Why do we praise George Whitefield?

I have to admit I am constantly amazed at how high we hold George Whitefield in Reformed circles.  Thomas Kidd has published a series extoling Whitefield as a goodCalvinist and a defender of the faith.  Kidd even goes so far as to say Whitefield's message was "traditional and Calvinist".  This of course is taken for truth without a moments thought by most as Whitefield did attack John Wesley over predestination.  Thus, the article is reprinted at the Aquila Report and linked on Challies.com.  But, why is it that we ignore and overlook all the Reformed reaction against Whitefield?  Yes, he had Presbtyerian allies, especially among those who favored the revival, but he had his fair share of critics who never seem to get a voice.

The Erskines for one broke with Whitefield.  Ebeneezer and Ralph both corresponded with Whitefield in the early 1740’s, but both would later be against Whitefield.  The Erskines and their allies in the Associate Presbytery worried about Whitefield’s poor ecclesiology for starters.  The group would later rescind all invitations to Whitefield to preach in their pulpits.  This led Whitefield into his usual denunciation of all who disagree with him as unbelievers.  Whitefield in a letter declared Rev. James Fisher and the rest of the Associate Presbytery a modern day Babel, doomed to be destroyed.  Not exactly friendly comments.  Ebeneezer Erskine would refuse to stay and hear Whitefield preach, and the Cambuslang Revival in 1742 was condemned by the men of the Associate Presbytery including Ralph Erskine.  They criticized the excesses at the revival and used those to oppose the entire event and Whitefield.  The Associate Presbytery declared a day of fasting to pray against the delusion that was on going.  Rev. Gib declared the whole thing a Satanic delusion and declared Whitefield a false Christ, though years later he seems to have felt he may have been too harsh.  Even with that later sorrow, it seems clear that the Erskines and the other Marrow Men of the Associate Presbytery of the Church of Scotland believed Whitefield to be anything other than Reformed. (a fuller discussion of this can be found in The Marrow Controversy and the Seceder Tradition by William Vandoodewaard chapter 8).  

If that is not enough, let us not forget that in America he had opponents as well.  We do often dismiss them as Pharisees following Gilbert Tennent’s lead, but we usually don’t look at their actual objections at all.  The New Castle Presbytery helped publish a pamphlet entitled “The Querists” that asked questions of Rev. Whitefield’s public teaching in published letters and sermons.  They claim up front that Whitefield’s teachings “savor of Popery and Arminianism” (Querists intro pg. iii).  They challenge statements in Whitefield’s sermons that join repentance with faith in the blood of Christ as to what washes away our sins.  They attack statements where Whitefield denies in his letters that Genesis 3:15 is the beginning of the Covenant of Grace, and in fact denies that God made a covenant of Grace with Adam at all.  They fear this goes into Antinomianism, which they also question in Whitfield especially as he often applauded Wesley’s works.  They question his statements that said man was created with all the perfections of deity and that they are baptized into the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Of course they too take issue with Whitefield’s weak ecclesiology.  And they also question Whitefield’s statements in his journal that make it sound as if God himself speaks to Whitefield’s soul as if he were a modern day prophet. 

It may be that Whitefield can be cheerfully cleared of such charges; however, we seem to only get pieces that hold Whitefield up as a man who is a brave champion of Calvinism or even the Reformed faith.  Yet, so many Presbyterians of the day on both sides of the Atlantic found his theology wanting, confusing, and weak in many areas.  Seldom does anyone actually interact with his theology.  Seldom do we see people discusses his harsh condemnation of people usually on the basis of opposition to himself or mere rumor.  I know that many hold Whitefield up as a great example of a preacher.  I think he probably ought to be held up as a cautionary tale of what not to do. 

Seeking a Better Country - book review

Seeking a Better Country by DG Hart and John Muether is overall a good book that looks critically at the history of Presbyterianism in America.  If you are worried that Hart carries over some of his usual tone from his blog, do not worry.  This book is even handed and avoided scorn and condemnation.  It does point out places that the church may have gone wrong, but even then it is done with a gentleness that will surprise many.  It is a well-researched book and many will learn from it.  It comes up to the modern day and thus it does not have the opportunity to dive too deeply into any one period of history, yet applies the broad sweep of history to today.  I appreciated the book a great deal.

