Denominationalism Illustrated and Explained

Richey

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781621895817
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Evidence of mainstream denominational decline virtually throws itself in our faces--growing religious pluralism in North America; the decline over the last half century in the salience, prestige, power, and vitality of Protestant denominational leadership; slippage in mainline membership and corresponding growth, vigor, visibility, and political prowess of conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist bodies; patterns of congregational independence, including loosening of or removal of denominational identity, particularly in signage, and the related marginal loyalty of members; emergence of megachurches, with resources and the capacity to meet needs heretofore supplied by denominations (training, literature, expertise); growth within mainline denominations of caucuses and their alignment into broad progressive or conservative camps, often with connections to similar camps in other denominations; widespread suspicion of, indeed hostility towards, the centers and symbols of denominational identity--the regional and national headquarters; migration of individuals and families through various religious identities, sometimes out of classic Christianity altogether. Denominationalism looks doomed and is so proclaimed. It may be. However, viewing the sweep of Anglo-American history, this volume suggests how much denominations and denominationalism have changed, how resilient they have proved, how significant these structures of religious belonging have been in providing order and direction to American society, and how such enduring purposes find ever new structural/institutional expression.

part one

The British and Dissenting Origins of American Denominationalism

1

“Catholic” Protestantism and American Denominationalism

American denominations tend and have tended to understand themselves in confessional terms, and commentators on denominationalism in honoring such confessional ecclesiologies have accented their diversity and distinctivenesses—the distinguishing and divisive character of denominations. A significant counterpoint has been sounded by a few denominational leaders who envision/ed the separate denominations as part of a larger whole and believe/d the denominations to be united in a common task. This purposive and unitive quality of denominations was examined long ago by Winthrop Hudson, who argued that such an understanding constitutes a theology of denominationalism.4 Hudson traced this ecclesiology back to English Puritanism, particularly to the party known as Independency or Congregationalism. This chapter posits an additional source for such views in the succession of irenic, “catholic” Protestants who from the Reformation on labored for Christian unity. Those whose impact on American denominationalism seems most pronounced were British—the Latitudinarians, Cambridge Platonists, Scottish Moderates, and Dissenters such as Richard Baxter, Daniel Neal, Philip Doddridge, and Isaac Watts. Also contributing were the latter’s American counterparts—Cotton Mather, Jonathan Dickinson, and Samuel Davies. These “catholic” Christians mediated to nineteenth-century denominationalism a view of the church as united in fundamentals and by charity even if divided by doctrine, practice, and government. “Catholic” Protestantism, an early form of ecumenism and apparent alternative to denominationalism, thus ironically provided an important dimension to the ethos or self-understanding of the religious pluralism we term denominationalism.

Introduction: An Essay in the Transmission of Ideas

American denominations, the late William Clebsch suggested, have been traducers of their traditions. As the twofold sense of traduce implies, they have transmitted and preserved (traduced) aspects of the traditions from which they sprang. In that very act of conservation, migrants to the new world—uprooted from the European communities and religious connections that had given their life meaning—utilized these communal traditions for new purposes, in a new land, and under new conditions of religious pluralism, freedom, and voluntarism. So the traditions were betrayed (traduced).5 Clebsch’s term calls attention to an ambiguity in the life of this nation of immigrants. Many of the transmitted folkways, customs, beliefs, institutions, and ideas of those who peopled this land assumed different significances here than they had in the homeland. The New England town, Puritanism, food and family practices, class and caste notions, the Commonwealthman or Republican ideology, the variety of religious movements, and aspects of African culture provide various instances or case studies of cultural imports transformed in transmission. Treasuring the life-sustaining and dynamic in their heritages, Americans fossilized it. But out of the preserved and often defining forms new dynamisms emerged. Thinking themselves pioneers, Americans have been traditional. Thinking themselves traditional, Americans have been pioneers. Culture as artifact, the American use and abuse of its cultural legacies, in part, produced what Michael Kammen terms the biformities, ambiguities, and paradoxes of American civilization.6

In this chapter we are concerned to extend Clebsch’s insight only modestly. The traduction that he noted with respect to particular traditions also governed the transmission of ideas productive of that overall pattern of voluntaristic organization called denominationalism. As in particular denominations so in denominationalism as a whole, ideas elaborated in one context gained and lost significance when employed in another context. Undiscussed but assumed here but mentioned in the Introduction and developed more fully in part 2 of this book is the fact that much of what is termed denominationalism derives from adjustments to the new context of religious freedom, pluralism, and voluntarism. Under examination here are certain clusters of ideas that became eventually part of the theology of denominationalism. Specifically, we examine the manner in which ideas generated in seventeenth-century England to permit dissent under an established church (diversity under unity) came to be used to explain the pluralism of churches in American nineteenth-century denominationalism (unity amid diversity).

