LAY APOSTOLATE * Lecture I

AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM AND THE- LAY APOSTOLATE * Lecture I: THE THFES PERIODS OF ALBICAN CUtPCH HISTOPY Although Spanish Catholicism was planted in areas contained in the present United States before English colonization, it did not shape our national conscious ness in the early period. American church history may be divided Into three periods, each with characteristic movements, and personalities, and the first period was dominated by British Christendom. From 1607 until well into the 19th century, that is for more than half of our self-conscious history, the relations between Christ ianity and culture, church and state, were with minor and fleeting exceptions precisely those which characterized the homeland. Just as the governments of the fourteen colonies - Nova Scotia did not revolt but must be reckoned with the other thirteen until after the Revolutionary War - were but extensions of British sovereignty, in one form or another, so the dominant pattern of church life was like a mirror held to religion in the mother country. I'Jhen church historians finally emerge from the protectionist stance into which denominational and apologetic interests presently surround them, thev will certainly follow the political and economic and military historians to Europe and reconstruct the religious history of the colonial period from that vantage point. Up to a generation ago the professors of American History were still writing filial history, looking back through the long tunnel to forces but dimly perceived and often unin telligible. There then arose a generation which went ~to London, to the archives of the Colonial Office. In the not too distant future practitioners of American Church History, still a neglected discipline even in the seminaries, will study the first x period where the most important sources and the one vantage point may be found: in / the files of the Bishop of London and the home offices of SPn and SPCK. This may sound like a point of interest only to special students of church history, but it is not. As we shall see, one of the most dangerously false images burdening Amer ican Protestants goes back to gross misunderstanding of the place of religion in Colonial America. In the first period, to repeat the summarv statement, American religion was an extension of British Christendom. Up to 1820, 85% of the population was British in origin. Up to 183*J, a state-church enjoyed special privileges in the strongest of the northern colonies, Massachusetts. In New Hampshire, Catholics were discriminated against at law until 18?6, and Jews until 1912. The "Christendom" which character- • ized more then half of our history was not only present: it was here exclusively and blindly. Established religion was suppressive and intended to be such. In 167** Governor Berkeley of Virginia was asked by the Home Office, "What course is taken about instructing the people within your government in the Christian religion?" (Note the assumption of governmental responsibility.) He replied, and we may assume that as a colonial functionary he had some instinct for what views would be gladly heard at home: "The same course that is taken in England, out of town: every man accord ing to his ability instructing his children. But I thank ^od that there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them In a hundred years: for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects in the world, and printing * Three lectures by Dr. Franklin H, Littell, Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary, for the Conference Executives at the Second Assembly of the United Church of Christ; Cincinnati, January 28-30, 1963. *2 has divulged them and libels against the best of governments. God keep us from " both."1 The second period of American church history, which overlaps with the first period and insome" places with the third, may be said to have begun with the Great Awakening. The first Great Awakening, beginning in 1734 and 1735 in New England and the Middle Colonies, and continuing in Virginia right through to the Revolution, first brought to the fore a principle to have enormous influence througji to the present day: that religious affection and affiliation are rightly conceived as voluntary. It was preaching which appealed for personal decision which first exposed the inconsistences of the New England standing order, its theology and its govern ment. It was voluntary participation and support which made religious liberty a workable alternative to the state church system. It was, as Timothly L» Smith has conclusively shown,2 mass evangelism which launched and Impelled the first social crusades which gave American Protestantism its characteristic imare abroad» It was the approach to America as a mission field which, uniting home missions and foreign missions in a common universal platform' gave our churches that world-mindedness and cooperative attitude which are often commented on admiringly by European church men. In the American hope of things to come, the gathering in of the nations and the reunion of the churches have shared the spotlight of the Christians vision and prayers. The first period of American church history was dominated by the New England way and the Anglican establishments to the west and south. There was Congregaticn- alist initiative, represented by such men as Lyman Beecher, Charles 0. Finney, Henry Ward Beecher, and the lay evanglist Dwight L. Moody* And the magnificent record of organs like the ABCFM and A'tA should be mentioned. Revivalism in the New England line tended also to produce perfectionist and communitarian manifestations such asC; the Oneida Community, the Cberlin School, the Kingdcm of Deseret, as well as to express itself in social crusades such as abolitionism, peace, temperance, prison reform, Chicago Commons. There was Presbyterian initiative, especially important at the time of the constitutional conventions and the launching of the republic. The Presbyterian system had great difficulty, however, in adapting itself to revivalism and mass evangelism: numerous divisions occurred and new denominations were founded as a result of conflict over the relationship of personal experience to Calvinist confessions of faith, over the use of preachers without formal training, over manv other problems in relating a traditional covenant theology and order to voluntary ism. The great revival churches, the churches which owe their very existence as major movements to successful home missions, were the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Disciples, In many sections these have become for all practical purposes the established churches, and theirs is the characteristic style of nineteenth century American Protestantism. Between the second and third periods of American religious history there is, again, considerable overlap. There is good evidence that the nineteenth century continuum of religious and cultural values which came to an end in Europe in World War I, still controls important centers of power in the theological schools, boards and agencies and pulpits of our major denominations. In point of fact, how ever, the given situation has changed radically. America is no longer a Protestant nation, even formally. It is no longer even a mission field dominated by Protestant revival churches. The USA is becoming a Great City, in which the fundamental pre sent characteristic is a pluralism of religious commitments and of cultural and racial backgrounds. < During the period of our history when American Protestantism was being aerated and regenerated by the revivals1 stress on voluntaryism and lay initiative, two -3 other developments were takin^ place which now condition in a major way our rel igious situation. In the first place, and within Protestantism several millions of foreign lang uage immigrants were coming to these shores to establish major communities. In the old middle west, especially, Lutherans of Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and German languages and rituals established themselves. There had been, to be sure, some small foreign language communities fairly early in our history - Salzburgers, f^oravians, Fennonites, Huguenots, Seventh Day Baptists, etc. - but they had largely accomodated to the patterns set by British Christendom. The Evangelical Association and the United Brethren, for example, owed their existence as churches to the fact that Francis Asbury and his associates felt the German language converts in the middle states needed their own services and preachers. But they adopted the n*etho- dist order and liturgy, and with the dying out of the last German-speaking gener ation will undoubtedly reunite organically with the Methodist Church, or perhaps be part of a more general union movement. The Germans of Unierte background (the Evangelical and Reformed), who have contributed such leaders of American Protestant ism as the Niebuhr brothers and sister, Elmer 0, Homrighausen and Paul Lehmann, have now completed the circuit by joining in the founding of the United Church of Christ, The picture is different, however, with the Lutherans. Emerging from foreign- language ghettos within the last generation, they have recently begun to contribute in a massive way to the theological and liturgical discussions, to the growing Protestant-Catholic dialogue, and to the conception and active expression of Christ ian stewardship and service (diakonia), From 1910 to I960, Lutheran membership increased five-fold. With intra-confessional union moving forward rapidly, three of the Lutheran bodies

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