2019, is the product of two significant encounters with God, which made me to know that He is not finished with America.

The First Encounter

It began on September 18, 2010, at a time when I had given up hope that America would ever see another great, national spiritual awakening. I had written about such revivals in my book, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity, but my experience with revival over the previous 20 years had robbed me of hope of seeing it happen again. I had decided that God was finished with America.

However, as I pulled on to Highway 51 to begin a two-hour drive from Tulsa to Kingfisher, Oklahoma, I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Suddenly, I felt that I was enveloped in God’s presence and was hardly aware of my surroundings. At the same time, my mind began to be flooded with thoughts of hope and faith that America “could” see another Great Awakening that would revive the churches of America, impact the culture, and stem the tide of secularism and immorality that was flooding the land.

By the time I arrived at my hotel I could hardly wait to get settled in my room and begin writing down the thoughts and ideas that continued to flood my heart and mind. This experience lasted for another five hours, and for the first time I saw that the First Great Awakening had a direct bearing on the founding of this nation and that “revival” is in our national DNA.

My hope for America was renewed and it was now clear to me that God was not finished with America. Out of that experience I wrote the book, America’s Revival Heritage, in which I documented the pervasive impact of the Great Awakening and how it had a direct bearing on the founding of America. It was published in 2012 and very well received.

The Second Encounter

During the summer of 2019 I began experiencing a deep stirring in my spirit to do what seemed a 2nd edition of America’s Revival Heritage and include a new chapter on how the Great Awakening also had a direct bearing on the ending of slavery on this continent.

As I began the project, I was amazed at the historical resources that providentially came into my hands. There was so much new material, in fact, that it soon became clear that this was a new book, not a 2nd edition of my previous book.

At this same time, I read of the “1619 Project” of the New York Times, that is now being taught in schools throughout America. The author claims that 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in America, was the real founding of America, not 1776. According to this author, America became defined by slavery and is evil and racist at her very core and in need of fundamental change.

When I read this, I knew that what I was writing was significant and timely. My heart shouted, “No! America was not defined by 1619! America was defined by 1726.”

1726 is the year the Great Awakening began, and I was able to document the moral outrage against slavery that arose out of this revival and the impact it had on America’s founding fathers. Indeed, the positive forces unleashed by 1726 overcame the negativity that emerged out of 1619.

I therefore titled the new book, 1726, with the subtitle, The Year that Defined America. As a result of 1726, America became defined as a land of Faith and Freedom. As a result of 1726, America was able to defeat slavery, Jim Crow, and so many other political and social ills. 1726 tells the story of America that is left out of modern textbooks.

My Vision for the Book

The Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Carl Sandburg, wrote of the dangers of a nation forgetting its heritage. He wrote,

When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.

On July 4th, America will celebrate her 248th birthday. There has never been a time like this where there is an all-out effort to destroy and demonize America’s past. This is why I am doubling my efforts to get 1726 into the hands of as many people as possible this July 4th holiday season.

Dr. Eddie Hyatt has a passion to see America reclaim her birthright as a nation of Faith and Freedom, birthed in the fires of a Great Awakening that transformed Colonial America. His books on the topic, including 1726, are available from Amazon and his website at http://eddiehyatt.com.