Southern Methodist University SMU Scholar Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses Perkins Thesis and Dissertations Spring 5-14-2021 AMERICAN REVIVAL Greg Smith [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.smu.edu/theology_ministry_etds Recommended Citation Smith, Greg, "AMERICAN REVIVAL" (2021). Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses. 6. https://scholar.smu.edu/theology_ministry_etds/6 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Perkins Thesis and Dissertations at SMU Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses by an authorized administrator of SMU Scholar. For more information, please visit http://digitalrepository.smu.edu. American Revival: From the Jesus Club to the Beloved Community A Professional Project Submitted to The Faculty of Perkins School of Theology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Of Doctor of Ministry By Greg Smith M. Div. Perkins School of Theology, SMU 2013 Dallas, Texas April 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: HETERIA ........................................................................................................ 11 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 11 Acts 2—The Early Church ........................................................................................................ 12 Hetairia—The Church and The Empire .................................................................................... 16 Ascetics and Anchorites — Reinvention in the Desert ............................................................. 20 Francis and the Mendicants — A Reimagined Community ..................................................... 25 The Puritans—A Beloved Community of Family .................................................................... 30 People Called Methodists—Societies, Classes, Hetairia, and Beloved Communities ............. 33 CHAPTER TWO: THE EARLY AMERICAN CHURCH .......................................................... 37 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 37 The Great Migration ................................................................................................................. 38 The Mayflower Compact .......................................................................................................... 42 Plymouth Colony after its founding .......................................................................................... 43 Anti-Quaker Sentiment ............................................................................................................. 45 Antinomian Controversy ........................................................................................................... 46 City Upon a Hill ........................................................................................................................ 48 First Great Awakening & Sectarianism .................................................................................... 50 Second Great Awakening ......................................................................................................... 53 Restoration Movement .............................................................................................................. 54 Mormonism ............................................................................................................................... 56 Freemason Society .................................................................................................................... 59 Origin of Freemasonry ......................................................................................................... 60 Freemasonry in England....................................................................................................... 61 Freemasonry in America....................................................................................................... 63 Christian Dissent to Freemasonry ........................................................................................ 66 CHAPTER THREE: THE CHURCH IN THE 20TH CENTURY & SERVICE CLUBS ........... 69 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 69 20th Century Church ................................................................................................................. 70 Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue ................................................................................................ 71 Uniate Churches ................................................................................................................... 72 Protestantism ........................................................................................................................ 73 Azusa Street Revival .............................................................................................................. 73 Pentecostalism ...................................................................................................................... 75 Evangelicalism ...................................................................................................................... 77 Jehovah’s Witnesses.............................................................................................................. 79 Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy ............................................................................... 80 Persecution under Authoritarianism ......................................................................................... 82 The Third Reich..................................................................................................................... 82 The Soviet Union ................................................................................................................... 84 Communist China.................................................................................................................. 85 Rising Secularism ..................................................................................................................... 87 Philosophy of Enlightenment ................................................................................................ 88 Darwinism ............................................................................................................................. 88 The Response to Secularism.................................................................................................. 91 Service Clubs ........................................................................................................................ 96 Rotary International.............................................................................................................. 98 CHAPTER FOUR: AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE BELOVED COMMUNITY ....................................................................................................................... 102 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 102 Jonathan Edwards ................................................................................................................... 103 Josiah Royce ........................................................................................................................... 104 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ............................................................................................. 106 John Lewis .............................................................................................................................. 109 Beloved Community in the Gospel of John ............................................................................ 112 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 115 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 120 ii INTRODUCTION In the Fall of 1986, I was in my late 20s and a struggling business person. I was working for a company in Houston, Texas, that provided relocation services to multi-national companies who moved their employees or their offices to various parts of the world, the United Sates, or within Houston. I had been out of college since 1980 and worked primarily as a sales person, hoping to one day be promoted to a management position. My wife and I had two young children and lived the life of a typical American family. We were members of the largest United Methodist Church not only in Texas but in the entire United States at that time. I had recently been asked to serve in a leadership position by our pastor for the coming year. Much of my new business came from other sales people who referred me to their clients and I in turn would do the same for them. One such person invited me to the River Oaks Rotary Club of which he was a member. To put this in context is to know that River Oaks was the part of Houston where much of the “old money” resided. I was not familiar with Rotary; however, I could imagine the doors that this particular organization