That said, I have one large fundamental disagreement with this book that I think throws both Hart and Muether off in their historical application and point.  This fundamental disagreement colors their understanding of all subsequent Presbyterian history differently than I color it. 

Before I get into that point, I do want to point out one other small weakness.  Hart and Muether are OPC guys and thus the Southern Church gets a bit of a short stick in this book.  And some PCA guys might get heartburn when they read the conclusion that the PCA was not really unified in its formation (pg.236), and that the OPC is more confessional and the PCA more evangelical (pg.257).  Those are really minor complaints, but maybe worth mentioning.

 My fundamental disagreement with the book is this statement: “For confessional Presbyterians, including the authors, who tend to put a premium on the teachings of the Westminster Standards, highly prize the Presbyterian form of church government, and esteem the reverence and simplicity of historic Presbyterian worship, the era of the Old School Presbyterianism is the most appealing” (pg.257).  I applaud the honest expression of their own bias in this history, however, it means they have seriously misunderstood the Great Awakening and the Old Side – New Side Controversy.

Overall the section in the book about the Great Awakening is better than most books.  They don’t go overboard trying to smear the Old Side, and they are willing to admit some excess on the part of Gilbert Tennent.  However, in the conclusion to the discussion they state this: “Many of the Old Side objections had already been removed with the formation in 1745 of the Synod of New York and its affirmation of creedal subscription and insistence that members submit to synodical decisions” (pg.66). 

I think that is simply historically wrong.  Creedal subscription never seems to have been a debate between the two groups.  So, I am not sure why that is in there.  The submission to synodical decisions was indeed an issue, but because the Tennent’s were willing to submit to synodical decision of fellow New Siders did not mean they were willing to do so with Old Siders.  Any honest evaluation of the New Side behavior leading up to the split has to come to the conclusion that the New Siders were a disorderly group that viewed the Old Siders as unconverted wretches.  Go read “Dangers of the Unconverted Ministry” again and remember Gilbert is preaching in a church that is not his own, in the bounds of an Old Side Presbytery, and had vacant pulpit.  The sermon is a warning not to call an Old Sider because they are Pharisees.  Not surprisingly within a year that church split with the New Side minority faction erecting a church literally across the highway from the original church.  One of the first actions of the Conjunct Presbytery (the first New Side Presbytery after the split) was to order men to go on a preaching tour that included churches that were part of the Old Side Synod of Philadelphia several of which were not even vacant!  This group actively tried to split churches. 

And therein lies the rub.  Seeking a Better Country laments the trend in Presbyterianism to go with so-called progress and innovate in an attempt to nab the culture or more members, yet the New Side is the group that did just that during the Great Awakening.  It was the New Side that focused on individualism and had no problem throwing out church regulations and authority.  It was the New Side that fostered a spirit of celebrity pastors, lower ministerial standards, and the “world is my parish” ideas.  It was the New Side that fostered innovation in preaching styles and added “conversion narratives” as a requirement for membership not to mention ordination.  This tension then between accepting the New Side conduct and desiring to remain a confessional, orderly church is still inherent in Old School Presbyterianism.  The Old School is the New Side.  The New School is the New Side taken to the next logical step. 

This acceptance of the New Side as heroes of the faith leads Hart and Meuther to look uncritically upon the post-reunion phase of the church.  An agreement was reached in 1758 that was to be a Plan of Union, yet this plan of Union was violated in almost every point as early as the year 1762.  In that year the New Side majority Synod violated Point 6, which was the only doctrinal point in the Plan of Union.  They broke point 7 often through their refusal to do things, but clearly in 1766 when they disbanded on Old Side majority presbytery without the presbyteries consent.  They also earlier had refused to create a Presbytery west of the Appalachia Mountains claiming 5 churches were not enough to start a Presbytery, but the next year created a Presbytery with 5 churches.  The only difference . . . the presbytery west of the Appalachia Mountains would have had an Old Side majority, and the other had a New Side majority.  The New Side systematically destroyed their Old Side opponents with the majority power (which violated article 2).  This unconditional acceptance also leads to praise of John Witherspoon ignoring the shadier parts of his character and his transformation of Princeton from a training ground for ministers to a training ground for lawyers and politicians. 

