To understand the dominant Protestant paradigm and its characteristics that existed in 1870, we must understand the main currents of Christianity in America that began with the Pilgrims and developed through the three Great Awakenings. The first current began with the early Reformation churches planted in America in the early seventeenth century. These were the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians (Anglican), but their religious fervor and commitment cooled as native-born second and third generation colonists replaced their European-born parents during the last half of the 1600s. The second current grew from the stirrings of revival that blossomed within the church during the 1720s. These stirrings became a renewal movement called evangelicalism and birthed the First Great Awakening that began in the 1730s. Evangelical churches emphasized a revivalist style of preaching, personal conversion, personal devotion and holiness, and individual access to God which deemphasized the importance and authority of the church.[1] Separate from these two currents was another group known as confessional churches which did not participate in the revivalist movements but emphasized their official and churchly characteristics. Confessional churches included Catholics, Lutherans, German Reformed, Dutch Reformed, and Old Side Presbyterians.[2]
The evangelical movement developed two branches of its own. The populist churches were strongly revivalist, appealed to the common people, did not emphasize doctrine, and were strongest in Southern states. These churches were mostly Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and “Christian” churches. Although evangelical, the second group was more rationalist and scholarly. These churches were found mostly in the north and included the evangelical segments of Congregational, New Side Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches and are generally viewed as having a traditional emphasis on theology and scholarship.[3]
The populist wing of evangelicalism became the dominant branch of Christianity in America by the end of the American Revolution and establishment of the American republic. In 1760, the Anglican, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches accounted for more than forty percent of all American congregations but declined to less than twenty-five percent by 1790. However, the number of populist churches grew dramatically. The Baptists grew from forty-nine churches in 1760 to 858 by 1790. The Methodists went from having no churches to over 700 congregations during the same thirty year period. Gordon Wood wrote of this period, “The revolution released more religious energy and fragmented Christendom to a greater degree than had been seen since the upheavals of seventeenth century England or perhaps since the Reformation.” Others called the period a “…Revolutionary Revival.”[4]
Nancy Pearcey lists four major themes in the development of the American evangelical church which continue to shape its characteristics, patterns, and contours to the present day.
…the focus on an intense emotional conversion experience; the celebrity model of leadership; a deep suspicion of theological learning, especially as embodied in creeds and confession; and an increasingly individualistic view of the church, which borrowed heavily from the political philosophy of the day.[5]
Focus on an intense emotional conversion experience
Populist evangelicals saw spiritual emotion as a necessary antidote for spiritual coldness during the First Great Awakening. Although the rise of rise of the evangelical church occurred at a time of spiritual coldness within the dominant, state-oriented churches, it must be remembered that America remained a highly religious enterprise even as a wave of spiritual coldness settled on its churches in the late 1600s and early 1700s. The means of renewal of the church became a contentious battle between the revivalists who demanded a heart-felt, on-the-spot decision for Christ and those churches who traditionally favored gradual growth in one’s faith through participation in rituals and teachings of the church. One emphasized a new birth; the other “Christian nurture” through faith and holiness.[6] But the rationalist-contemplative-scholarly wing of the American church had had its day. The evangelicals prevailed, birthed the Great Awakening, revitalized the church from its spiritual coldness, prepared the way for the Revolution, and changed America forever.
The appeal to emotion was also an important ingredient during the Second Great Awakening. Here the evangelicals’ target was pervasive sinfulness in the new nation and not, as George Whitefield had said a half century earlier, the ministers and people of New England who “…rest in a head knowledge, and are close Pharisees.”[7] The spirit of the age had changed from spiritual coldness preceding the First Great Awakening to brazen sinfulness of the citizens and former soldiers within the newly-formed nation. Additionally, most of the hardy and unlearned pioneers, adventurers, and outlaws that populated the expanding western territories did not have the civilizing influences of schools, churches, governments, and families. For these rank sinners on both sides of the Appalachian Mountains, salvation was a decision, not a process, and emotion was an essential ingredient in making an effective religious appeal. “You grab people by the throat with an intense emotional experience to persuade them of the power of the supernatural—then you tell them to stop drinking, stop shooting each other, and live straight.” The intense emotional experience used by the early evangelicals in converting people to faith in Christ was highly effective.[8]
The emotional aspects of living the Christian life have always been a central element in the lives of believers and the church body. However, when believers and the church body focus substantially on emotion alone, they foster a neglect of theology and doctrine which inevitably leads to emotional shallowness and manipulation by man.
The celebrity model of leadership
George Whitefield is the first and best example of a celebrity-style leader that emerged from the early evangelical church. In contrast to the reserved, somber preaching style of his day, Whitefield’s preaching was flamboyant, animated, passionate, and sought to inspire mass audiences of lost sinners rather than instruct a congregation of the faithful even though he counted many of those as “close Pharisees.” Although Whitefield relied on self-promotion and publicity to spread his message, this was necessary to reach the multitudes in a sparsely populated rural environment, make them aware of their sin, and lead them to repentance and acceptance of Christ as their savior.
Charles Finney was a celebrity-style leader like Whitefield. Finney took the camp meeting style preaching to the cities in the first half of the nineteenth century during the midst of the Second Great Awakening. His preaching was less revivalist and more calculated in presentation. A former lawyer, Finney always dressed in a suit, presented a message that was polished, refined, and targeted the professional and middle classes. Revivals following the early years of the Second Great Awakening were more of a planned event than a spontaneous move of the Spirit. Finney believed the results of revival were not to be left to chance but depended on the correct use of the appropriate means.[9] Although Finney was more refined than Whitefield, he was just as passionate about his message, and a recurring theme in that message centered on the abolition of slavery in America. For Finney and many others in the first half of the century, it was a cause whose time had come. And Finney used every means appropriate to spread that message.
