the history of presbyterianism in the united states

The History of Presbyterianismin the United States

Part 2: Centuries of ChangeB - The 2nd Great Awakening (1790-1840)

The (First) Great Awakening,1730-1743

John WesleyGeorge Whitefield

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards“[T]he most ambitious attempt ever tojustify Calvinism in the midst of the moraland intellectual Enlightenment of the 1700s.” (A. Guelzo)

But …•he rejected the imputation of Christ’s

righteousness and replaced it with a governmental stance. (God never forgave sinners unless they actually deserved it.)

•Men had the natural will to stop sinning but were not willing to do so.

•Original sin was merely an identification with Adam and not a curse unto death. (This dealt with the depth of total depravity.)

The (First) Great Awakening•Focused on Christian revitalization•Not focused on worship (liturgy) but only

preaching.•The preaching called for deep, individual

inspection, conviction of sin, and of the need to revitalize one’s relationship to Jesus Christ.

•It challenged church authority (“a sleepy status quo”) and invited division between traditionalists and new revivalists.

•It reached out to the churched, calling for change in their personal piety and practice.

The (First) Great Awakening• “[A] new Age of Faith rose to counter the currents of

the Age of Enlightenment, to reaffirm the view that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason.”

• Emphasis was on▫ personal faith rather than conformity to doctrine,▫ religious experience at the moment vs. continuing

discipleship,▫ a response of repentance for sin and a new birth,▫ emotional enthusiasm of its participants (e.g. weeping,

fainting), in contrast to the more staid and formal worship of traditional Anglican and Congregational services.

The (First) Great Awakening• Put extra pressure on the questions of

subscription and adequate theological preparation for the ministry.

Gilbert Tennent

The Log College, 1726-46

Strategic Theological Compromises Within Conservative Presbyterianism

•Adopting Act of 1729

The Adopting Act of 1729•Scots-Irish ministers preferred strict

subscription to confessional standards in order to maintain orthodoxy.

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith … to be founded upon the Word of God; and do you acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship, as presently practiced in this National Church … ?” (Ministerial vow of 1711)

The Adopting Act of 1729

•Scots-Irish ministers preferred strict subscription to confessional standards in order to maintain orthodoxy

•The New Englanders preferred less hierarchical church government and believed the individual conscience could not be bound by others but only by the Bible.

The Adopting Act of 1729

And in case any minister of this Synod, or any candidate for the ministry shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said Confession or Catechisms, he shall, at the time of his making the said declaration, declare his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod; who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry within our bounds, and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple or mistake to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine, worship, or govt. …

Old Side/New Side, 1737-41Old Side New Side

• Wanted prohibition against rogue itinerant preaching.

• Wanted college diploma as minimum credentials for ordination.

• Reserved judgment on the truth of the Great Awakening phenomenon.

• Tended to dismiss rash conversions as not of the Spirit of God.

• Encouraged itinerant preaching as “not the enemy”.

• Higher education not always required or necessary.

• Embraced the emotional conversion experience entirely.

• Tended to criticize other side as “unconverted” themselves.

Master TimelineUnited States Europe

• 1620 – Mayflower lands• 1730s-1743 – 1st Great Awakening• 1776-1783 – American Rev.• 1790-1840 – 2nd Great Awakening• 1830 – Book of Mormon• 1850-1900 – 3rd Great Awakening• 1861-1865 – American Civil War• 1870 – Scottish Common Sense• 1889 – Moody Bible Institute• 1891 – Briggs’ address

• 1910 – Pres. G.A.: 5 Fundamentals• 1914-1919 – World War I• 1922 – “Shall Fund.s Win?”• 1923 – The Auburn Affirmation• 1925 – The Scopes Trial• 1929 – Westminster Theo.

Seminary• 1936 – Orthodox Presbyterian Ch.• 1936 – John Mackay, Princeton

Sem.

