Protestantism in America: A Narrative History by Jerald C. Brauer
Chapter 5: Turning Point
New York streets were crowded with joyous throngs of cheering people pushing and shoving, trying to get a glimpse of the hero of the hour -- General George Washington. On that December day, 1783, long lines of soldiers stood at rigid attention, the winter sunlight glittering on
polished buttons and cold steel. Strong winds sweeping up the Hudson whipped the flags and put the sting of freshness and vigor into the gathered crowd.
A great roar arose from the throng as Washington appeared on the steps, saluted his men, and briskly strode to the landing where a boat waited for him. Then as cannons blazed, guns boomed, and church bells
resounded, the victorious leader took his departure. The revolution was an accomplished fact. Peace and victory went hand in hand -- a new nation was born, independent of the British Empire.
Effects of independence were evident in all the states. Men walked with heads held high -- they were now truly free men. But free men faced a mighty task of replacing English control with a government that would express the principles for which they had fought. They could no longer depend on Europe for guidance and strength. Gone were the ties with the Old World. How were they to bring order and peace among the thirteen independent and self-ruling states? What was to happen to the many Churches?
Nobody had a simple answer, but all men realized that something new
had to be created. The various colonies had learned to work and to fight together against the English. They then banded together in a
confederation of states, each retaining its independence but all cooperating on a few matters of general interest.
Just as the states had to find a new way of working together so all the Churches, no longer dependent on their European mother Churches, had to discover new methods of living and working in America. One year after the end of the war, over fifty Methodist ministers, the followers of John Wesley, met in Baltimore, December, 1784, to take action.
Still dependent upon the Anglican Church for sacraments, they felt that the time had come to go beyond the status of a mere society or club within the Church of England. The preachers were determined to form an organization independent of the Anglican Church. With no disrespect to their founder, they saw the necessity of developing a new Church in a new nation so that the gospel might be brought to all. One question uppermost in the minds of all was their relation to John Wesley. This was one of the chief topics of conversation among the preachers.
John Wesley had asserted his rights as a presbyter to ordain men for a, ministry in America, thereby denying the necessity of ordination by bishops alone. As a result he was denounced by the Church of England as an unfaithful priest. He sent Thomas Coke to America as a
superintendent, or "bishop," with instructions on founding a new Church and with directions as to worship and general practice. Wesley was willing to launch a new American Church, but it was to be under his spiritual control.
While American Methodists held Wesley in great esteem and respect, they did not feel it necessary to follow all his instructions. Some they ignored, others they modified, and a few they followed. Wesley had appointed Francis Asbury co-superintendent with Coke, but Asbury felt that the American Methodists should elect their new leaders. The
American brethren agreed with him, so he and Coke were elected to their office of superintendent. After election to office Asbury allowed himself to be set apart for the office of "bishop." He saw that if the Methodist Church was to grow in a new nation, it must control itself and not be subservient to its founder, John Wesley.
So a new Church was born at the same time as a new nation -- the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Confederation of American states,
both independent of English domination. This new Church had bishops acting as superintendents, so it was called the Methodist Episcopal Church. It met in a series of local annual conferences and in a great triennial general conference. It worked out a series of strict rules on discipline, adopted a confession of faith, and provided for preachers who traveled from point to point serving many congregations -- the famous circuit riders. The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized and ready to move with the people as they went west. At this time it was one of the smallest Churches in America, but within a few decades it was to be one of the largest.
The Congregational Church was the largest and most influential Church at this point in American history. It had no institutional ties with
England and possessed no central agency to give itself national representation. In face of the threat of Anglican bishops, the
Congregationalists drew closer to the Presbyterians, with whom they felt a theological affinity. Out of this was to come a mutual plan of mission activity to cover the nation. The Baptists, of the same size as the
Presbyterians, were in much the same position as the
Congregationalists. They had no important institutional ties with England, and they vigorously opposed any national or central organization.
Meanwhile things were happening in other American Churches. Six months before Washington’s departure from New York and before the Methodists’ Baltimore Christmas conference, an Anglican priest from Connecticut quietly sailed for England. The New England Anglicans were determined to have a bishop at any cost because they felt the Church could not do its work without bishops. In the winter of 1784, Samuel Seabury was consecrated bishop by three Scottish Anglican bishops because the English bishops refused to ordain him on the grounds that he could not take the necessary oath of loyalty to the crown.
But what of the rest of the Anglican Church in America? Its great strength was to be found in Pennsylvania, New York, and in the South, and these men distrusted their New England brethren because of their English sympathies during the war.
In 1782 the entire American Episcopal Church was stirred by an article from the pen of Dr. William White, of Philadelphia. He offered a plan to form a national Episcopal Church that did not necessarily require
bishops. His drive for a nation-wide Church was ably backed by another famous patriot and Anglican priest, Dr. William Smith, friend of
Benjamin Franklin and former head of the College of Philadelphia.
In accordance with White’s plan, a general convention was held in
Philadelphia in 1785. There a constitution and name were settled upon -- the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. Out of this meeting came the selection of candidates for bishops, and by 1787 White and another man had been consecrated in England as bishops.
