Understanding Colonial New England via Sermons

I recently finished reading Harry Stout's book,  The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England.  Stout, who is a professor of American Religious History at Yale and the author of numerous books on early American religion, focuses on the unique character and evolution of the New England sermon, and how it served as the dominant means by which information was transmitted to the general populace.  Stout argues that no other medium was anywhere as effective in shaping New England thought: "The New England sermon, whose topical range and social influence were so powerful in shaping cultural values, meanings and sense of corporate purpose that even the television pales in comparison."

Stout presents the sermon experience from the perspective of five generations of Puritan believers, beginning with the "Church Fathers" (original settlers) and concluding with the generation of the American Revolution.  Stout argues that each generation maintained a consistent loyalty to the basic tenants of Puritan Christianity, but that subtle changes between generations allowed for a more democratic interpretation of the Congregationalist message.  He writes:

The founders invented a meaning for New England and the children maintained and built upon it.  Third-generation ministers, living in a tolerant "Anglicanized" age, promulgated the same doctrines as their predecessors but adorned them with a "polite" style that registered the influence of English manners and the "New Learning."  Forth-generation ministers, spanning the years of religious "awakening" and war with France, learned anew the importance of delivery both in theory and fact.  Finally, fifth-generation ministers, living through Independence, built their case for resistance and revolution on the memory of the founders and New England's inherited covenant mission.

In short, what Stout argues is that there was far more cohesiveness on the part of Puritan preachers of successive generations that there was division.  The natural evolution of Puritan theology was more a symptom of inevitable change and development than proof of spiritual decline.  Again from Stout:

If there was a "decline" and resultant "secularization" of Puritanism, it was not evident in the regular life of the churches.  The majority of inhabitants continued to go to church, and their ministers persisted in the same subject matter of their sermons.  No shift from piety to moralism was evident.  Indeed, it appears that models of secularization stem from historians' failure to appreciate the functional distinctions made by colonial ministers...The more one reads these sermons the more one finds unsatisfactory the suggestion that ideas of secular "republicanism," "civil millennialism, or class conscience "popular ideology" were the primary ideological triggers of radical resistance and violence in Revolution [my emphasis].

This is, in my opinion, the most compelling argument Stout makes. It is easy for even a successful historian to get lost in the fog of emerging Enlightenment doctrine that helps to make this era of history so appealing.  We naturally want to gravitate to the "new" ideas of Isaac Newton, Locke, etc.  Stout, however, would advise caution.  While Enlightenment ideas were no doubt prevalent and growing, the Puritan message was not going out of style.  As Stout himself aptly puts it, "Anglicanization, in short, gilded the face of New England society, but did not transform its soul."

None of this suggests that the Puritan message remained completely untarnished or free from change.  The rise of new scientific sensibilities, the debates over natural religion, and other emerging counterarguments left their mark on the New England countryside.  But these new ideas were not seen as fatal blows to the Puritan mindset.  Most Puritan ministers were effective in their ability to reconcile divine revelation (as any Congregationalist community saw it) with the "new science" of their day.  So long as this new thinking did not upset the world of Reformed Christianity or minimized the importance of Sola Scriptura, these challenges were not as scary as they may first appear. 

When dissent did arise over matters of theology in New England it was usually to do with issues that had little to do with new Enlightenment principles.  The "Great Awakening" is a perfect example.  With the rise of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield came a new emphasis on the individual conviction of salvation by Christ as opposed to the traditional Congregationalist conversion experience that relied more on hierarchy and ceremony.  But this change (which would give birth to the Old Light v. New Light battle) had more to do with the FRUITS of conversion than it did with any actual challenge to church authority. 

And though I found Stout's book to be both informative and compelling, there are a few areas of concern.  First, it would be easy for the casual reader to assume that the Puritan message was the dominant message of Colonial America.  New England, rightfully so, received a tremendous amount of credit for being the soil in which revolution was allowed to germinate.  With that being said, it is important that we keep in mind the many other factors that led not only to revolution but allowed each colony to develop on its own.  Puritanism, though a powerful force, was not the only big kid on the school yard. 

In addition, I would have enjoyed hearing Stout's take on the emergence of preachers like Jonathan Mayhew and how his brand of preaching proved challenging to traditional Puritan Christianity.  With that being said, I was overall pleased with the book.  It's worth the time. 

