1998 issue 3 - southern presbyterian distinctives - counsel of chalcedon
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8/12/2019 1998 Issue 3 - Southern Presbyterian Distinctives - Counsel of Chalcedon
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The ,root of our English word
culture
is
the'Latin ' ~ c u l t u s .
which
to
the
Romans signified
worship of the divine. This reminds
us of the foundauoti of culture'
which is so
often forgotten
in
our
day.
As
Russell Kirk and
others
have noted, culture arises from the
cult;
that
is, people are joined
t o g t h ~ r in
worship, and out of
theirreligious association grows the
organized human'community,,
(America's British Culture,
p.l
Culture implies far more than a
common food, dress, or accent. It
implies a common way of life,
common standards, a common
wiirldview if you will. But
thiS commonality
s
founded
ultimately
not
upon
e onomi status race or
nationality, but, as our word
indicates, a common faith.
Christopher ~ w s o n puts it
this way, It is clear that a
cOlflmon way of lifeinvolves a
ommon
view of life commoQ.
standards of behavior, and common
standards of value, and
consequendy a culture is a spiritual
community which owes its unity to
common beliefs and common ways
of
thought
far more than to any
unanimity
of
physical
type ...Therefore from the
beginning the social way of life
which
is
culture
has
been,
deliberately ordered
and
directed
in
accordance with the higher la. vs of
life which are religion.': (Ibid., p.2)
AbrahainKuyper, prime
minister
of
the
Netherlands,
newspaperman, educator; and
theolOgian of the early part of this
century,pui
its Similarly though far
more
succincdy, Culture is religion
externalized. The most important
factor in the formation of a culture
is the predominant faith of the
people. The foundation of Western
culture is Christianity and
in
this
country, Protestant Christianity of
the
Reformation type. This is the
central issue in the preservation and
restoration of a culture.
The religion of the South which
must be credited preeminendy for
the production of the Southern
culture, was not of the modem,
saccharoid, idiocy that is based on
the latest chill or'
hot
flash
reverend prophet receives, Rather,
it was robust, substantial, bradng ,
full of the realities of earth and
heaven, as set forth in God's holy
and inspired Word.
It
was imbued
with a stoutness, a Weightiness and
true manliness that only eternal
truth can produce. Its noble goal
was to promote truth, justice,
and
mercy not to produce nice people
who endure treachety and tolerate
ungodly tyranny with a smiley
face.
This faith reared a generation of
men
and women who knew what it
was to suffer without complaining
and to gain victory without
gloating, They understood the
difference between sacrifice and
self-serving indulgence. They knew
by experience what it meant to
maintain their integrity at the price
of their popularity. They knew that
true nobility was founded upon
righteousness
not
success.
[As R.L.
Dabney once said, It is only the
atheistwho adopts success
as
the
criterion of right. ] Most of all, they
learned to fear God and
consequendy feared nothing else.
All lessons, which
I
fear, that have
been long forgotten by many of
their descendants,
This foundation has never been
totally deStroyed. It has always
been
present to a greater or lesser degree
66
~ T H COUNSEL
of
Cbalcedon Jnile{July 1998'
in the South, though it has waxed
and waned The high level of
faithfulness in the early 17th
century was lost sometime in the
latter part of that century
but
was
revived during the Great
Awakening of the 18th, under the
majestic preaching of George
Whitefield.
By
the 1790's however,
the faith had waned again. So much
so that at the beginning of the 19th
century the South could
be
called
one of the most unchurched
sections of the country, only one
southerner in ten was a church
member. Religious apathy and
spiritual declension characterized
the region,
But this all changed as
the 19th century
progressed. God revived
the true faith again and by
the 1830's the South had
become the most strongly
evangelical section of the
country. The Second Great
Awakening was not especially noted
for its orthodoxy
in
the Midwest
and Northeast (and even some
sections orthe upper South), but it
took
on
a different character
in
the
South as a whole.
