ABSTRACT The Impact of Revivalism upon Baptist Faith and Practice in the American South Prior to the Civil War Matthew W. Cook, Ph.D. Chairperson: William L. Pitts, Jr., Ph.D. In the mid seventeenth-century, revivalism first appeared as a phenomenon in American religious life, and few religious groups were more influenced by revivalism than Baptists in the American South. When Baptists had first appeared in the South, as a group they were small, highly Calvinistic and more concerned with congregational purity than numerical growth. Due to their Calvinism, southern Baptists stressed human inability. The earliest southern Baptists refused to preach directly to the unconverted because they believed that only a small, “elect” number of people would be saved. Salvation was in God’s hands, and human beings could do nothing to affect their own salvation, or the salvation of others. By the start of the Civil War, things differed dramatically. Southern Baptists had altered their theology and practices to emphasize human instrumentality. They added invitations to their preaching, songs calling on sinners to convert were appended to their hymnbooks, and they shifted their corporate structures to emphasize missions and evangelism. As a result, the Southern Baptist Convention was, at its founding in 1845, among the largest religious groups in the United States. The shift in Baptist identity which took place among Baptists in the South was largely the result of revivalism. Beginning in the late 1750s, southern Baptists began to modify certain aspects of their identity in ways that reflected the revivalistic emphasis upon securing conversions. This process of modification was always controversial, and sometimes divisive. By and large, however, the shift toward revivalism took place gradually, even when the Great Revival swept across the South at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A generation later, however, in the late 1820s, another region-wide revival swept through southern Baptist churches. This event increased the pace of the change already taking place in southern Baptist life. As a result, southern Baptists completed the twin shifts from emphasizing primitive purity to emphasizing numerical growth and from proclaiming human inability to practicing human instrumentality. The Impact Of Revivalism Upon Baptist Faith And Practice In The American South Prior To The Civil War by Matthew W. Cook, B.A., M.Div. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of Religion ___________________________________ W.H. Bellinger, Jr., Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ William L. Pitts, Jr., Ph.D. Chairperson ___________________________________ Rosalie Beck, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Kimberly R. Kellison, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School August 2009 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2009 by Matthew W. Cook All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v DEDICATION vii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. SOUTHERN BAPTIST REVIVALISM PRIOR TO 1770 17 The Puritan Foundation Early Baptist Chronology in New England Early Regular Baptist Identity Oliver Hart The Impact of Hart and the Philadelphia Association The Origins of Separate Baptist Life Shubal Stearns The Impact of Stearns and the Sandy Creek Association 3. SOUTHERN BAPTIST REVIVALISM FROM 1770 TO 1800 89 The Fragmentation of the Separate Baptist Movement Regular Baptist Activity during the Prelude to War Southern Baptist Activity during the War The Post War Period: Revival Promotes Unity The 1790s: Revivals Disappear Southern Baptist Practices: 1770-1800 Southern Baptists’ Theological Identity: 1770-1800 The Numerical Identity of Southern Baptists: 1770-1800 iii Chapter Page 4. SOUTHERN BAPTIST REVIVALISM FROM 1800 TO 1830 167 The Great Revival: A Chronological Overview The Numerical Impact of the Great Revival The Theological Impact of the Great Revival The Impact of the Great Revival upon Southern Baptist Practices Hints of a Coming Shift in Southern Baptist Practices The Great Revival and the Historiography of the Great Awakenings The Rise of the Missions Movement The Rise of the Antimissions Movement The Impact of Revivalism during the Missions Controversy Southern Baptist Resistance to Changing Practices Additional Innovations in Southern Baptist Practices Numerical Growth during the Missions Controversy 5. SOUTHERN BAPTIST REVIVALISM FROM 1830 TO 1860 273 A Second “Great Revival” The Impact of the Revival of 1827 The Primitive Baptists Respond A Debate over Calvinism Analyzing the Shift in Southern Baptist Identity Circa 1845 McLoughlin’s Fourfold Definition of Awakenings Revisited Revivalism and Southern Baptist Practices: 1830-1860 Southern Baptists’ Numerical Identity: 1830-1860 6. CONCLUSION 369 APPENDIX 373 BIBLIOGRAPHY 381 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No one completes a project as involved as a