In the end the book is worth a read.  However, the problems pointed out by Hart and Muether seem to have an earlier origin that is not addressed.  Using the Old School as the high point requires an acceptance of the New Side.  So go read the book, just make sure you take a hard look at the Great Awakening.  It is not all it’s cracked up to be. 

The need for a new history for Presbyterians

History is often written by the winners. That much is a truism. However, these days we can often go back and examine the claims of the winners by looking at the source material to make sure that our histories are correct. Sadly, I do not believe I have yet found a good history of the Presbyterian Church as it exists in America. Some are okay such as Richard Webster’s A History of the Presbyterian Church in America, but it only goes to 1760. It has a fairly New Side slant to it, but oddly enough, not nearly as much as the current histories. Charles Hodge’s Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America is good as well, but it is written for a political purpose. Thus, Hodge, while mentioning Old Side leaders and even occasionally championing them, still tries to smooth the differences between the two sides in order to help his debate against the New School. Other histories such as James Smylie’s A Brief History of the Presbyterians are just pathetic. His mentions the schism between the New Side and Old Side, but fails to mention any of the Old Siders by name, completely takes the New Side line and even makes historically inaccurate statements such as when he says, “Old Side members of the Presbytery of Philadelphia decided to go their own way.in 1741” (pg. 49). This is simply factually wrong. The New Side leaders left the meeting, not the Old. The New Side leaders formed the Conjunct Presbytery after marching out. But, it always helps to demonize the side one disagrees with as schismatic. The problem is not to be confined to broad histories. Even the more particular histories such as Morton Smith’s Studies in Southern Presbyterian Theology calls the difference between the Old Side and New Side “having been over matters of experimental religion and not doctrinal” (Smith Pg. 28). Of course the participants in the schism disagree greatly. Smith does admit that trouble continued in the north, but contends the southern part of the church was able to continue in peace. He of course forgets to mention that this was because those Old Side ministers were denied their right to form a presbytery west of the mountains. They proposed one which would have had a 3-2 Old Side majority, but it was denied for obviously partisan reasons by the Synod. Hardly the sign of peace pictured in the book. Books about the Great Awakening itself are almost always worse. Joseph Tracy’s famous work The Great Awakening actually says that the Old Side would have become “Arminian” and they even would have slide into “Unitarianism” (Tracy, pg. 388). This bold claim of course goes unsupported.

I am sure that other areas of history in the Presbyterian Church are just as biased. I just finished reading Can the Orthodox Presbyterian Church be Saved?, by John Robbins, which makes a similar claim of amazing neglect of primary sources and popular bias in the history of the OPC. Whether that is true or not, I am not qualified to say, but bias exists in us all, so it should not be hard to believe.

I am not claiming that I am unbiased. I have a great deal, I am sure. However, I do think that a new history of the Presbyterian Church needs to be written. One that critically examines the history we know and uses the primary sources. History is vitally important. The mistakes of history are all too often repeated if not learned from. If the history itself is wrong, then one be assured never to learn from it because they will be unaware of it. So you historians out there. Get to it! The time for writing is now.

History Lesson for the Mercersburg Revival

As each denomination works through the Federal Vision issue, I think it useful to step back as see where the RCUS failed to deal with it in its more original form, Mercersburg Theology. I do believe that Federal Vision is really nothing more than a revival of the Mercersburg System, and in that respect the RCUS could have done the world a favor in the mid 19th century. The failure for the ‘Old Reformed’, as the opponents of Mercersburg where then called, was twofold.