• 1643 – Westminster Confession of Faith• 1650-1800 – Age of European

Enlightenment& of Scottish Common Sense

Philosophy• 1770s-1900 – Rise of German Higher

Criticism• 1789-1799 – French Revolution• 1827 – Plymouth Brethren begin meeting• 1833 – Slavery Abolition Act of England• 1859 - Charles Darwin – Origin of Species• 1862-77 – Darby travels to the United

States• 1919 – Rise of Neo-Orthodoxy

United States (cont.)

1937 – Death of J. Gresham Machen - Bible Presbyterian Ch. (McIntyre)1966 – RTS, Jackson, MI1967 – Confession of ‘67, Book of Confessions1973 – PCA1983 – Union of UPCUSA & PCUS

After the American Revolution, Christianity was being transformed.

•Christian faith had been on the decline since the Revolution, especially on the frontier.

•Universalism and Deism were popular, self-excusing faiths.

•Alcoholism, greed, abuse of slaves, and sexual immorality were rampant.

•Only small, local signs of revival could be found.


•Presbyterians suffered a shortage of educated clergy to push west with the expansion.

•But Methodists and Baptistswere the fasting growingchurches from 1770-1820.

•Circuit-riding ministers,such as Francis Asbury,transformed the frontier.

Cumberland Presbytery, Kentucky

•began ordaining men without approved theological training.

•allowed ministers a qualified assent to the Westminster Confession, requiring them to swear to the Confession "so far as they deemed it agreeable to the

Word of God".•Particular doctrinal issues involved pre destination.


•1796 - James McGready, a Presbyterian minister from the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination came to Logan County, Kentucky.



•He took charge of 3 congregations in the immediate vacinity.

•To awaken their spiritual sleepiness he set before them a covenant.

When we consider the word and promises of a compassionate God to the poor lost family of Adam, we find the strongest encouragement for Christians to pray in faith--to ask in the name of Jesus for the conversion of their fellow-men. None ever went to Christ when on earth, with the case of their friends, that were denied, and, although the days of his humiliation are ended, yet, for the encouragement of his people, he has left it on record, that where two or three agree upon earth

to ask in prayer, believing, it shall be done.

Again, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. With these promises before us, we feel encouraged to unite our supplications to a prayer-hearing God for the outpouring of his Spirit, that his people may be quickened and comforted, and that our children, and sinners generally, may be converted.

Therefore, we bind ourselves to observe the third Saturday of each month, for one year, as a day of fasting and prayer for the conversion of sinners in Logan county, and throughout the world. We also engage to spend one half hour every Saturday evening, beginning at the setting of the sun, and one half hour every Sabbath morning, from the rising of the sun, pleading with God to revive his work.



•He took charge of 3 congregations in the immediate vicinity.

•To awaken their spiritual sleepiness he set before them a covenant.•During their combined Communion seasons revival broke out.


A woman who had long sought assurance began shouting and singing. … the congregation was weeping, people began to cry and shout. A Methodist minister went through the house shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the “slain”.

CH


• People flocked to Logan County by the hundreds, then thousands.• Most came prepared to provide for themselves overnight with tents.• The first “Camp Meeting” was born.


“Whatever their particular doctrinal stance, most nineteenth-century evangelicals preached a kind of practical Arminianism which emphasized the duty and ability of sinners to repent and desist from sin. [T]hey preached hellfire and damnation … [holding to] an unshakable practical belief in the capacity of humans for moral action, in the ability of humans to turn away from sinful behavior and embrace moral [responsibility].”


At nearby Cane Ridge, the phenomenon grew wilder:• Preaching more dramatic• Fainting,• Shouting,• Wild genuflections called “exercises”• Ecstatic utterances• Eventually, confusion reigned.

The Second Great Awakening

•Emphasized the imminent return of Christ and judgment of all.

•Appealed to the less educated, rougher lives of the American mid-west.

•Women and slaves were most affected.•Spawned the Restoration Movement (a

rejection of present denominations)•A rise in Adventism Millerites 7th Day

Adventism

The Second Great Awakening

•Churches of Christ•Shakers•Church of Latter Day Saints

•American Bible Society•Temperance Movement


The Cane Ridge Communion quickly became one of the best-reported events in American history, and according to Vanderbilt historian Paul Conkin, ‘arguably … the most important religious gathering in all of American history.’ It ignited the explosion of evangelical religion, which soon reached into nearly every corner of American life. For decades the prayer of camp meetings and revivals across the land was ‘Lord, make it like Cane Ridge.’”

