HSST2189: History and Theology of the Modern Church

Revivalism, Oxford Movement, and Some Thoughts On Missionary Movements

"America's distinctive form of evangelicalism emerged from the fusion of New England Puritanism wiht Continental Pietism, which erupted spectacularly in the Great Awakening in the middle decades of the eighteenth century."
Randall Balmer, Blessed Assurance, 9.

Revivalism - Theological Issues Debated at Stake:

Soteriology: - how is salvation and a secure awareness of it achieved? How is salvation and divine agency spoken about in revivalist sermons? what are some of the differences in theological outlook?
Teaching Authority: - who has the authority to preach, teach, the gospel, and who doesn't? What forms of social control and discipline are desirable, which are inhibiting the spirit of God? How can we distinguish? churches patrol the edges of morality
Puritan New England: Bible as the primary source of revelation, strong rhetoric about sin/purity, blame, punishment. Calvinism central in New England Revivals. Revivals and the at times miraculous occurences around them are claimed to be expressions of divine 'supernatural' power.
1750s revivalism incorporates Wesleyan Arminianism (with a more hopeful understanding of the possiblity of human salvation)

Theological Anthropology: - what is the status of the human person before God? How might the roles of persons-in-community have shifted through the particular ways in which individual believers can take charge of their own responses to preaching and bible? what forms of emotional response are considered appropriate and by whom? what is at stake in engaging/critiquing experience/enthusiasm? What happens when most church members are women, but the clergy and preachers remain male? Where do women find ways to express their theological, intellectual and emotional contributions?

Revivalism - Institutional Issues Debated at Stake:

Church membership - status of clergy, preachers
Can churches comprehend rising needs among the churched and unchurched? How is revivalism a response to these issues?
Generally conservative take on clerical/church leadership authority. Yet, schisms erupt, often around preachers' grand claims to authority. Raised rather than lowered standing of ordained clergy. The question of practices of quite elaborate manipulation of emotions is raised. What is at stake in the different ways in which clerical authority is perceived and lived in revivialist/evanglical contexts, and in more contexts that reject the fervor of revivals and the cult of personality often associated with revival preachers?

Some of the more well-known preachers are:

Gilbert Tennent (1703-1764): Presbyterian clergyman, revival preacher. Opposition to the revival from conservatives in the Presbyterian Church led to a schism (1741–58). Tennent led the “New Side” but later used his influence to heal the breach. He was interested in the College of New Jersey (now Princeton Univ.) and in 1753 he went to Great Britain with Samuel Davies to secure funds for the college. Whitefield called him a "son of thunder". Tennent was known for his fiery exhortations of sinners to repent and for his scorn of his critics.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): By many regarded as the greatest theologian the U.S. has produced. Despite his earlier conflicts about the "horrible" Calvinist doctrine of predestination, Edwards overcomes his doubts and begins to preach absolute divine sovereignty and total human dependence on God. Both a puritan and enlightenment man, Edwards' theology was influenced by Puritanism, the Cambridge Platonists, John Locke and Isaac Newton.

George Whitefield:

"Standard conversion experience” as described among Puritans:

1) realization of sin, death, and the coming eternal punishment

2) repentance

3) acceptance of grace and reconciliation with God

4) ecstasy and union with God

5) realization of the peace of the new life combined with doubts, relapses and reassurances

[from Westerkamp, Marilyn J. “Enthusiastic Piety” in Belief & Behavior, Vandermeer & Swierenga, eds.]

The Oxford Movement/Tractarians (Cf. Holmes):

Structural and Theological Issues at Stake:

Things that come together: A return to pre-reformation values, a patristics oriented Carolinian tradition, emphasis on personal religion in Anglican evangelicalism, veneration of things medieveal in the romantic revival. (In the U.S.: John Henry Hobart and high church Anglicanism)

High doctrine of church, (ordained) ministry, and sacraments:
- Apostolic Succession is emphasized (vs. the importance of fidelity to the apostolic faith)
- Emphasis on baptismal regeneration:baptism effectively changes one's status from that of sin to spritiual rebirth
- Eucharist: emphasis on the real presence of body and blood of Christ, vs. being simply symbolized
- Liturgy: emphasis on eucharist, saints' days, liturgical personnel, in the attempt to express mystery of God through senses
- voluntary private confession, priestly absolution

Some People and Events

• Key Evangelicals

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) (anti-slavery activist, mission abroad)

Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-72), theologian of social gospel, stressed notion of church as a family.

• Key Tractarians

John Keble, Professor of Poetry, Oxford University (1792-1866)

John Henry Newman, Vicar of the Oxford University Church (1801-90)

Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-36): student of Keble's, promotes his thought.

Edward Bouverie Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew (1800-82)

Further Reading:

Bebington, D.W. "Evangelicalism," and "Evangelicalism: Britain," in: The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, ed. by Alister McGrath.

Balmer, Randall. Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America. Boston: Beacon, 1999.

Chadwick, Owen. The Spirit of the Oxford Movement

Dayton, Donald and Robert K. Johnston. The Variety of American Evangelicalism. IVP, 1991.

Gaustad, Edwin Scott. The Great Awakening in New England. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957.

Wolffe, John, ed. Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal: Evangelicals and Society in Britain 1780-1980

The so-called"Great Awakening", and Evangelicalism:

*1725-1765 A tentative bracket for the series of revivals often called "The Great Awakening"

*1734/1735 Frontier Revival

*1741-58 Breach between 'New Side' and 'Old Side' Presbyterians

*1775-1783 American Revolution

The so-called Second Great Awakening:

*1790-1860 period of renewal and growth in American Protestantism

Anglican Evangelicals and The Oxford (Tractarian) Movement:

*1730-1760 A number of Anglican clergy undergo a conversion experience
increase in numbers makes evangelical presence felt in the church, where they form a party
*1786 Conversion of William Wilberforce
*1797 Wilberforce publishes A Practical View
*1800-1830 period of highest influence and spread of evangelicals
*1802 "The Christian Observer" founded, organ of Anglican evangelicals
*1832 Reform Act weakens clerical authority

* 1833 John Keble preaches on "National Apostasy", initiating the 'Oxford Movement
*1838 F.D. Maurice publishes The Kingdom of Christ
*1845 The conversion of John Henry Newman and others to Catholicism effectively deprives the Oxford movement of leadership, but the Catholic revival persists