American Exodus and Providentialism: A Different Perspective

Absalom Jones and the
Thanksgiving Sermon of 1808

Fellow contributor, Ray Soller of my other blog (American Creation) has effectively pointed out in one his older post, that a large number of American colonists, thanks in part to the sermons of their various preachers, began to think of their subjugation to British rule as being equal to that of the ancient children of Israel during their enslavement in Egypt. For the pious Puritans, the "American Exodus" to the "New World" essentially brought with it a "deliverance" that equaled that of Moses in biblical times. John Winthrop's proclamation of Massachusetts Bay as a "shining city on a hill" was certainly reminiscent of America as a second Jerusalem of sorts. With the arrival of the American Revolution, this doctrine was taken to the next level, as American providentialism began to emerge as God's one and only true beacon of hope in the eyes of many American colonists.

While there is no debating the profound impact that these statements made on the American populace, it is important for us to remember that American providentialism was seen in a very different light by the countless numbers of African Americans, who gained neither freedom nor deliverance as a result of the American Revolution. Instead, African slaves were forced to continue in their existence as chattel labor, with little more than a faint hope for a future "exodus" from bondage.

Such an exodus of sorts was met in 1808 when the Constitution, after its twenty-year sanctioning of the slave trade expired, making the importation of slaves to the United States illegal. In particular, one former slave-turned-preacher was able to capture the exhilaration of the occasion in his January 1808 sermon he entitled, A Thanksgiving Sermon. Absalom Jones, a former Philadelphia slave who was eventually able to purchase freedom for both himself and his wife, had emerged in the latter part of the eighteenth-century as one of Philadelphia's finest Black preachers. Following the segregation of Black churches in Philadelphia in 1786, Jones founded St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, which emerged as the most powerful Black congregation in the state.

In this particular sermon, Jones points to a particular brand of providentialism, which was completely unique from the rest of the American citizenry. In this brand of providentialism, Jones proclaims the exodus of his African brothers and sisters from the chains of slavery as equal to that of the children of Israel during the time of Moses:

The history of the world shows us, that the deliverance of the children of Israel from their bondage, is not the only instance, in which it has pleased God to appear in behalf of oppressed and distressed nations, as the deliverer of the innocent, and of those who call upon his name. He is as unchangeable in his nature and character, as he is in his wisdom and power...And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

As opposed to America's providential destiny, which placed Great Britain in the role of evil oppressor and the colonists as subjugated slaves, Jones' sermon appropriately casts the American and British citizenry in the role of the oppressive Egyptians of biblical times:

Our God has seen masters and mistresses, educated in fashionable life, sometimes take the instruments of torture into their own hands, and, deaf to the cries and shrieks of their agonizing slaves, exceed even their overseers in cruelty. Inhuman wretches! though You have been deaf to their cries and shrieks, they have been heard in Heaven. The ears of Jehovah have been constantly open to them: He has heard the prayers that have ascended from the hearts of his people; and he has, as in the case of his ancient and chosen people the Jews, come down to deliver our suffering country-men from the hands of their oppressors. He came down into the United States, when they declared, in the constitution which they framed in 1788, that the trade in our African fellow-men, should cease in the year 1808: He came down into the British Parliament, when they passed a law to put an end to the same iniquitous trade in May, 1807...

Dear land of our ancestors! thou shalt no more be stained with the blood of thy children, shed by British and American hands: the ocean shall no more afford a refuge to their bodies, from impending slavery: nor shall the shores of the British West India islands, and of the United States, any more witness the anguish of families, parted for ever by a publick sale.

After successfully expounding upon the plight of his fellow brethren, Reverend Jones goes on to plead to God for further emancipation and to exhort his congregation to humbly submit to the laws of God, as was done in the days of the Jews:

The Jews, after they entered the promised land, were commanded, when they offered sacrifices to the Lord, never to forget their humble origin; and hence, part of the worship that accompanied their sacrifices consisted in acknowledging, that a Syrian, ready to perish, was their father: in like manner, it becomes us, publickly and privately, to acknowledge, that an African slave, ready to perish, was our father or our grandfather. Let our conduct be regulated by the precepts of the gospel; let us be sober minded, humble, peaceable, temperate in our meats and drinks, frugal in our apparel and in the furniture of our houses, industrious in our occupations, just in all our dealings, and ever ready to honour all men. Let us teach our children the rudiments of the English language, in order to enable them to ac-quire a knowledge of useful trades; and, above all things, let us instruct them in the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, whereby they may become wise unto salvation.