CH

New CovenantPresbyterian Church

Preaching God’s Sovereign Grace

to a World of Need128 St. Mary’s Church Rd.,

Abingdon, MD 21009410-569-0289

www.ncpres.orgwww.ephesians515.com

http://www.ncpres.org/

http://www.ephesians515.com/

Between 1816-26the United Presbyterian Church saw:

•50,000 members added.•a jump from 43 to 86 presbyteries.•and a jump in number of pastors:

from 543 to 1,140.

“Father of Modern Revivalism”

• 9 yr.s old at the time of Cane Ridge• 1821 – Licensed in Presbyterian

Church▫ had not read the WCF▫ opposed Old School theology▫ came to advocate Christian

Perfectionism• 1825 - Began revivalism as a

ministry in upstate New York• 1832 – Minister of 2nd Free

Presbyterian Church (Broadway Tabernacle)

• 1835 – President of Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH

Charles Finney1792-1875

Finney’s ControversialNew Measures

1. Praying for people by name.2. Visiting towns without

invitations/cooperation of local ministers

3. immediate admission of converts into church membership

4. protracted nightly meetings5. utilization of female preachers6. the “anxious bench”


“Father of Modern Revivalism”

• 9 yr.s old at the time of Cane Ridge• 1821 – Licensed in Presbyterian

Church▫ had not read the WCF▫ opposed Old School theology▫ came to advocate Christian

Perfectionism• 1825 - Began Revivalism as a

ministry in upstate New York• 1832 – Minister of 2nd Free

Presbyterian Church (Broadway Tabernacle)

• 1835 – President of Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH


Finney’s rejection of Calvinism• He denied that man was

morally depraved.• He affirmed a universal

atonement.• He said that salvation is not a

miracle from God but the logical, compelling choice of a reasonable human being.

• He held to Christian perfectionism.

Finney’s advocacy of social reforms:• He tied choosing Christ to

denying alcohol.• He preached the abolition

of slavery.• He advocated for prison

reform and voluntary societies for the improvement of society.

“The Burned-Over District”

•Finney’s own termto refer to the area so heavilyevangelized as to have no “fuel” (unconverted)

left to burn (convert).•The area from which came:

▫Latter day Saint movement – late 1820s▫Millerites (Adventism), 1833 (influence for JWs)▫Spiritism (Communion with the dead), 1840s▫Oneida Society (Polygamist communal living),

1848

A Survey of 19th c. Presbyterianism

• 1683 - Francis Makemie arrived in MD• 1706 - 1st Presbytery organized, Philadelphia• 1730s-43 – 1st Great Awakening• 1775-83 - American Revolutionary War• 1789 - 1st General Assembly, PCUSA• 1790-1830s – 2nd Great Awakening• 1837 - Old School/New School Controversy• 1861-65 – War Between the States• 1861 – Presbyterians split north to south

Old School/New School

Old School New School

• Call to return to traditional Calvinism of the WCF.

• Suspicious of Revivalism.• Call to maintain a

Presbyterian form of Church government.

• United in the north as war approached.

• Passed the “exscinding act” removing entire synods

• Embraced “New Divinity” which was Arminian and universal.

• Desired and practiced revivalism.

• Was being led away from Presbytrianism and into Congregationalism.

• Divided in the south as war approached.

• Drew up the “Auburn Declaration” defending their views.

Charles Hodge

Lyman Beecher

Lyman Beecher’s Visionfor Revivals and Moral Crusades

“[I]ndividual conversions were insufficient to prevent the United States from apostasy and ruin. … Beecher believed that Sabbath observance was essential to the protection of American liberty. [T]he United States would soon retrogress ‘after the influence of her Sabbaths has passed away.’”

Lyman Beecher

Lyman Beecher’s Visionfor Revivals and Moral Crusades

“Intemperance is the sin of our land … and if anything shall defeat the hopes of the world, which hang upon our experiment with civil liberty, it is that river of fire … .”

