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By about the year 1700, the American colonies were in a miserable mess of religious apostasy. This was only a century after groups like the Pilgrims had come here in pursuit of primarily Christian goals.
Needless to say, the colonies of the early 1700s were in no shape to forge a destiny which would include defying the British Crown in a major revolution. Nor were the colonies in any shape to come together as "One Nation Under God."
In 1734, however, Jonathan Edwards preached a series of sermons on justification by faith in Northampton, Massachusetts. Over three hundred people were converted to Christ in a six-month period.
This is a pretty spectacular figure when we realize that Edwards did not use today's "altar call" strategies for getting people to profess faith in Christ. Edwards was persuaded that profession of faith means nothing in and of itself, and he did not encourage the unconverted to profess a faith which they did not really have. Edwards believed that a false profession of faith would just make the poor sinner's religious dilemma even worse--by sealing him in a vicious hypocrisy.
In short, Edwards demanded reality.
On July 8, 1741, Edwards preached his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" at Enfield, Connecticut. This sermon was the spiritual catalyst for what became known as the Great Awakening. It was the most significant revival in the history of the Western Hemisphere, and arguably one of the most significant in the history of the world. The Great Awakening lasted for several years.
From New England, the revival spread to the Middle colonies and the South. One of the founders of Methodism, George Whitefield, was a huge factor. Edwards did not travel widely in the way Whitefield did. Whitefield traveled up and down the eastern seaboard by horseback. In one year, as many as 50,000 people were converted to Christ. Prior to the advent of George Washington, George Whitefield was literally the best-known person in the American colonies.
Most history books will not tell you this.
Even Benjamin Franklin, who never became a Christian, personally knew and respected both Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. And when Franklin was our first ambassador to France, he delighted to tell the crowned heads of Europe that we had founded a nation on the Bible itself.
Most history books will not tell you that, either.
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It is important to appreciate the theological ties between Edwards and Whitefield, since Whitefield aided the spread of the revival which had actually started under Edwards.
Edwards was a Congregationalist. Whitefield was an Anglican. But apart from some difference in theories of church government, their theologies were essentially identical. They were Calvinists.
It is practially impossible to overstate the influence of Calvinism in the founding of our nation. By 1775, our colonies really were largely Christian and largely Calvinistic in particular. (Jefferson was no Christian, of course, but he had a grudgingly high respect for Calvinistic Christians [as seen in his liaison with the Danbury Baptists].)
The take-home point is that our colonial leadership was dominated by Christians, and the leading individuals in that Christian leadership were Calvinists. These included all sorts of Calvinists, ranging from Episcopalians (similar in doctrine to Whitefield) to Presbyterians to Congregationalists to Baptists (a very fast-growing group at the time).
The Calvinism was so conspicuous in the American Revolution that one English wag said that it looked like "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson."
This is not to say that the theology of Edwards and Whitefield was completely unchallenged. Edwards and Whitefield had both faced considerable opposition from the religious establishment during the Great Awakening. Even Whitefield's Methodist partner in the early effort--John Wesley--broke away from Whitefield and went off into Arminianism in vigorous opposition to Whitefield. And he did this during the Great Awakening. (Wesley formed a splinter group and went out on his own.)
At the time of the American Revolution, Wesley was a Tory. I am not bringing that up in an attempt to slander Wesley. Rather, I am trying to set the record straight as to who our nation's real founders were. They were Whitefieldian Christians, not Wesleyan.
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In our own day, most American churchgoers are Arminians more or less like Wesley. Most American Methodists are diehard Wesleyans. (Curiously, a lot of British Methodists in our day are Whitefieldians. Go figure.)
The Calvinists on FR think it is terribly important for Americans in general and Christians in particular to understand the theology which made this nation great. We think we need a Jonathan Edwards or a George Whitefield in our day.
You are correct to point out Wesley bore little impact in the States, but you glossed over the fact he held little favor among the Colonists for his political views as well.