dissertation by themselves, and that is especially true when working full time during the writing process. With that in mind, I would like to thank all those people who have contributed to my ability to finish this project. I am grateful for the encouragement that Dr. William Brackney offered for my contributions to the scholarship of Baptist history, as well as the specific enthusiasm he displayed for my work on this project. I am also grateful for the wisdom, patience, and insight of Dr. William Pitts who stepped into the advisory role for my dissertation after Dr. Brackney’s departure from Baylor. I always wondered why so many historians thanked librarians in their work, and now I know why. I received tremendous assistance from the staff of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as from numerous individuals who work for the Baylor University Libraries. My special thanks goes to those individuals in the Interlibrary Loan offices whose efforts made it possible for me to do the bulk of my work in Little Rock, Arkansas. A number of people have made helpful suggestions during the process of writing. I am grateful to Dr. Ray Higgins, Dr. Keith Johnson, Rod Lorenzen, and especially Marilyn Keys, and Dr. Richard Glenn who helped me produce a better dissertation. Finishing this project would not have been possible without the hard work of my friends and ministerial colleagues, who were willing to pick up my slack in so many v ways. Thanks to Betsy, Chris, James, Logan, and especially Donna Gosser (who was always willing to take charge when I was otherwise occupied), and Benita Barnett (who did so many little things that they added up to a huge contribution to my life and this project). I served as pastor of two different churches during the writing of this dissertation. I am grateful beyond measure for the understanding and financial support provided by the people of the First Baptist Church of Rosebud, Texas, and the Second Baptist Church of Little Rock, Arkansas, not to mention the countless other ways that sharing life with them has contributed to my life and work. vi DEDICATION To my parents: For so many things, but especially for teaching me to love learning To my children: For helping me re-learn the joy of discovering new things To my wife: Because I can’t do anything worth doing without your love and support vii CHAPTER ONE Introduction In May of 1846, Basil Manly, Sr. (1798-1868) sent a letter from his new home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to a friend back in Charleston, which, for more than a decade, had been Manly’s home. The letter concerned a revival that had taken place in Charleston following Manly’s departure. How I should have enjoyed the sight to see you all stark crazy, for joy and surprise, and love! I suppose you all did a great many queer things: now it is all over, and you are returning to yourselves again, you have many a hearty laugh, no doubt . but souls are converted: and if you make yourselves vile in the eyes of the profane, as David did when he danced before the Lord, I suppose you feel as though you are ready to make yourselves yet more vile; and to say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. 1 The letter itself was nothing unusual. Correspondence concerning revivals was commonplace in the antebellum South of the mid-1800s. Indeed, letters describing these emotional religious events were not only exchanged between friends, but also were often sent to newspapers, and to official gatherings such as association meetings, so that fellow Christians could read with excitement about people being converted to saving faith in Jesus Christ in the midst of the emotional fervor stirred up by a revival. What makes the letter noteworthy today, however, was the background of the sender. Manly was the recently departed pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charleston, the mother church of the Charleston Association--the fountainhead of the orderly 1Basil Manly to T. P. Smyth, May 27, 1846, Manly Family Papers, (Nashville: Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives). 1 “Charleston tradition.” 2 Manly also was the newly elected president of the University of Alabama and as such was considered a part of an unofficial southern aristocracy. At the advent of the Civil War, Manly would go on to become the official chaplain of Confederate Congress. Manly was, unquestionably, at the top of the southern social hierarchy. What does it say, then, that a figure such as Manly would not only allow, but also openly advocate a style of religion characterized as “stark crazy” and composed of “a great many queer things?” Manly’s own words provide the answer—“but souls are converted.” For Manly and all his Baptist colleagues, conversions, and the means by which they could be brought about, were the mark of vital religion, and in the mid- nineteenth century, revivals were the most prominent means through which those conversions transpired.