Interestingly enough, Jones then concludes his sermon by petitioning God in prayer for the further blessings of the very nation that has enslaved his African kindred. Certainly this serves as evidence of the fact that a number of Africans, despite their terribly oppressive circumstances, were beginning to embrace an American providential destiny, which was inclusive of much more that European Whites:

We pray, O God, for all our friends and benefactors, in Great Britain, as well as in the United States: reward them, we beseech thee, with blessings upon earth...We implore thy blessing, O God, upon the President, and all who are in authority in the United States. Direct them by thy wisdom, in all their deliberations.

With the fires of revolution still burring hot in the memories of most, former slaves like Absalom Jones and others seized the opportunity to ensure that their voices were heard as well. Though slavery would continue for several more decades, the African American view of American providentialism would continue to evolve and grow. And while many particular components of this providentialism differed from the mainstream beliefs regarding America's Godly destiny, the "American Exodus" of African slaves became an invaluable component that would continue to influence the abolitionist movements into the nineteenth-century.

Christian Nation Thesis (and Jasper Adams in Particular) Debunked

In the past couple of posts at American Creation, fellow blogger Tom Van Dyke and I have been engaged in a "heated" discussion over the validity of the Christian Nation thesis. In his piece below, Mr. Van Dyke notes that the Christian Nation thesis is poorly served by the "extremists" on the right (David Barton, D. James Kennedy, etc.) who in their quest to legitimize their claims, make America's Christian heritage "look like balderdash."

On this I couldn't agree more. The "fringe" of the Christian right has done little to promote the belief in America as a Christian Nation. In fact, I believe they have done more harm than good. Mr. Van Dyke will receive no disagreement from me on this issue.

However, my interest was peaked by Mr. Van Dyke's reference to one Jasper Adams, who in 1833 delivered a sermon entitled, "The Relation of Christianity to the Civil Government in the United States." Mr. Van Dyke states:

The definitive Christian nation thesis argument remains
the Rev. Jasper Adams sermon of 1833 [later published with footnotes and
distributed all across America], which was highly praised by not one, but two
sitting Supreme Court justices, America's first great constitutional scholar
Joseph Story, and Chief Justice John Marshall.

And while that all may be true (I have no reason to doubt TVD's integrity), not everyone was accepting of Jasper Adams' comments. James Madison, who was no small player in the establishment of the United Sates Constitution as we all know, had this to say in a letter to Mr. Adams regarding his sermon:

There appears to be in the nature of man what insures
his belief in an invisible cause of his present existence, and anticipation of
his future existence. Hence the propensities & susceptibilities in that case
of religion which with a few doubtful or individual exceptions have prevailed
throughout the world.

The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the
other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best
guarded agst by an entire abstinence of the Govt from interference in any way
whatever.

[...]

In most of the Govt of the old world, the legal
establishment of a particular religion and without or with very little
toleration of others makes a part of the Political and Civil organization and
there are few of the most enlightened judges who will maintain that the system
has been favorable either to Religion or to Govt.

In the Colonial State
of the Country, there were four examples, R. I, N. J., Penna, and Delaware,
& the greater part of N. Y. where there were no religious Establishments;
the support of Religion being left to the voluntary associations &
contributions of individuals; and certainly the religious condition of those
Colonies, will well bear a comparison with that where establishments existed.

As it may be suggested that experiments made in Colonies more or less
under the Control of a foreign Government, had not the full scope necessary to
display their tendency, it is fortunate that the appeal can now be made to their
effects under a complete exemption from any such Control.

It is true
that the New England States have not discontinued establishments of Religion
formed under very peculiar circumstances; but they have by successive
relaxations advanced towards the prevailing example; and without any evidence of disadvantage either to Religion or good Government.