Charles Finney's humariistic
revivalism which dominated the
Midwest and the Northeast never
found ready reception in the South
at large. The Southern Christian
leaders were of a different sort
altogether thanMr Finney and his
Ohio brethren. Daniel Baker,James
HenleyThornwell, Benjamin
Morgan Palmer, Robert Louis
Dabney, John Holt Rice, Thomas
Peck, Moses Drury Hoge;
and
many, many other great and faithful
men
held reins of the Southern
revival and by their sound
instruction and expository
preaching prevented the movement
from being corrupted by the
unscriptural practices and
fanaticism that dominated the
Northern revivals. True revivals,
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they said,
were
God-sent
not man
produced
as Finney and his
followers insisted. Revivals could
not
be
planned
or scheduled,
nor
could they be
prolonged
by
artificial means. They could only be
gratefully received
and
rejoiced
over.
These
two
contrasting views
ought
not to be dismissed as
insignificant or irrelevant. The one
focused upon man's ability to
manipulate God and
thus produce
reform
by his own
efforts. The
other insisted upon man's utter
dependence upon
God and
produced men
who
trusted in God
to bring about reformation in the
world.
The
Southern
men
advocated faithful adherence
to the Word of God,
recognizing that nothing
could
be accomplished apart
from His blessing. These two
contrasting perspectives
would
bare quite different
fruit for each region. Dependence
upon God and strict adherence to
God's
means
as set forth in His
Word, became
characteristic of
Southern
Christianity. Political
coercion in
the
name of
God
became
the
hallmark of the North.
The orthodoxy
of the
South
contrasted in quite a few other ways
from
the
prevailing spirit of the
North.
The
rationalism o f the
Northern
Unitarianism
with
its
detached, Stoic propriety
and
the
polite, lecture-like quality of the
sermons was
quite different from
the
warm-blooded
preaching
and
affection for
the
Savior that this
preaching produced across the
South.
The contrast
was manifest
to
travelers in both regions. A writer
in
the
Presbyterian Advocate
in
1830
gave this comparison
between
the
preaching in
New England
and
that
of the Southern
states:
There
[Le., in New England]
the preachers write their sermons
and read them to their
audience; .. [the style] is chaste,
argumentative
but
wanting in
animation.
The
style [in the South]
is unequal, often incorrect,
but
animated vehement and
powerful...Which
on
the whole are
the
most useful
it
is difficult
to
decide. For
instruction
the former
excel; for delight
we would
listen
to
the latter. (Ernest T. Thompson,
Presbyterians in
the
South, va . I, p.
221)
William Plummer, pastor for
many years at the First Presbyterian
Church
at Richmond, was replaced
after his departure
by
a northerner.
The northern replacement, we are
told,
had
a
good and
highly
cultivated
mind
and his sermons
instructed and pleased, but says
Moses Hoge (who
was
a student in
Richmond
at
the time
and
faithful
attendant at First Presbyterian),
they were not
Southern
sermons.
There
were
no bursts of passion
no involuntary emotion no sudden
and splendid inspiration, bearing a
man
away from
his
manuscript and
from his commonplaces as in a
chariot of fire. Yankees, said
Hoge, seem
to
say
good
things
because they have
studied
them.
Southern
men
say
good
things as if
they could
not
help
it.
(Quoted
by
Anne C. Loveland,
Southern
Evangelicals and
the
Social Order,
p.41
There was a reason for this
animation of
Southern
preachers.
They believed themselves to
be
dying men speaking to dying men.
They
were setting forth matters of
life and death. Who
can
be
. detached
and
professional
when
dealing
with
truths which
have to
do with
life
and
death? The passion
of these men often made
Northerners feel out of place.
William Henry
Foote
wrote
of
George Baxter, who
was President
of
Washington
College at the time,
I have never known any minister
of
the
gospel who so
often shed
tears in
the pulpit. t was very
common
for
his
voice
to
falter, and
become
tremulous from the
swelling
tide of his strong emotions,
especially
when
speaking
of the
suffering
of
Christ,
or when
warning sinners to flee from the
wrath to
come.
(Thompson,
Presbyterians in
the South, p. 220)
The
truth
of God so could not be
spoken
as if
it
were bare
statistics or a report
of some
business that had been
carried out in a foreign land.
Moses Hoge having
listened
to
a number of
Northern sermons, longed
for the good
old
fire of Southern
preachers. In
the same letter
previously
quoted,
he went
on
to
say the he
longed to
hear Dr.
Plummer
preach
again, I
am
hungry to hear him
roar once
more.
I
wasn t
to see
his eyes
glare and his
hair
stand
up on end.
It
will
refresh
me to
see him foam
at the mouth
again. (Ibid.) I
dare
say,
this would
have
been something
rarely
seen
in
New
England.