First, the top down structure that grew in the RCUS. This really began with the creation of the seminary itself, and the accompanying rule that forbid any other place of education. It gave the seminary great power, and with it all of the seminaries proponents. As Mercersburg Theology grew and spread it seldom actually made its way to disciplinary or judicial action. This is because the machinery of a top down denomination was controlled by the proponents of the Mercersburg Vision. Philip Schaff was only put on trial once for his beliefs, and that time the trial was about to be declared out of order, but Schaff waived his rights in order to have the trail. He was declared not guilty, but more proof was found the next year, and the Philadelphia Classis renewed its charges. This time Schaff did not waive his right to have the Board of Visitors of the Seminary investigate the charges before any trail would take place. And while the Board of Visitors did give him a verbal slap, and made him promise to not teach such doctrines in the Seminary, no judicial action was ever taken. After that the Board of Visitors simply refused to hear any more complaints, and with the Board of Visitors rejecting complaints, no trial could take place. Within a few years large scale debates about Liturgy would take place that had John Nevin in print rejecting the theology behind a pulpit based liturgy, and no charges were filled. Why? Because the denomination was controlled the Mercersburg men. They did not have to have a majority to run the denomination, they only had to have control of the machinery, which they did. The Presidents were always Mercersburg men, the Board of Visitors was always Mercersburg Men, the mission boards, you name it, they controlled it. A lesson well worth remembering. In a top heavy denomination, like the PCA for example, it only takes a few key positions to be held, and it no longer matters who has the majority of churches, members, delegates. It is always unimportant.

Second, the Old Reformed types often quit rather than fight, especially in the early stages. For example, in 1822, only two years after the vote for a seminary had been answered in the affirmative, a group of ministers broke off to form the Free German Synod. These ministers may have been able to turn the tide, or at least significantly change the impact of the seminary that would eventually produce the Mercersburg Theology. By the time this group rejoined the RCUS, it was far too late. The early antagonists of the Nevin and Schaff also deserted when they appeared to be stopped. Joseph Berg, the one who brought Philip Schaff up on charges, ended up leaving to join the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1853, just as the Liturgy wars were heating up, the North Carolina Classis withdrew from Synod specifically because of the “heresies of Mercersburg”. Losing an entire Classis of ‘Old Reformed’ men hindered the ‘Old Reformed’ cause in the fight that ensued. The Civil War took away more Southerners, who generally opposed the Mercersburg movement.

In the end, the Mercersburg Theology won the day. They controlled the key positions in a top heavy denomination, such as the seminary, the President, and other various posts like missions, and publications. They also succeeded in discouraging political and theological battles, which eased their path to victory. These are lessons that every denomination should remember, not just as it examines the Federal Vision, but as it examines any controversial issue it faces.

Old Side / New Side

Tommy Lee has an interesting article about the Old Side / New Side split in the Presbyterian Church during the Great Awakening. The split lasted from 1741 to 1758. I happen to love that particular epoch of American history, so I thought I would offer a critique just for the fun of it. It is a good article by the way.

My main complaint is that Mr. Lee falls into some of the stereotypes that I do not believe hold up under scrutiny. First, he characterizes the Old Side as Scoth-Irish and the New Side as New England, which I believe is false. Mr. Lee uses the Adopting Act controversy (1729) as proof, but this too does not hold up. The Tennent Family was Scotch-Irsih, thus they should have been on the Old Side according to the stereotype, but they were the founders of the New Side movement. The Tennent family was in favor of adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith, which should have placed them on the Old Side, but again they were not. Jedidah Andrews was from New England. He was against adopting the WCF, which should have placed him on the New Side. Yet, Andrews was an ardent Old Sider. Jonathon Dickinson was a New England man who opposed the WCF, but he did not leave to join the New Side until 1746. George Gillespie was a Scotsman, and argued strongly for the adoption of the WCF. Yet, in 1741 he withdrew with the Tennent clan to join the New Side. He did repent and rejoin the Old Side in 1743, but was always a pro-Awakening Old Sider.
Second, Mr. Lee stereotypes the Old Siders as not having a heart for evangelism. It is true that they did not have the success that the New Side ministers did, but they were still evangelizing with all the might they could muster. The Old Side men established churches in the backcountry of Virginia before the New Side makes it into Hanover Country (non-backcountry) Virginia. The Old Side minister, John Thomson, was the first minister of any kind to settle in the backcountry of North Carolina. They simply did not have the funds or men to send out as many evangelists as the New Side.
Third, Mr. Lee does not do justice to the cause of the Old Side. He believes the split could have been avoided if the Old Side had done more to accommodate the New Side. He argues the Old Side should have been more understanding of those who could only afford a Log College Education. I believe the Old Side was very accommodating in that respect. The act of Synod did not forbid Log College education it just established a commission that included Log College men to examine any graduate from such a place. They were willing to come along side and supplement the educational lapses in William Tennent Sr.’s teaching. John Rowland, a Log College man, failed his licensure exam in the Presbytery of New Castle, and all agreed that he should spend a year with Francis Alison studying. They did not force him to a New England college, but sent him to a different minister. Instead, Rowland was licensed by the New Side Presbytery and began the split.
Fourth, Mr. Lee has a very favorable opinion of the re-union when in actuality it was a brutal take over by the New Side. The New Side majority regularly reinterpreted the re-union plan and out right violated them on other occasions. They barred Old Side men from teaching at Princeton, and the remaining Old Siders were planning to split from the Church again when the American Revolution broke out, and ended all hopes of an Old Side church.