See how much nicer this place is when we dont skip the most important meal of the day ;)
You are correct about Wesley being a Tory. Originally, he sided with the colonies and wrote a tract/pamphlet that explained such. Then he read a tract by Samuel Johnson (whose title I cannot recall) and changed his mind, whereupon he wrote A Calm Address to the American Colonies. Because of the support Wesley started to exhibit towards Britain's crown, the Methodist ministers that he had sent to America were all recalled: the Methodist ministers refused to bear arms with the Patriots, and Wesley's Toryism didn't help Methodism's image in America. The only one to stay behind was Francis Asbury, who continued the monumental work by himself. In fact, it was Asbury himself who turned the tide of sentiment in America back from hostility towards Methodists, when he wrote a letter to a man named Rankin in 1777, writing that he believed America would become an independent nation, that he loved America too much to leave it, and that Methodist preachers had a great work to do given to them by God's own hand. The letter found its way into colonial authorities' hands, and it produced a marked change in their attitudes towards Asbury and the Methodist preachers that were converted in America, like Freeborn Garrettson. (See One Methodist's March issue).
As for Wesley splintering from Whitefield, that was never the case. Wesley was preaching in churches (those few that didn't kick him out for preaching the Gospel) before Whitefield's invitation to come field preach with him. As it stood, Wesley was really the backbone of the Wesleyan (or Evangelical, or Methodist) Revival, which was a seperate revival though vaguely linked to the American First Great Awakening, and which outlasted the Great Awakening by over 50 years (the Wesleyan Revival was considered in full swing from 1739 all the way to at least the 1780s, and very likely even beyond Wesley's death in 1791). Whitefield was a far better revivalist--his way of almost "grand-standing" reminded people of an actor on a stage, and would later have some comparison to the admittedly-heretical Charles Finney--but Wesley was a far better organizer. He was the one that made sure there was a follow-up organization (the Methodist Societies) in place wherever he preached, in order to ensure that he was not, as he would say of a place where the Methodist Society had declined, "begetting children for the slaughter."
In regard to Whitefield, Wesley's Arminianism was in place long before the Evangelical Revival (though this is not to say that that immediately makes it obvious Arminianism is "the lie of Eden;" note also that many Calvinists' Calvinism is in place before their own regeneration). It was in fact Whitefield, in going to the Americas, who "went off into" Calvinism--likely in the hope that this was enable him to work closer with the patently more Calvinistic preachers in New England (e.g., Edwards).
There was indeed a predominantly Calvinistic view of things in Revolutionary America, although this changed very significantly on the frontiers where the Methodist preachers ("circuit riders") roamed. In fact, Methodism's halcyon days in America would probably be placed immediately after the Revolutionary War, when the likes of Peter Cartwright, Bishop Asbury (who continued the rough preaching lifestyle even when his rheumatism got so bad he could no longer walk) and the world-renowned Lorenzo Dow (who could say with Paul that preaching was laid upon him as a necessity, such that when he did not preach he indeed fell ill) were preaching the Gospel and pushing God's kingdom farther and farther into the frontier, and men like Joshua Thomas would preach to and convert British armies during the War of 1812.
As for British Methodism, the vast majority of Methodists are Wesleyan Methodists. The very few Methodists Whitefield had theological influence over are strictly in Wales and the surrounding areas, where they have formed their own distinct church, the Calvinistic Methodist Church, commonly called the "Presbyterian Church of Wales."
Certainly, a Calvinistic interpretation of the Bible has had a major impact on the Revolutionary War time period, but at the same time, to deny the Methodists any powerful influence is to forget that it was Methodism (predominantly, with Baptists not far behind) that tamed the frontiers and that it was Methodism that dominated America's Christianity straight up until the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy. It should also be noted that by the Civil War, the Methodist Episcopal Church was actually the largest denomination in America, very opposed to slavery (though not exactly radically opposed--that is why the Wesleyan Church, originally the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, came into being) and it was for this reason that President Lincoln, after receiving a request for a meeting with the MEC's bishops and a delegation already in Philadelphia, wrote this letter in direct reply to the address the clergymen would give:
Gentlemen.In response to your address, allow me to attest the accuracy of its historical statements; endorse the sentiments it expresses; and thank you, in the nation's name for the sure promise it gives. Nobly sustained as the government has been by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might, in the least, appear invidious against any. Yet, without this, it may fairly be said that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is, by its greater numbers, the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospital, and more prayers to Heaven than any. God bless the Methodist Church – bless all the churches – and blessed be to God, who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.
May 18, 1864
A. Lincoln
Amen, brother!! I believe John Piper to be in the mold of a Jonathan Edwards - deep thinker, strong Calvinist and great theologian. Still looking for a Whitefield.
Great historical post doc!