Sermons in
the South were
not
dry, abstract disquisitions on
the
latest philosophical
speculations
that
might
have
cropped
up in
the
fevered
brains of corrupt
and self
important men as you might have
heard
at
the North. Northern
sermons were
calculated
to
platter
the
intellect. Southern sermons
sought
to
change the heart. Not that
Southerners
ignored the
intellect,
they didn't,
but
they realized that
unless a man s heart is
changed, he
will ignore
even
what
his mind is
convinced is true. One
historian has
J u n ~ u y
998
TIlE COUNSEL
of Chalcedon
67
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noted, "Every sermon, whether
Presbyterian, Methodist, or Baptist,
preached
both
doctrines and duties
and
was addressed not only to the
underStandings
but
to the hearts
and consciertces of the
congregation.' (Ibid., p 42
William Hill, long time pastor
in
Wincheste r, VA, "stormed the soul
through the passions, and overawed
the judgment by the force of his
appeals.,.His views
of
things were
vivid. .his
gush
of feeling
overwhelming . n public bodies
and in
private circles,
by
his
powerful appeals
to
the strong
passions, by his wit and humor, by
his confident and yielding manner,
Mr. Hill
would
make his hearers
feel
that what
was uttered by
him
was
the voice of their own heart
and
judgment, perhaps in sweeter
terms
than
they
had
ever before
heard
.. (Ibid.)
The preaching of the Word was
viewed
as
the "chief means
by
which
men
were changed.
Not
legislation
and
social movements
but
the Truths
of
God proclaimed
faithfully to the consciences of men
were the instruments of reform.
Arid reform always began from
within man by
grace, not outside
of
him by
force.
The
South
believed
the
Bible to
be the very
Word
of God written. t
was infallible, inspired,inerrant, and
authoritative
in
all area.s
of
life and
thought. Benjamin Morgan Palmer
(long
time
pastor
of the First
Presbyterian
Church of New
Orleans) echoed the widely
acceptednotion that the minister is
a "messenger from God whose
duty,
said
Palmer, was "to speak
only
the word that is
put
into his
mouth. That
is, the
job of
the
minister is not to tell
us
of his latest
dreams and imaginations, or of his
opinions of
world events
nor
is
it
to
display
his
grasp of current
piobleIIlS. He has
but
one job --.: to
expound and apply the Word God
has
giv n
to us. His sole care, said
Palmer, "must
be
tb inquire
what
God the Lord will say." He is "to
study God's Book; to expound its
doctrines, to enforce its precepts, to
urge its motives, to present its
promises to
reCite
its warnings, to
declare its
judgments.
(Ibid., p.
42)
Southern ministers spent their
energies
in
explaining
and
applying
the great truths
of
Scriptures, the
sovereignty of God, the depravity of
man, the divine election of grace,
the atoning death
of
Christ, the call
to repentance and justification by
faith.
The doctrines palatable in the
North, however, were quite
different
than
those received
in
the
South; The old Calvinism which
proclaimed a sovereign, majestic
God who ruled over all and gave
mercy to whom He pleased was
anathema
in
the
North
where the
sovereign God had been replaced
with the sovereign, sinless man.
Harriet Beecher Stowe once
remarked that
in
Boston, "the only
thing worse than
an
atheist was a
Calvinist.' The biblical teaching of
human
depravity which Uiuminates
the lie of humanism old and new,
was equally offensive to themodern
Northern
sensibilitIes. Man was
basically good, they believed. "Sin'
so called, was the consequence of
inadequate education and unseemly
surrourtdings, not some defect in
man
himself. Thus,
you
see, man's
problem was
not
seen
as
located
inside of him
but
outside,
in
society. Man was not saved by grace
but
by social and political reform.
These views, as we now know,
produced quite different political
sentiments
in
the two regions. The
South, influenced more and more
by
the old orthodoxy, believed that
God was sovereign. He alone
possessed unlimited authority
and
68 THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon
Juue/july 1998
He alone
could be
trusted with such
authority since He was spotlessly
holy, just, and good. They believed
therefore that God had ordained all
human institutions with strictly
limited authOrity and that if society
was to prosper each institution
(family, Church,
and
State)
must
abide
within
the limitations set
forth by God..