I do commend Mr. Lee in finding the heart of the split as the debate over the doctrine of convictions. Does one have to have a definable moment of conversion in order to be saved? This was the heart of the controversy, in my opinion, and led to the split. Here Mr. Lee rightly is wary of the New Side innovations, and sees them as attacking the institutions of the church. More people should come to this conclusion. The article is worth it just to get this point.

Mr. Lee asks good questions such as ‘Was the split a legitimate one?’ and ‘Why should do we split?’ His answers may disagree with mine as I would argue it was a legitimate split and an illegitimate re-union, but his article is still excellent.

Hart, Nevin, and the German Reformed

I have just begun reading John Williamson Nevin: A High Church Calvinist by D.G. Hart. I have only finished the opening sections, but I am already highly disappointed in Mr. Hart. Do not get me wrong. I greatly respect the scholarly nature of D.G. Hart’s work, and have a decent number of his work, but he makes an insulting blunder in his opening. On page 18 he writes,

What is more, the German Reformed Church itself vanished over the course of the twentieth century, going through a series of mergers and church unions that landed the denomination in which Nevin labored for over half of his life in the United Church of Christ.

This is simply false. Yes, the vast majority of the German Reformed Church followed the mergers, but not all did. The Reformed Church in the United States did not disappear, as in fact, I currently serve the RCUS. I am sure that our denomination would be surprised to learn that it disappeared. While, I would not find it hard to believe that laymen would make this mistake, D.G. Hart is a scholar, and should have known that the RCUS still exists today. The German Reformed Tradition is alive and well.

Yet this is more than just upsetting because he overlooked my particular denomination as existing, but because I believe it may affect his analysis of John Nevin the biography. When one reads and learns of the German Reformed Tradition and church in America, Nevin has a high place in it; however, is he a legitimate representative of it is unclear. Hart is already using Nevin interchangeably with German Reformed tradition. This is not correct, or at least has to be defended.

Hart is right that the German Reformed tradition has been overlooked by American Theologians, much to the detriment of church by the way. The RCUS is a church that was mostly immune to the church splits of the First Great Awakening, that stood against the Biblical criticism of the early 20th century, never caved to feminism, and today is still highly resistant to the Federal Vision and other movements in popular Presbyterianism. Hart is wrong about what the German Reformed tradition is, but is right that it needs to be rediscovered.

Re-examining the Great Awakening

Pick up any Presbyterian history book, and they will all say the same thing about the Great Awakening. Praise on top of praises. Edwards, Whitefield, and the Tennent family will be set on pedestals. Now, depending on how conservative your book, you will find differing reactions to the Second Great Awakening.

Far be it from me to disagree with history, but I think we ought to be careful before proclaiming the First Great Awakening such a success. I shall briefly argue that pro-Awakening side, the New Side, was actually wrong and did much damage to the church, and the anti-Awakening side, the Old Side, stood forth for orthodoxy, and suffered for it.

