{"id":1728,"date":"2010-09-01T08:51:23","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T16:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2010\/09\/01\/new-methods-in-a-spiritual-wilderness\/"},"modified":"2010-09-01T08:51:23","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T16:51:23","slug":"new-methods-in-a-spiritual-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2010\/09\/01\/new-methods-in-a-spiritual-wilderness\/","title":{"rendered":"new methods in a spiritual wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I posted an article<\/a> highlighting something I found in the book The Scotch-Irish: A Social History<\/a><\/em> by James G. Leyburn. Today I want to post an extended quotation from the book and make a few observations.<\/p>\n

I am in the section of the book that deals with Scotch-Irish immigration to America. The chapter is \u201cThe Presbyterian Church\u201d. The first point made is about the lack of churches among many (most) of these immigrants. Two reasons are cited: First, the lack of trained ministers. The Presbyterians insisted on a classical education for their clergy, something in short supply on the frontier. Trained ministers from the Old Country were rarely found among the immigrants.<\/p>\n

But an even greater problem afflicted the re-establishment of the church among these immigrants, all of them Presbyterian in their native country. That problem was a general spiritual malaise that affected all the major denominations at the time, according to Leyburn. My lengthy quotation follows (including the quote in our little \u2018identify\u2019 the person and time game<\/a> a few days ago). The quotation comes from pp. 277-279.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

The difficulty was not wholly the lack of ministers. It may be doubted whether, even if the supply had been adequate, the set of mind characteristic of the clergy at that time could have answered the true spiritual needs of pioneers. In all major denominations of the 1730’s it seemed as if clergyman had lost sight of the meaning of such words as ‘pastor’ and ‘minister’ and had come to feel that formal discourse in the pulpit, together with the proper direction of church services and sacraments, comprised their whole duty. The Age of Enlightenment and Reason had begun, with its disdain for ‘enthusiasm’: any display of deep and fervent piety was suspect. Since the clergy came from the universities, they often reflected this attitude of intellectuality and detachment. More than this, the three denominations most concerned with Americans of the time were Established Churches, either in Britain or in the colonies. It may be suggested that the very monopoly of Establishment conduces to inertia, unadaptability, and contentment with the formal proprieties of things as they are.<\/p>\n

The attitude of the clergy had its effect upon the people. Religion in America in the 1730’s seemed to lack vitality. New England Puritanism had lost its early zeal and spirit; Anglicanism tended to become increasingly a polite and decent social formality; Presbyterian ministers from Scotland were likely to represent the ‘Moderate’ movement of the time, and those from Ulster, polemic orthodoxy. The mood that had produced the Protestant Reformation only two centuries ago had almost vanished. Spiritual needs of the people were no fewer, but empty pews testified to the failure of the churches to meet these needs. Could a Presbyterian minister of the time speak to the intensified needs and yearnings of the Scotch-Irish pioneer?<\/p>\n

Suddenly, in 1738, a religious transformation began to take place. John and Charles Wesley had recently been stirring up the Church of England; now their collaborator, the fiery evangelist George Whitfield, made the first of his seven visits to America. Traveling from Georgia to New England, he spoke with compelling force directly to the hearts of men, not to their minds. With him ‘the Great Awakening’ began to sweep the colonies. Whitfield had no qualms about offending good taste: religion to him was of such consuming importance that nothing else mattered. He made vivid God’s love, the reality of sin, the agony of hell, the bliss of heaven. Creeds did not concern him; the condition of a man’s soul did. Wherever he went, whether in towns or in the back-country, he drew enormous crowds, who heard him with almost desperate eagerness. He figuratively set colonial America ablaze with religious fervor, drawing into his evangelical orbit dozens of ministers who had caught a new vision of their calling. Whitfield probably excited more interest than any other contemporary, and certainly he furnished more themes for discussion and argument.<\/p>\n

Few denominations were more drastically affected by the Great Awakening than the Presbyterian. Conservatives were contemptuous of Whitfield’s pulpit pyrotechnics, dubious of the validity of the sudden conversions he achieved, and sure that the church would degrade itself by diluting its message and making religion ‘easy’ for the common man. Other Presbyterians, however, regarded Whitfield as a true and timely prophet. He had shown the church that it must be active in going out to the people, speaking to them in their own language, in order to seek and save the lost sheep. By 1745 this divergence of opinion had reached a stage of such virulence that the Presbyterian Church underwent a schism. Those opposed the new evangelical attitudes and methods are called the Old Side, and those who favored these, the New Side or, contemptuously, the New Lights.<\/p>\n

The points at issue concerned more than fervor and methods. The nature of the church was involved. Old Siders were, to borrow a phrase from another denomination, High Churchmen. There was a right way of doing things, one hallowed by tradition and experience. What was true and proper for the fathers was still true and proper for the church in America. When every condition of life in a new country seemed to undermine the established order of faith and morality, surely the church should be a rock and mighty fortress, unyielding and changeless. Why give up the wisdom of centuries for a fad? Old Siders agreed that the church must offer the opportunities for salvation, by providing churches: but it was man’s duty to seek the church, not the church the man. New Siders, on the contrary, said that the validity of the church rested upon New Testament teaching and experience. Christ himself and his apostles had gone out into the byways and hedges to win souls; as they tried to be all things to all men, so must their successors in the modern world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A few observations:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The emphasis on \u2018scholarship\u2019 deadens spiritual life and creates a need for revival.<\/li>\n
  2. No generation can rest on the spiritual experiences of preceding generations \u2013 resting is deadening. Those who rested on the Reformation were in need of Awakening.<\/li>\n
  3. Pews are filled with genuine converts by vital religion: \u201c[Whitefield] made vivid God’s love, the reality of sin, the agony of hell, the bliss of heaven.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. Evangelists must seek the lost, not wait for God to bring them.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I was talking with one of our men last night. He is quite negative about the current state of affairs and the ability to reach the lost today. One difference between our day and that of the Great Awakening is that the people being awakened in the American frontier were not much more than one generation removed from a vital Christian experience. Our generation is now at least two, maybe three generations away. We are dealing with sophisticated pagans, mostly very affluent and self-satisfied.<\/p>\n

    Yet my friend is evidence that men of this generation can be reached. I reminded him that God saved him \u2013 he can save his friends and acquaintances too. It is likely, though, that few of them will be rescued.<\/p>\n

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    A few weeks ago I posted an article highlighting something I found in the book The Scotch-Irish: A Social History by James G. Leyburn. Today I want to post an extended quotation from the book and make a few observations. I am in the section of the book that deals with Scotch-Irish immigration to America. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[78,42,88],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-rS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}