Since the emergence of evangelicalism in the early 1700s, the celebrity-style of leadership has been very effective in enlarging Christ’s kingdom in many venues and environments where pastors, local churches, and other Christian organizations could not reap the same results. Those that cast stones at all celebrity-style leaders in the church should read biographies of George Whitefield, John Wesley, and others who devoted lifetimes to the cause of Christ amidst hardship and sacrifice. However, with some notable exceptions, the celebrity-style leaders in the modern church bear little if any resemblance to those giants of the First and Second Great Awakenings.
A deep suspicion of theological learning, especially as embodied in creeds and confession
The heightened emotional element and attacks on non-evangelical churches in the first two Great Awakenings eventually tended to give rise to charges of anti-intellectualism in evangelical churches. In their efforts to arouse churches and their members from the prevailing spiritual lethargy prior to and during the Great Awakening, evangelical preachers often characterized the pastors and congregations of the wealthier, intellectual, confessional, and state-oriented churches as elitist and bound by needless rituals, traditions, and creeds.[10]
Whatever the shortcomings of those churches in that season of American church history, the early evangelicals painted with too broad a brush and in the larger sweep of history did lasting damage to all segments of the church and particularly to the evangelicals themselves. They instilled a lasting suspicion of theological learning, doctrine, creeds, and the history of the church. Evangelicals are much the poorer for their rejection of the knowledge to be gained from the writings and teachings of the great minds of the Christian past which are invaluable to understanding of scriptures. Evangelicals that label church history as irrelevant to the message of the modern church have not benefited from a study of the great successes and failures of the church through the centuries which serve as priceless lessons that both illuminate and elaborate upon the Bible’s great themes and teachings.
An increasingly individualistic view of the church
Eighteenth century American evangelicals exhibited a particularly strong individualistic view of the church. The origins of this view are found in the Reformation’s chant of the “priesthood of all believers” which removed salvation from the jurisdiction of the king, priest, or church and placed it squarely in man’s own hands. This spirit of individualism was carried across the Atlantic with the Puritans whose churches adopted the congregational as opposed to the episcopal form of church government. With the rise of the First Great Awakening, populist evangelicals carried this concept of individualism to a new level as it began attacking church authority. From there the drive for individualism eventually undercut the natural authority of learning and scholarship and led to an anti-intellectual mindset among many in the church.[11]
Coinciding with the individualism manifesting itself within the church, there arose a growing sense of individualism in the political realm. The colonists had prospered and grown fond of the freedoms they had gained due to benign neglect from their distant homeland. As Great Britain roused itself and began tightening its authority and control over its colonies, the colonists’ grievances began to multiply as they saw many injustices in the newly imposed restraints and requirements. Soon these grievances and objections turn to phrases such as “inalienable rights” which were not bestowed by kings or parliaments and led to revolution.
The symbiotic relationship between religious and political individualism was instrumental and necessary in preparing the colonists for the American Revolution during the eighteenth century. However, the lingering and exaggerated individualism within the church in the nineteenth century became very destructive because the church did not adapt its response to changes in Satan’s tactics in attacking the church. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the spirit of the world now promoted a humanistic worldview centered on man and cloaked in the robes of science and reason. Exalting self and resting on a false view of God, man, and freedom, the new humanistic individualism eventually seduced and compromised the individualism of its religious and political predecessors.
Remnants of eighteenth century political individualism absorbed by the church continue to affect it today and has produced fragmentation within the body of Christ (between the church, pastor, and laity), undermined the unity of families as one’s religion became a matter of individual choice, and encouraged a “do-it-yourself” religion with regard to sin, salvation, and living the Christian life.
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The American church from the early colonists through the mid-nineteen century was highly successful at warding off the spirit of the world, but Satan changed the demeanor of the spirit of the world by the middle of the nineteenth century. The dominant Protestant evangelicals did not recognize those changes and clung to their eighteenth century muskets as the European forces of humanism took aim at Christianity with their nineteenth and twentieth century cannons of humanism. As a result, the church was unprepared to resist those new challenges and thus failed to adequately defend the faith and the central cultural vision (collective Christian worldviews) of the Founders. Consequently, the America church progressively surrendered its social power, institutional influence, and cultural authority between 1870 and 1930.
It has been 150 years since the end of the Civil War and the last major sustained spiritual renewal in America. Under significant and sustained attack for more than a century, the American church has arrived at a time of crisis and is in danger of being overwhelmed by modern government and culture. The responsibility for the church’s weakness and the deterioration of American moral culture lies primarily at the door of the church. With the next chapter we begin a transition from a historical perspective of the church to events and circumstances beginning in the mid nineteenth century and lasting to the present day that have led to the afflictions, failings, and weakness of the modern American church and caused its demise as a moral force necessary to stem the decline of American culture.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), pp. 253, 256-257.
[2] Ibid., p. 257.
[3] Ibid., p. 256.
[4] Gordon S. Wood, “Religion and the American Revolution,” New Directions in American Religious History, ed. Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp.185-188.
[5] Pearcey, p. 274.
[6] Ibid., p. 269.
[7] Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941), p. 54.
[8] Pearcey, p. 263.
[9] Ibid., pp. 265-266, 287-288.
[10] Ibid., p. 265.
[11] Ibid., p. 270.
