FACTORS IN REACTION

68 Taylor stated: "I did begin strongly to smell the Hew -

III. FACTORS IN REACTION

Various attempts have been made to explain the rise and progress of anti-missionism in the United States. One

..

89

book has been devoted to a study of the origins of the move- ment.70 Consideration must now be given to the factors in-

volved in the anti-m~ssions or[anti-effort cause, remembering all the while that the primary concern of this chapter is

anti-missio~ism as a direct reaction to the work of the Triennial Convention.71

A

peculiar frontier Baptist phenomenon. This was the thesis advanced by William Warren Sweet in his study of the

7°This is the work of B. H. Carroll, Jr., entitled:

The Genesis

2l

American Anti-Missionism, published in 1902.

~far as the author

is

^aware

this

is the only book devoted solely to the study of anti-missionism. (This is true of Carroll's work in title only. His main purpose is to show the great benefits of the missionary movaaent.) Account is not taken here of work done by Old School historians. They, of course,~ would speak of the "rise of the missionary

Baptists."

71While the developmen~ of anti-missionisa had a

bearing upon the Triennial Convention throughout its history, there is justification for limiting the study here. ~ith

the elimination of education and doaestic missions froa ita sphere ot operations the Triennial Convention ceased to be the priaary target of the anti-missionists. The breach in churches· and associations, occurring largely in the decade ot the 1830's, was neither immediately nor directly occasioned by the work of the Convention. The "benevolent objects ot the day " with whose proponents the anti-missioniats declared non-fellowship, may have had the approbation of the Conven- tion. They were not operations o? the Con~ention.

I '

90 Baptists in America.. He found the origins of anti-missioniSlll in objection to· centralization of authority; opposition to an educated and paid ministry; jealousy; and opposition to man-made institutions, for which there was no warraat in Scripture. A doctrine was then evolved, according to Sweet, to·uphold a posit~on alread[ accepted.72

Religious reaction ~ "hard times." While no one bas sought to explain anti-missionism in these terms, some have observed that the periods of greatest growth among m8Dbers of the Old School occurred in times of econ~mic depression, or in the years immediately following national warfare.?)

Ira D. Hudgins asked: "Is it merely a coincidence that the first faint hostility to the missionary effort rose in the -early ~wenties when an economic depression preTailed following the panic of 1819?"7~ He then added:

Nor is it without significance that the greatest increase in Old School numbers caae around 1837 which ushered in one of America's seYerest depressional which gaTe riae to the Millerite doctrine of the end o1· the

world. 7' ---

7

2

_sweet,

22•

~.,

PP•

67-76 • .

73cf. Ira

D.

Hudgins, "The Anti-Missionary ControYeray aaong Baptista,"

I!!

Chronicl~r

IIY

(October,

1951),

147-63;

Harry

L.

Poe~

"Histor.y of

the Anti-Missionary Baptista,•

lh!

Chronicle, II (Apri~,

1939), 51-64.

'74Hudgins,

22•

~·•

P• 159.

7Sraid.

91 Harry L. Poe observed:

One thing of interest in connection with the Anti- Missionary Baptists is that they appeared shortly after the War of 1812 • • • They more than doubled their

membership during the three years following the Civil War. They also had an increase following the Spanish American War, and again following the World War.76

An expression of American freedom. Byron Cecil

Lambert, in

a

^Ph.D.

di~sertation

^wrltten under the guidance of Sidney Mead of the University of Chicago, has recently placed anti-missionism in a larger socio-political context than other students of the movement have admitted. Lambert wrote in the Preface to his study:

Usually thought of as a Baptist phenomenon, the movement was interdenominational; thought of as a

frontier development, it can be shown to have originated in the urban East; considered simple and the work of yokels, it can be proved that it was complex, with

ramificati~gs running into the socio-political web of the times. Tf

In summing up his thesis Lambert contended that the history of'anti-missionisa is a combination of prophetic individual- ism, primitivisa, and pessimism. To some extent these three emphases fall into a chronological pattern.?S

76poe, !2• cit.,

P• 64.

77Byron Cecil-Laabert1 "The Rise of the Anti-Missioa Baptista: Sources and Leaders, 1800-184-0" (unpublishe•

Doctor's thesis, The University of Chicago! Chicago, 1957), p. iT. Lambert's work is the best availab eon the subject of anti-missionisa.

?aibid.,

PP•

lt.OO-It.l).

92

Reaction aimed at the Triennial Convention was largely confined to the frontier. Taylor, Parker, and Campbell were personally involved in this reaction.79 Domestic missions and education were the primary targets at which oppo~jnts

aimed their fire. It was the WWestern Board" and the "Union·

Society" with which the Illinois Association was concerned most.

80 It

was an a{leged "self-aggrandizement and power"

as exhibited especially by Peck and Welch which disturbed John ·Taylor. 81 It was Isaac McCoy who stirred up the-wrath of associations in Indiana and Ohio.

Neither Parker, Taylor, nor Campbell had any use for theological seminaries in which to train a person to be a

·preacher. The very idea was blasphemous to them, and no amount of insistence that they misunderstood the intentions of the Board could avail to change their opinions that men

79campbell¹s illlllediate influence is not as easily perceptible as that of Taylor and Parker. In stressing

primitivism Campbell was involved in a much larger issue than Taylor or Parker. Wbile he may have· heaped ridicule upon what he considered wrong with the modern missionary acheaea, it was on such matters as creeds, baptisa, the celebration of the Lord's Supper that he caused division among Baptists.

Theologically he was at odds with Taylor, and certainly with Parker. Yet, he must be considered among the three great leaders in western reaction due to his personal ability and popularity and to the influence of The Christian Baptist.

8°sup~a ·, pp. 76, 79.

8lsupra, pp. 67 ff.

93 were attempting to usurp the prerogatives o£ God.

The wounded consciences of the weaker brethren could be salved £or a ^~ by withdrawing correspondence with the · offender. Time was to come, however, when the weaker became the stronger. Division was the only answer. But before the time arrived the Triennial Convention had found a way o£

escape £rom the ... £ro;t lines

k

the battlefi.eld.