Two years later at Philadelphia, a great convention was held which healed the breach between the New England clergy and the other Episcopal clergymen. Again, the impact of the Revolution was
noticeable. Laymen were active as voting delegates in all conventions.
The second largest colonial Church was ready to act with the new nation.
The fresh vigor pulsating through the nation could not be channeled by a loose confederation of states; something stronger was needed to guide the energy in a creative direction. The Churches were no exception to this rule. The Methodist and Episcopal Churches quickly founded organizations capable of national extension. No longer would they be dependent upon the mother Churches of Europe. Advice they would take and influence they would accept, but direct interference was no longer to be tolerated. This was the general pattern among the Churches - - a turning point had been reached in American Protestantism.
The Presbyterians were no exception in this movement. One of the outstanding pro-Revolution Churches, they stood high in prestige and were rapidly growing in numbers. By 1780 it was evident that their organization, centering in a Joint Synod and ten presbyteries, was not sufficient.
Unlike their Scottish brethren, who developed an organization from the top down, the American Presbyterians, like the American government, was built from the bottom up. By 1788 they had approved the formation of a General Assembly to be composed of ministerial and ruling elders elected annually by the presbyteries. First had come the presbyteries, then the synods, and finally had come the national General Assembly.
Simultaneously, the Presbyterians gave their followers a worship service, a catechism, and a confession of faith. They too stood ready to move with the American people, possessing a strong organization
implemented by worship and doctrine.
What happened among two of the largest American Churches was closely paralleled by the smaller foreign-language American Churches.
For some time the Lutherans under the leadership of the Mühlenberg family retained a fraternal and spiritual relationship to German
Lutheranism. Cut off from Europe and dependent on themselves, they gradually adopted the English language and strengthened their own synodical organization. Each new wave of German immigrants
increased both their problems and opportunities. They were, however, a Church independent of Europe. The Dutch Reformed and German Reformed, both dependent on the Church in Holland for funds and leadership, broke away from such ties and formed independent Churches. Everywhere the new spirit of freedom asserted itself.
The organization and independence of the Churches in the new
confederation, though of great importance, was of far less consequence than another development in American Christianity. Slowly but steadily the Churches had been moving in a direction which some disliked, which others preferred, but which none could prevent -- the
establishment of religious liberty.
In Puritan New England the Congregational churches were convinced that the Church played such an important part in the life of the
community that the State should uphold and support it by law and with money. Six other states felt that way about the Church of England.
How could the Church make its full impact upon all of society unless it was part of that society by law? Men argued bitterly over the vexing question. The Puritans said that the holy commonwealth could truly be holy only if the State were based on God’s will as revealed in the Bible.
It was the Church that provided the moral power to make the
commonwealth holy. It conveyed God’s love and judgment to men and so made them instruments of his will.
So it was that all but four of the thirteen colonies had some one Church, such as the Puritan or Anglican, which was the only official Church.
Such an "established" Church was supported by taxes levied by the State on everybody who lived in the community. Baptists living in
Massachusetts paid taxes to keep up the Congregational churches.
Meanwhile a series of forces converged to bring about the greatest
turning point in the history of American Christianity. No nation in the history of the world had ever established complete religious liberty, in which no one religion was publicly supported by taxes and where all religions were fully equal before the law of the land.
Pennsylvania stood as a beacon, a symbol of a group of colonies in America. This group was known as the Middle colonies. Situated between New England and the South, they became the seed-bed of the American ideal of religious liberty.
From the very beginning William Penn had determined to establish "a free colony for all mankind that will come hither."
He forthrightly stated: "I abhor two principles in religion and pity them that own them. . . . The first is obedience to authority without
conviction; and the other is destroying them that differ from me for God’s sake."
Penn was determined that nobody should be forced to pay taxes to support a Church in which he did not believe, and he saw to it that the
"Great Law" of Pennsylvania, adopted in 1682, guarded against such an unfair practice.
The law stated that no man or woman shall " at any time be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministry
whatever, contrary to his, or to her, mind, but shall freely and fully enjoy his, or her, Christian liberty, in that respect, without any interruption or reflection."
Penn advocated this position on principle. He believed, as did all good Quakers, that true belief could not be enforced by law or constraint but could come only through God’s gracious spirit. The consequence of his stand was that all religious groups found freedom in Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia became a center, not only of the Quakers, who founded the city, but also of the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Baptists. Out on the frontier, in the mountains and wilderness, hardy German Lutherans and Reformed as well as the militant Scotch-Irish Presbyterians were to be found. When the Roman Catholics were driven out of Maryland by the Protestants, the priests and some of the laity fled to Pennsylvania, where they found shelter.
Almost every Church of consequence found room to settle in the Quaker state. Relatively unknown and somewhat unusual groups such as the peaceful Mennonites, the hard-working Moravians, the very peculiar semimonastic Ephrata community, and the German Baptists, called Dunkers, all established settlements in Pennsylvania. All were non- English speaking; most used German.