1830s – New School Presbyterians initiated an effort to have congregations switch from wine to grape juice in the observance of the Lord’s Supper.

Lyman Beecher

Charles Hodge

•His efforts in the defense of doctrinal integrity kept Princeton Seminary in the Old School party.

•Published Systematic Theology (3 vol.) in 1873.•Argued for Presbyterianism as the government

prescribed in Scripture.•Openly critiqued Finney’s Pelagianism:

Finney’s idea of moral ability “has not been adopted in the confession of any one

denominational church in Christendom, but is expressly repudiated by them all.”


• 1683 - Francis Makemie arrived in MD• 1706 - 1st Presbytery organized, Philadelphia• 1730s-43 – 1st Great Awakening• 1775-83 - American Revolutionary War• 1789 - 1st General Assembly, PCUSA• 1790-1830s – 2nd Great Awakening• 1837 - Old School/New School Controversy• 1850s-1900s – Third Great Awakening

Third Great Awakening – 1850s-1900s

•Protestant Denominations grew quickly.•Many Christian colleges started.

▫1848 – Geneva College, Northwood, OH▫1876 – Grove City College, Grove City, PA

•Rise of the Republican Party•Revivalism of Dwight Moody

▫1886 – Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, IL


Issues:•A Postmillennium vision of culture•Temperance => Prohibition•Women’s Sufferage•Child Labor laws•Rise in the Social Gospel, esp. in missions•“All purpose” Church facilities/services


Other Creations:•Holiness/Pentecostal Movements•Young Men’s Christian Association•Salvation Army, Catherine & William

Booth•The Society for Ethical Culture (Jewish)•Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy•Jehovah’s Witnesses – Charles Taze

Russell


• 1683 - Francis Makemie arrived in MD• 1706 - 1st Presbytery organized, Philadelphia• 1730s-43 – 1st Great Awakening• 1775-83 - American Revolutionary War• 1789 - 1st General Assembly, PCUSA• 1790-1830s – 2nd Great Awakening• 1837 - Old School/New School Controversy• 1850s-1900s – Third Great Awakening• 1861-65 – War Between the States• 1861 – Presbyterians split north to south

The Approaching Storm

•1818 – First firm stand by Presbyterians against slavery.

“voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another” was a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature, … utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, … totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ.”



•1845 – General Assembly▫New School: slavery was the decisive issue – a

moral crusade▫Old School: preserving the nation was

decisive issue. On one hand, slavery not absolutely condemned

in Scr. On the other hand, the “evil connected with

slavery” must not be countenanced.



•1845 – General Assembly•1857 – New School churches divided from

the north to form the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church.

•12/4/1861 – Old School churches in the south hold their first G.A. with 45 presbyteries, 840 ministers, 72,000 communicant members.

PCUSA –OldSchool

PCUS –NewSchool

PCUSA –NewSchool

PCUS –OldSchool


For the southern church, the hardening of political opinions meant a shift on slavery.

‘the institution of slavery is divinely recognized and sanctioned. … We are upholding and defending a sacred trust, committed to us by the providence of God.’a North Carolina Presbyterian newspaper

H&M


At the same time, many southern ministers continued to oppose and seek reform.

In addition to seeking a reform of slaves’ domestic relations, [James A. Lyon of Mississippi] advocated that blacks and white gather together for worship, … that African-Americans be catechized, and that there be a repeal of laws prohibiting slaves from learning to read and write.

H&M

After the War

The Old and New Schools in the North reunited in 1869. But the division between North and South would be hardest for Presbyterians to overcome. The northern and southern Presbyterians could not accept each other until 1983.

H&M

New CovenantPresbyterian Church

Preaching God’s Sovereign Grace

to a World of Need128 St. Mary’s Church Rd.,

Abingdon, MD 21009410-569-0289

www.ncpres.orgwww.ephesians515.com

http://www.ncpres.org/

http://www.ephesians515.com/

the history of presbyterianism in the united states

Documents

confession of faith

great awakeningfocused

new birth

new revivalists

onpersonal faith

strict subscription

confessional standards

scotsirish ministers