Christianity in America in the 19th Century

2002-11-09

I. Awakenings and Revivals

A. The Second Great Awakening.

Conversions of sinners, social reforms. Severe challenges. Calvinistic movement in the first great awakening. The second great awakening: need: 1780’s-1810. Popularization of deism. Affected the thinking of many people. Writings and lectures of Allen, Jefferson and Paine (above). Also disestablishment of churches in 9/13 states. Decline in the prestige of the clergy. Also westward movement in America to new frontiers. Most people had lived east of the Appalachians. The people moving westward abandoned churches in the east and do not establish new ones. People isolated out in the west. KY and TN. Most unchurched people. 90% were unchurched during this period. Decline in morals.

Nature of the awakening. 2 parts. The eastern and western phase. East: centered around colleges. 1787, 2 Presbyterian colleges (one was Hampton Sydney College) in VA, spiritual awakening. All young men professed conversion and pledged themselves to evangelism. Yale became a center of this awakening as well. Timothy Dwight, clergyman. President of Yale. Debate his skeptical students of the inspiration of the bible, 1802. Students had been affected by deism. 1/3 of the students had been converted. Went into evangelism. Turned young people to the need of evangelism. West: Campmeetings, people go out to have meetings in the woods. Early leader, James McGready. Powerful Presbyterian preacher. Logan County KY, 1800. Following years, many such meetings were held on the frontier. 1801, Cane Ridge KY. Physical manifestations. Exercises, jerking of head, dancing, falling (sign of HS convicting of sin), rolling, laughing, barking. Preachers usually with little training. Baptist farmer preacher. Methodist circuit riders, riding from one place to another on horseback. Peter Cartwright. Burly, went into saloon, and would talk to men about their spiritual need. Then he would be challenged to fight. Took them outside and beat them up, and them told them some more about their spiritual need. Also Lorenzo Dow. Scraggly, sickly, eccentric, 1777-1834. ‘Crazy Dow’. Awakening theology in the west: reduced to a minimum. 1. sin, preached against sin, especially Sabbath, drinking, horse racing (worst). 2. conversion, emphasized freewill. Salvation message got lost sometimes. Shallow message. Campmeetings became commercialized.

Results of the awakening: people professed Christ, churches gained, more religiousness. More Methodists and Baptists, the former had the greatest number. Splintering of American Protestantism. This happened the first time in the great awakening. Major denominational splits. Baptists, Presbyterian. Old Light and New Light Presbyterian. Cumberland Presbyterian. Hard shell and soft shell Baptists. Genuine Particular Baptists. New Groups emerging, The Disciples of Christ, ‘The Christian Church’. Restoration. Restoring NT Christianity. Leader Alexander Campbell, or Campbellites, (not favorable name). 4 things to do to be saved, repent, believe, confess, and be baptized. New England: Unitarians and the Universalists. Former: they do not believe in trinity, but unity of the Godhead. No deity of Christ. Split from Congregationalists Latter: All saved, nobody going to hell. These are joined today: Unitarian Universalists Association. Also, more emphasis on education. Denominational colleges and theological seminaries. More missionary work, home missionary work: American Bible Society, American Sunday School Union, American Tract Society, American home Missionary Society. Foreign missions through the denominations, not agencies like today. Also Revivalism as permanent feature of Protestant church life. Consider to be the norm. They would have scheduled revivals. Implies that they must be revived, that there is a lot of backsliding. God’s ideal is not revival. Ideal is growth.

B. The Finney Revivals

Charles G. Finney. Lawyer originally from CT, b. 1792. Baptized in Boston. New England, NY, PA, OH, evangelistic ministry. First notable meeting in Rochester. No formal theological training. New measures: he wanted to throw aside the theology hairsplitting, but speak on the people’s level. ‘Anxious bench’: A certain bench designated who were concerned about their sin, and someone could come and counsel them. Emphasized freewill in making spiritual decisions. Finney said that if you follow certain spiritual rules, revival would come. Also preached on social reform, against slavery, liquor. Some of his converts, that they left the faith for anti-slavery crusade.

C. Laymen’s prayer revival

1857-1858, NY City, Business man, Jeremiah Lanphier. Set up a noon day prayer meeting. There were 6 people. They kept meeting, and in 6 months, 10,000 were meeting in similar meetings. This spread to other large cities. 500,000-1,000,000 people were added to the church. No forceful leadership here. 1857, economic depression, Panic of 1857. Businessmen affected. Right on the eve of the civil war, the people cannot agree.

D. The Moody Campaigns

Dwight L. Moody. Shoe salesman. Influenced by the prayer revivals. After Civil War, he undertook a series of evangelistic campaigns. Accompanied with Ira Sankey. Went over to Britain. Moody was very popular. Great speaker and organizer. Stressed large meetings in large public halls. Interdenominational meetings. Theologically: preached a simple gospel message. Tried to avoid debate and divisions. Moody was an Arminian up to the cross, and a Calvinist after the cross. Eternal security and freewill. Did not stress social reform. Favorite illustration. The world is like a wrecked ship. The gospel is a lifeboat, we need to go to the wrecked ship with life boat to save as many as possible. Mass evangelism, he spoke at Yale. Convert: Reuben A. Torrey. Followed Moody’s methods, and became an international speaker as well. Gypsy Smith. William Ashley ‘Billy’ Sunday, converted baseball player

II. Social Reforms

A. Pre-Civil War reforms

Eli Whitney’s cotton gin made slavery more profitable. Charles Finney, followed. Anti-slavery. Theordore Dwight Weld was a convert, anti-slavery persuaded the west against slavery. Some people like this got involved in politics to pass legislation. Abolitionist movement. Some Protestants advocated slavery. Splits over slavery. A group called Wesleyan Methodists in 1843 broke off and formed their own group. They would not permit their members to have slaves. Baptists. 1845, The Southern Baptist Convention came into being, pro-slavery. Split occurred in the northern and southern Presbyterians in 1861.