And if we turn to the Southern States where there was, previous to the Declaration of independence, a legal provision for the support of Religion; and since that
event a surrender of it to a spontaneous support by the people, it may be said
that the difference amounts nearly to a contrast in the greater purity &
industry of the Pastors and in the greater devotion of their flocks, in the
latter period than in the former. In Virginia the contrast is particularly
striking, to those whose memories can make the comparison. It will not be denied
that causes other than the abolition of the legal establishment of Religion are
to be taken into view in account for the change in the Religious character of
the community. But the existing character, distinguished as it is by its
religious features, and the lapse of time now more than 50 years since the legal
support of Religion was withdrawn sufficiently prove that it does not need the
support of Govt and it will scarcely be contended that Government has suffered
by the exemption of Religion from its cognizance, or its pecuniary
aid.

When we look at Rev. Adams' sermon it becomes clear that he, like so many others, banks his "Christian Nation" claim on two key points: (1) America was founded by settlers who clearly established Christian settlements, and whose ideas were paramount in the establishment of the United States, (2) The constitutions of the various states make it indelibly clear that America is a Christian Nation.

Point #1:
In his sermon, Adams states:

The Colonies, then, from which these United States have
sprung, were originally planted and nourished by our pious forefathers, in the
exercise of a strong and vigorous Christian faith. They were designed to be
Christian communities

And:

The originators and early promoters of the discovery and
settlement of this continent, had the propagation of Christianity before their
eyes, as one of the principal objects of their undertaking. This is shewn by
examining the charters and other similar documents of that period, in which this
chief aim of their novel and perilous enterprize, is declared with a frequency
and fulness which are equally satisfactory.

I agree, in part, with what Rev. Adams is trying to say. Clearly America was PLANTED as a Christian Nation...at least in most colonies. However, are we to automatically insinuate from this history that the United States was/is founded as a Christian Nation?

The answer to this question can be found by addressing Rev. Adams' second key point; that the various state constitutions clearly establish a Christian nation. He states:

We are, therefore, now prepared to examine with a good
prospect of success, the nature and extent of the changes in regard to Religion,
which have been introduced by the people of the United States in forming their
State Constitutions, and also in the adoption of the Constitution of the United
States.

In perusing the twenty-four Constitutions of the United States
with this object in view, we find all of them recognising Christianity as the
well known and well established religion of the communities, whose legal, civil
and political foundations, these Constitutions are. The terms of this
recognition are more or less distinct in the Constitutions of the different
States; but they exist ill all of them.

But do STATE charters prove that the United States is a Christian Nation? Again, I will quote Madison from his above mentioned letter:

It is true that the New England States have not
discontinued establishments of Religion formed under very peculiar
circumstances; but they have by successive relaxations advanced towards the
prevailing example; and without any evidence of disadvantage either to Religion
or good Government.

And if we turn to the Southern States where there
was, previous to the Declaration of independence, a legal provision for the
support of Religion; and since that event a surrender of it to a spontaneous
support by the people, it may be said that the difference amounts nearly to a
contrast in the greater purity & industry of the Pastors and in the greater
devotion of their flocks, in the latter period than in the former. In Virginia
the contrast is particularly striking, to those whose memories can make the
comparison. It will not be denied that causes other than the abolition of the
legal establishment of Religion are to be taken into view in account for the
change in the Religious character of the community. But the existing character,
distinguished as it is by its religious features, and the lapse of time now more
than 50 years since the legal support of Religion was withdrawn sufficiently
prove that it does not need the support of Govt and it will scarcely be
contended that Government has suffered by the exemption of Religion from its
cognizance, or its pecuniary aid.

And even Rev. Adams seems to recognize this when he states:

No nation on earth, perhaps, ever had opportunities so
favorable to introduce changes in their institutions as the American people; and
by the time of the Revolution, a conviction of the impolicy of a further union
of Church and State according to the ancient mode, had so far prevailed, that
nearly all the States in framing their new constitutions of government,
either silently or by direct enactment, discontinued the ancient connexion [my emphasis].

Yes, the Reverend Adams provides an eloquent and well-prepared argument for his side, and I personally find much to praise in his sermon. However, colonial heritage and state constitutions are not sufficient grounds for calling America a Christian Nation. The federal Constitution is clearly a secular document, a fact that Adams gives very little attention to in his sermon. In addition, as Adams himself notes, these state constitutions eventually removed all religious preference, making the states secular as well.