First, the pro-Awakeners instituted the conversion narrative as a pre-requisite for membership in churches. This practice has no biblical foundation, and was unknown in the churches of America at that time, even in congregational New England. The narrative is still used in many Presbyterian churches today, although today it is mainly a rubber stamp procedure. A candidate for membership tells everyone when they came to know the Lord, their own conversion narrative, and then the elders decide if it is credible or not. The Old Side simply asked for a profession of faith (ie. what you believe, not how you came to believe it), and then both sides did require living out the beliefs as members.

Second, the New Side instituted the ‘Terrors of the Law’ as a method of gaining or winning souls to Christ. This was a technique of preaching pointedly to the sins of the people and describing the terrors of hell, in order to prepare the way for the gospel. This was often done in one on one conversations as well. The New Side believed in putting people under great distress before giving them the relief of salvation in Christ to make sure they truly knew their sin. This lead to wild outbreaks of screaming and ranting and wailing and disruptive outbursts that Edwards speaks of in his books, and the type of outbursts condemned in the Second Great Awakening by many, and today lauded by Pentecostals as proof of divine power. The Old Side, of course, stood against such things believing God could save on a message of love, mercy, giving, or law, and could even do it without such a period of distress (by the way the period of distress is often what the New Side wanted to hear in the conversion narrative).

Third, the New Side, unintentionally I believe, destroyed the model of the local pastor being the primary source of religious authority. George Whitefield was the first modern evangelist. He had no congregation, and traveled to America 7 times. He visited all 13 colonies. Other New Side leaders followed his example. Gilbert Tennent did tours through New England. John Wesley tried his hand at it in America. James Davenport did it so much that he was brought on trial for neglecting his home church (it was a civil crime in New England), but found mentally incompetent to stand trial. The New Side Presbytery licensed people to be evangelists. This made people begin to look for the mega-evangelist as the authority, and not the local minister. This was partly because of the heavy abuse that the local minister often took from men like Whitefield and Tennent. Whitefield was not allowed into any pulpits in Philadelphia because he had abused the local clergy so much, but his fans built him a church. The Old Side wanted rigid rules about not preaching out of bounds and gaining permission before entering another man’s pulpit on account of how often the New Side men preached in pulpits without permission, which of course introduced division into many churches. This is one of the main ways the Awakening spread.

I hope that one can see now how the Great Awakening laid the foundation for the Second Great Awakening. In fact, it is basically a logical outgrowth. The Second Great Awakening took the model of the First Awakening, expanded it a little here and there, and out came the Second Great Awakening. The arguments over the Second Great Awakening are not the same as the arguments over the First Awakening. The Old School (anit-Second Awakening) are simply the New Side (pro-First) who did not want the minor expansions the New School (pro-Second Awakening) had added. I think it is about time that historians take a dimmer view of both the First and the Second Great Awakenings and start to recognize the still demonized Old Side anti-Awakening party as true defenders of the faith.

A comment answered

Yes, I have had another comment problem. The "History Lesson" post seems to be broken, and I have no idea how to fix it. But, I was able to retrive this comment.

"What book would you recommend to study more about this area of church history? In addition, do you know if the Mercersburg Theology was at all related to the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church? Scaff and Nevin seem to have had similar ideas to Newman and Pusey."

I am not sure if I could recommend just one book. I am of the mind that primary sources are always your best bet. So, if I were to choose one book I would recommend James I Good's "History of the Reformed Church in the United States in the 19th Century." Of course, like all good books, this one out of print. But you are in luck. The RCUS has put this book along with many others on a CD Rom as an e-book. Just call this number 605-347-5666 and ask for the James I Good Collection on CD Rom. I believe they still have this.

As for how they relate to the Anglican movement I am unsure. I have not read enough. It can be said that Pusey comes up quite a bit in the writings of Schaff, he personal does not see himself as related, but others did charge him with Puseyism. I am afraid, I do not know enough to decide who is right and who is wrong.

I do apologize for not getting this answered earlier.