Temperance movement. Use of Alcohol in early America was excessive. Methodists, Congregationalists, Prespyterians banned alcohol for their members in the early 19th Century. Temperance, really meaning prohibition. Prohibition Party would run candidates periodically. 5000 temperance societies in US in 1835. Most effective: Anti-Saloon League. Formed in various states throughout the country. 1895, national organization. Approach: they would publish paper where they listed candidates who were wet, and those who were dry. The whole nation became dry at one point. 18th Amendment, 1919. 1933, they repealed the amendment, 21st, to bring back liquor.

Anti-dueling. i.e. Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton. Prison Reforms. Women’s rights. Care of the mentally ill.

B. Reforms related to urban and industrial problems.

Industrialization and urbanization. 1865 and after. Cities grew. Number of problems. Distribution of wealth. Few rich and many poor. Problems of the workers, poor living and working conditions. Poor. Moral problems with young people in the cities. Increase in crime. Secularism and materialism. Challenge of new religions of immigrants 1880-1920. They came from places that had different religions. A lot of them Catholic or Jewish. Came from Southern and Eastern Europe. Attempts to meet people’s needs. YMCA, YWCA. Salvation Army. Good Will Industries, a church from Boston, social service and evangelism. Rescue missions, NY City, Water Street Mission. Chicago, Pacific Garden. Big city churches. Have gymnasiums and libraries, medical help, sewing rooms. Social Gospel: New approach to the Christian religion. Postmillenialism says Jesus will come at the end of the millennium. We need to improve society. New optimistic liberal theology. Growing concern of the conditions in the cities, economic inequities. Did not stress theology, but good will, friendship and service. Tried to apply the ethical teachings of Jesus to social evils. Nature of man. Stressed Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. We should treat one another in this way. Man is shaped by his environment. Abandoned the idea of salvation of individuals. We need to save society. Have to change the structures of societies. Looking for Kingdom of God to be established. They were critical of capitalism. There needed to be more government control. Advocated socialism, minor form. Friendly towards of labor unions. Leaders: Washington Gladden, Congregational minister from Columbus OH. Wrote books on social reforms. Refused to take any money from John D. Rockefeller. ‘Tainted money.’ Charles Sheldon, a pastor. Famous book, In His Steps. Following Jesus’ example. From Topeka KS. Gave his money to worthy social causes. Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918). Professor of Church History at Rochester U. Influenced by experiences as a young preacher in West side of NY City. ‘Hell’s Kitchen’. The needs of hat community, he formed his own social gospel. Renovate theology to meet the needs of the times. Socialism. Get rid of profit motives and competition.

III. Theological Liberalism

A. Its sources

An optimistic view of human nature. 19th Century was a time of progress in America. We would progress until we would perfect ourselves. Writings of an author: Horace Bushnell. Congregational minister n Hartford CT, 1847, wrote Christian Nurture. Emphasized that there was no need for conversion. They just had to grow into grace in their religious environment. Defective idea of original sin. Conversion not necessary. Critical of revivalism. Emphasized divine love, minimized divine judgment.

Darwinism. Minimized bible’s revelation. Optimistic about the future.

Critical views of the bible. Theological students were finishing their education in Germany, and bringing back higher criticism to America.

B. Its basic assumptions

Little/no doctrines. Assumptions: religion should change, inevitable and desirable. Change to meet man’s needs. Also personal human experience is the authority in religion. Not bible, because it has been proven inaccurate. The bible has validity as a record of man’s religious experiences. Also man is basically good. Corollaries, optimistic about man’s progress forever. No need for the doctrine of atonement. The church’s duties are moral education and ethical preaching. If humans are good, the return of Christ is unnecessary, because man will make their own golden age through social action. God is immanent, not transcendent. Leveled God down as they leveled man up. Man could demand unalienable rights from God. God is the ‘great democrat’. Jesus is completely human, not divine. He is supreme in that he fulfilled His human potential more than any other man. He is divine because he fulfilled God’s will more completely more than any other person did. Liberals aka Modernists

C. Its influence

Denominated the major theological schools U Chicago, Union Seminary, Princeton, Harvard, Yale. Influenced the emphases and the preaching of major Protestant Denominations. Greatest of these Harry Emerson Fordick. Pastor Riverside Church of NY City. Built with Rockefeller money. Professor at Union Theol. Seminary. Popularity: 13 honorary doctoral degrees. He did not earn any. 1908, a federation of churches, that spoke with liberal emphases. Federal Council of Churches in America. Changed to National Council…America. Dominated by liberals. Given to social programs. Affected Americans. Fostered biblical illiteracy and apathy about spiritual matters. External needs and material goals.