The Theme

Comprehension and indulgence (or the principles of catholicity and toleration) were two prominent options (not necessarily exclusive options) for resolving the religious conflicts of seventeenth-century England. The Restoration and the Toleration Act compromised both principles—catholicity by settling the English church in a limited uniformity, toleration by establishing a limited indulgence. But the principles themselves survived and were transmitted as ideals—as the ideals of catholicity and toleration. Both continued to elicit much discussion, well through the eighteenth century. These two ideals, not just toleration but both catholicity and toleration, became the intellectual underpinnings of the nineteenth-century American resolution of the problem of dissent and consent—denominationalism. Though seldom adequately discussed by the nineteenth-century church leaders, these two ideals made denominationalism a viable form of the Christian church.

The thesis can be more provocatively put in this fashion: The Puritans and evangelicals who advocated indulgence and sought toleration were not the sole architects of the denominational theory of the church. Of great importance also was the intellectual contribution of Latitudinarians and Rationalists, who advocated catholicity and sought comprehension. It has been generally accepted that a coalition of Evangelicals and Rationalists won the fight for religious freedom and disestablishment—the political preconditions for denominationalism. The argument here is that the theory of denominationalism also had twin sources.

The Irony of Denominationalism: Division but Unity

There is a curious irony to denominationalism and to the history of many denominations. Denominationalism has become a synonym for division, schism, even ethical failure, a scandal to the church, as H. Richard Niebuhr observed.7 Never has Christianity been so fragmented. On the other hand, despite the diversity there are unitive features to denominations and denominationalism. Many denominations by origin and at points along the way proclaimed themselves committed to Christian unity. Champions perhaps of such a unitive visions were the Restoration or Christian movements of the nineteenth century, the most prominent of which were the Disciples of Christ—movements dedicated to the overthrow of denominations and to the unification of all Christians upon Scripture alone. The irony of founding what would become denominations with loud proclamations of the end of denominations is in actuality the folly of denominationalism itself. Quite a few other movements began their pilgrimage in dedication to catholic and unitive ideals. Similarly, John Wesley committed the Methodists, a movement to spread scriptural holiness over the land, to a catholic posture. In assuming the name of catholic Christian, Wesley indicated the character of the unity to be sought:

I dare not, therefore presume to impose my mode of worship on any other. I believe it is truly primitive and apostolical. But my belief is no rule for another. I ask not, therefore, of him with whom I would unite in love, “Are you of my church, of my congregation? Do you receive the same form of church government and allow the same church officers with me? Do you join the same form of prayer wherein I worship God?” I inquire not, “Do you receive the Supper of the Lord in the same posture and manner that I do, nor whether, in the administration of baptism, you agree with me in admitting sureties for the baptized, in the manner of administering it, or the age of those to whom it should be administered?” Nay, I ask not of you (as clear as I am in my own mind) whether you allow baptism and the Lord’s Supper at all. Let all those things stand by—we will talk of them, if need be, at a more convenient season. My only question at present is this, “Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?”8

So also, Wesley’s erstwhile colleague, George Whitefield, preached a unity of hearts transcending the division in Christendom. Whitefield’s catholic sentiments phrased in relation to the parties of denominations bear repetition:

“Father Abraham, whom have you in heaven? Any Episcopalians?” “No.” “Any Presbyterians?” “No.” “Have you any Independents or Seceders?” “No.” “Have you any Methodists?” “No, no, no!!!” “Whom have you there?” “We don’t know those names here. All who are here are Christians—believers in Christ—men who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the work of his testimony.” “Oh,...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments and Permissions
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Denominations and Denominationalism
• Part 1: The British and Dissenting Origins of American Denominationalism
• Chapter 1: “Catholic” Protestantism and American Denominationalism
• Chapter 2: Toleration, Denominationalism, and Eighteenth-Century Dissent
• Chapter 3: Baptist Denominationalism in Eighteenth-Century Dissent
• Chapter 4: Denominations, British Radicalism, and the Changing Rationale of Dissent
• Chapter 5: Enlightenment Denominations in Transition
• Chapter 6: From Puritanism to Unitarianism in England
• Part 2: Perspectives on Denominationalism
• Chapter 7: The Denomination as Institution
• Chapter 8: American Denominationalism
• Part 3: Case Studies in American Denominationalism
• Chapter 9: The Social Sources of Denominationalism
• Chapter 10: History as a Bearer of Denominational Identity
• Chapter 11: Culture Wars and Denominational Loyalties
• Chapter 12: Denominationalism in “Reformed” Perspective
• Part 4: Denominationalism as Enacted Ecclesiology
• Chapter 13: Denominationalism
• Bibliography