Under such conditions the principle for which Penn stood was strengthened and deepened. He too hoped to build a community
dedicated to the will of God, but he was sure it could be done in a way different from the establishment and support of only one Church. He was convinced that all Christian groups living and working together in harmony, though disagreeing at many points, could actually erect a state dedicated to God’s will.
Pennsylvania flourished. Some of Penn’s ideals were not realized, particularly the belief that no force should be used against one’s
enemies. The Scotch-Irish and the Germans on the frontier had to face the threat of the Indians and the encroachment of the French; hence, they used arms not only in defending themselves but in enlarging their holdings.
Though Penn’s ideal of a peaceful commonwealth renouncing all war was not possible, his ideal of many types of Christians living and working together within one state was a pronounced success.
Pennsylvania’s green valleys bloomed; the rich, fertile soil produced abundant crops. Its great metropolis, Philadelphia, became the largest city in the colonies and was soon the economic center of the British American colonies.
Thus, Pennsylvania demonstrated what Rhode Island had earlier proved, that a sound, peaceful, and prosperous, as well as God-fearing, colony could be built on the basis of religious liberty.
What happened in Pennsylvania was paralleled in the other Middle- colony states. New Jersey and Delaware also contributed to the ideal of religious liberty. Both were somewhat under the control of their larger neighbors, New York and Pennsylvania, but they finally established themselves as independent colonies. Just as in Pennsylvania, many types of Christians flocked to Delaware and New Jersey. Swedish, Dutch, German, and English people brought with them the Anglican,
Presbyterian, Lutheran, Quaker, and Roman Catholic faiths. Even some
Puritans settled in those states. Together, all proved the principle so important in the development first of toleration and then of religious liberty -- where no single Church has a fairly substantial majority of the people it cannot hope to have a Church supported by law. This the Middle colonies learned by experience.
In New York the situation was at first different, but finally here also was established the principle of religious toleration. Settled first by the
Dutch and then captured by the English, the Churches of these two people, the Dutch Reformed and the Anglican, held a privileged position in the colony. They were supported by public funds, and the Anglican Church was the State Church in six counties.
The large influx of people not interested either in Christianity or in the established Anglican Church made necessary a system of toleration.
That is, though the Anglican Church was supported by the New York colonial government, it could not control the wishes of a great majority of people who were either indifferent to or openly hostile to the
Anglican religion. Some toleration was absolutely necessary. But this did not come automatically.
In the fall of 1706 a Virginia Presbyterian, Francis Makemie, had stood before Governor Cornbury of New York. He had been invited to preach by New York Presbyterians as he traveled through the city on his way home. Could a minister of the gospel deny the request of fellow
Christians? Certainly not! He had preached; so he stood accused of preaching to Presbyterians in a city where the Church of England was the official religion.
The governor demanded that he post money to assure his intent never to repeat his offense. This Makemie refused to do. Off to jail he went for six weeks until he was finally released on bail. At his trial, his lawyers argued that he had every right to preach in New York without first gaining the permission of the governor. The Anglican Church was not the official Church of the whole province.
His case ended with the plea that the State of New York was composed mostly of "foreigners and dissenters; and persecution would not only tend to the disuniting us all in interest and affection, but depopulate and weaken our strength." Why frighten away all such possible colonists by the threat of persecution? Let the gospel be preached by and to all these groups so long as it was done in good order. Francis Makemie was
acquitted.
The Church of England remained the official religion in several
counties, but it could not control the religious life of New York. Like all the other Middle colonies, New York found that no one religious group could control the religious life of the province.
The example and experience of the Middle colonies was not the only positive factor driving American Christians to seek yet more light on the perplexing problem of the relation between Christianity and the State.
Revivalism, coming out of the Great Awakening, tended to bypass the usual way of relating Church to State. It was not interested primarily in the State support of the Churches, it was interested only in the soul’s relation to God. Was a man saved? Had he been deeply moved by his sin? Had he undergone the experience of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? As a result, was he living a pious or godly personal life?
All this was in a different direction from the sedate Church-State establishments. Revivalists also forsook the genuine theological
interests of Jonathan Edwards. They were not concerned primarily with doctrines but with experience and proper living. Not interested in
speculation or in institutions, they were suspicious of the clergy, who were constantly talking about true doctrine or about the Church as a visible institution to be supported by the State.
Thus the revivalists were usually opposed by some Presbyterians, the Anglicans, and most Congregationalists. The latter two groups felt it was necessary to expound true doctrine and to be of influence on society through the State support of the Church. Only in this way, they argued, would the full impact of the Church be possible. So they insisted on the State’s suppressing all false forms of the Christian religion and on the recognition and support of their own beliefs.
Naturally the revivalists opposed this point of view. They contended only for the godly life which was born of the conversion experience.
True life, not true doctrine, was basic. Thus they stood against any attempted control of religious life and experience by a minority of Christian believers.
Meanwhile, another movement developed in America which also worked against the favoring of any one Church. This movement was