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The Forming of a Modern American Denomination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Elwyn A. Smith
Elwyn A. Smith
Affiliation:
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
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Extract

Among the reasons for the emergence of American denominationalism, the impact of the separation of church and state has never been under-rated by scholars. The same is true of the religious pluralism of the nation. Other environmental conditions of comparable importance have been listed but those who recognize the toughness and adaptability of the modern American denominational structure have reason to ask whether historians have done full justice to its internal dynamic. The reaction against denominational history in the grand style is, of course, well warranted. Over against “denominational historians who can recount the achievements of the several denominations as separate bodies, the reasons for their separateness, and the grounds of their greatness and glory,” W. E. Garrison wrote, “we must concern ourselves chiefly with the movements of the common Christian mind, the issues which drive planes of cleavage through all denominations transverse to those which divide them from each other.…” Some of these unitive issues are American-made; others are rooted in Europe. But the denomination, as Garrison recognized, is the mode in which American church history manifests itself, a vehicle whose continuities must be grasped if modern American church-manship is to be understood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1962 , pp. 74 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1962

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References

1 Cf. Troeltsch, Ernst, Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, trans. Wyon, Olive (2 vols.; London, 1931).Google Scholar Troeltsch establishes theses which deserve more serious attention from contemporary social historians. “Only those who see in all spiritual movements merely the influence of social movements, and especially those who imagine that all religion is merely the reflection of social conditions in transcendental terms, will see in them a direct cause of the religious crisis. In reality, however, all impartial religious research reveals the fact that, to some extent at least, religious thought is independent; it has its own inner dialectic and its own power of development…” I, 48.

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10 Sermon at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, October 12, 1791 (PSL), Spr., I, 80:1.

11 Panoplist, I (New Series), 372.

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23 Sermon at Woolcot, Connecticut, September 21, 1814 (Andover, 1815).

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25 Sermon Subsequent to the Formation of the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Good Morals, (Hartford, 1813), 16.

26 The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints …, 8. Illustration of the actual operation of such societies may be found in “An Address to the Council of Censors of the State of Vermont,” Panoplist, III, 265.

27 Panoplist, III, 265.

28 Published at Andover, 1818. Subsequent references, 4, 24.

29 Bodo, John R., The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812–1848 (Princeton, 1954)Google Scholar. Passim.

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37 Cf. Morse, op. cit., chapters 5 and 6 for a concise and well-documented account of the conflict with unitarianism. Also Panoplist, III, 89f, 203, 443. It should be noted that there was no distinct line between the missionary responsibilities of the Congregational associations and the missionary societies. The American Board of Commissioners was formed on the initiative of two state associations.

38 True Reasons on Which the Election of a Hollis Professor of Divinity … Was Opposed at the Board of Overseers, February 14, 1805.

39 Panoplist, I, iii.

40 Ibid., 307–312.

41 Ibid., I, iii.

42 Ibid., I, 393ff, 472ff, 483ff.

43 Op. cit., 116.

44 Panoplist, III, 306ff, 345ff.

45 Ibid., III, 312, 346.

46 Ibid., I (New Series), 457.

47 Ibid., III, 306ff, and I (New Series), 321; also The Constitution and Associated Statutes of the Theological Seminary at Andover (Boston, 1808).

48 Title page, June 1, 1809; cf. Morse, op. cit., 116.

49 Panoplist, III (New Series), 44; IV (New Series), 45.

50 Ibid., III, 330.

51 Ibid., III (New Series), 88.

52 Ibid., III, 188f.

53 Ibid., II, 237.

54 Ibid., III, 283. New auxiliaries for promotion continued to be established. In 1811, for example, the Foreign Mission Society of Boston and Vicinity was founded. “The sole object of the society shall be to raise money and pay it over to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,” Panoplist, IV (New Series), 233.

55 American, Quarterly Register, I, 3, 42.

56 Panoplist, IV (New Series), 45.

57 Ibid., XI, 475ff.

58 Ibid., IX, 145.

59 Ibid., V, 92.

60 Ibid., XII, 133f.

61 Ibid., XI, 475.

62 Ibid., XIII, 360. Cf. American Quarterly Register, III, 108ff.

63 American Quarterly Register, IV, 92.

64 Ibid., IV, 259.

65 Ibid., IV, 249ff.

66 Ibid., I, 3, 42.

67 Detailed accounts of the full extent of this system are contained in Foster, Charles I., An Errand of Mercy (Chapel Hill, 1960)Google Scholar and Griffin, C. S., Their Brothers' Keepers (New Brunswick, 1960).Google Scholar

68 Published at New York, 1836, 111, 131–133.

69 Minutes of the General Assembly, 1816.

70 Life of Ashbel Green, VDM., ed. Joseph Jones (New York, 1849), 320.

71 Samuel Miller, Life of Samuel Miller, D.D. (2 vols.: Philadelphia, 1869), I, 35ff.

72 Letter of Miller to Benjamin Rush, June 30, 1811, Rush mss. (Library Company of Philadelphia), 27, 135.

73 A. A. Hodge, Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D. (New York, 1880).

74 Letter of Ebenezer Hazard to Morse, May 3, 1799 (Historical Society of Pennsylvania), Chief Government Officials During the Revolution, I, 22.

75 Letter of Green to Joshua M. Wallace, February 2, 1818 (HSP), Wallace Papers, VI, 187.

76 Letters as follows: Green to E. D. Griffin, November 18, 1805 (HSP), Gratz, Moderators, Presbyterian Church; Joseph Eckley to Green, August 28, 1783; Joseph Eckley to Green, August 28, 1792 (HSP), Gratz, American Churches, Case 9. Cf. William Engles, A Patriot's Plea for Domestic Missions (Philadelphia, 1833), 6f, 16.

77 Boudinot's previous activity in the moral crusade is partially recounted by Griffin, op. cit., 27ff.

78 S. J. Baird, History of the New School (Philadelphia, 1868), 286.

79 The Education Register (August, 1830). This journal was bound with the Christian Advocate.

80 American Quarterly Register, V, 342.

81 Christian Advocate (1828), 259.

82 Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1828.

83 On Breckinridge's role in obtaining southern slave-holding support for the Old School, see my earlier article: “The Role of the South in the Presbyterian Schism of 1837–38,” Church History, XXIX (1960).Google Scholar

84 Cf. Haroutunian, Joseph, Piety vs. Moralism (New York, 1932)Google Scholar. Passim.

85 Relevant to the division of 1837–38 is comment by Mead; “From Coercion to Persuasion” (note 8), 331f.

86 That this was explicit policy is testified by the Christian Advocate (1834), 84.

87 Hudson argues that the original English denominational idea is ecumenical (see note 7).