Further, the South believed that
man was basically sinful. Thus, his
need was the grace of God not
political
and
social reform.
Salvation w,," achieved yman's
efforts but mercifu,lly and freely
given by God
on
the basis of
Christ's work
in
the place of
sinners.
The North, rejecting
the
doctrine of man's depravity,
believed that the chief need of
man
was social and political reform -
precisely the sort of reform the
South opposed. Reform
beC mJ.e
the
"religion' of the North. Prison
reform, the abplition of capital
punishment, socialistic
experiments, the feminist
movement, the government school
movemel,lt,_
the temperance
movement, the movement to reform
working conditions and of course,
the abolition movement. The North
was movement
mad. -
And,
i
persuasion didn 't work(and it
seldom did) they freely resorted to
political and governmental force -
salvation would come whether men
liked it or not.
The fact that the ConStitution
forbade the Federal government to
act
in
these ways made little
difference to tnese "promoters of
progress.' lfthe literal language of .
the Constitution does
not
allow it,
the "spirit'
of
the Constitu,tion does
allow it. These men who
had
for
some time refused
to
interpret the
Bible faithfully in accordance with
its original intent, saw nothing at
all
wrong
in
interpreting the .
Constitution the same way.
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The growth of Unitarianism in
the North would also have
an
impact in the political sphere.
Clearly the departure from historic
Christianity would cause the
growth of a faith in man and his
goodness which gave much favor to
a radically democratic form of
government. But here I want to
focus upon the rejection of the
doctrine of the Trinity.
It is only within God Himself
tha t we find the solution to the
ancient question of the one and the
many. God is both one and three.
Both unity and diversity are equalJy
ultimate in Him. In Christian
cultures therefore, there
has
always
been a place for oneness (unity,
structure, form) and a place for
manyness (individualism and
diversity). Only in the Triune God
can we have find unity that does
not
annihilate legitimate diversity
and
vice verse. Only
in
Him and
His covenant can there be real unity
which preserves legitimate
diversity. Thus, only
in
a Christian
culture can you have unity AND
diversity, unity and freedom. In
imitation of the Triune God, there
is a unity of faith and purpose and
yet there is no demand for
uniformity of personality. There is a
unity without the assimilation of
the individual into the whole.
In unitarian and atheistic
cultures, you find just the opposite.
There
is
usually a demand for a
stifling egalitarian conformity
in
order to preserve unity.
Unitarianism views
od
not
as
a
Person,
but
as an impersonal force.
There
is
and can be no selfless
love within God (since His
monism makes such love
impossible) and thus, the culture,
reflecting this view of God,
becomes cruel and heartless. A
culture that refuses to recognize the
loving Trinity, seeks unity by force
(totalitarianism and statist
egalitarianism) and thus tends to be
characterized by harshness,
bitterness, and cruelty (as Islamic
and
communistic cultures
are
and
ever have been).
This gives us some additional
insight as to why the Unitarians of
the North, hated and sought by
overwhelming force to destroy
and
remake the old South (where this
Trinitarian principle of unity and
diversity was honored). Unbelievers
demand uniformity in faith. They
are threatened and frightened by
divergent beliefs and thus sooner or
later resort to force to bring about a
pseudo-unity.
True unity
is
founded not upon
impersonal or bureaucratic force
but
upon
the love and grace (the
personableness) ofthe Triune God.
Where this is lacking, there can
never be freedom, peace, or
prosperity.
This orthodoxy which pervaded
the South prior to the war was the
reason
for
the political views which
dominated the region as well. The
concepts of limited constitutional
government, a union made of free
and independent states, a hearty
distrust of democracy, strict
adherence to the Constitution, the
doctrine of the separation of
powers, the rules of justice, all these
distinctives
and many more which
distingUished our nation
in
its
founding are rooted
in
Christianity.
But even more important than
Christianity's influence
upon
our
political theory is the fact that it
molded a citizenry that was wilJing
and able to preserve this system of
liberty. The people who sat under
the preaching of such noble men as
Dabney, Hoge, Palmer, Thornwell,
Peck, and others were molded by
the Truths of God's Word. The
South became not just a
conservative region but a
distinctively Christian region. There
was reverence for God and the
Scriptures; marriage and family
were held in high esteem. The
region was characterized by
Christian generosity
and
hospitality;
honesty and integrity; and
resp
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