As we've seen so far, our denominational tradition has sprung from a complex set of historical events and personalities. Not all of our ancestors were in perfect agreement on key points. The controversy between Calvinist and Arminian camps has been an example. But this month, we will introduce a powerful movement that profoundly shook up and re-shaped many religious groups. The Baptists were no exception. The movement I refer to is the First Great Awakening, a major religious revival that swept both England and the Colonies in the 1730's and 40's.
Almost nothing happens in a vacuum; there are reasons that revival was able to take such a dramatic hold on the people of the time. First, think about the cultural context. This was the time in history known as "The Age of Reason" or "The Age of Enlightenment." At this time, people began to see reason, logic and science as the true sources of knowledge. You might guess that this would have an effect on the spiritual climate of the churches, and you'd be right. Suddenly, doctrines which were held for most of church history were thrown open to question and ridicule. Many decried the doctrine of the Trinity as illogical and unbiblical. They drifted back to Arianism, that old Christian heresy which denied the full deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, for Deism (the "divine watchmaker" error held by many of our nation's founders), or for full-on Universalism (the substitutionary atonement of Jesus was thought unnecessary, because all would be "saved" regardless of their religion.) Luckily we had Puritan and Baptist theologians to defend orthodox belief, like Reformed Baptist preacher John Gill, but still, churches were becoming more cerebral, worship was losing its power under the weight of excessive formalism, and everywhere churches were dwindling and dying out. Baptist churches were part of that trend.
An environmental factor might be worth considering too, especially here in America. We must remember that life at that time was hard and short. Diseases like tuberculosis and smallpox were rampant. In rural areas, there was always the danger of attack by tribes of Native Americans. The colonists were surrounded everywhere by misery and mortality. It probably made early Americans think seriously about their standing before God and our fleeting lives on earth. We can guess that people were primed for dramatic, cathartic religious experiences that emphasized eternal life over this life.
This is the context which made English and American society ready to listen to an urgent call to return to the Lord, to throw off the heavy shackles of dead reason and look to the welfare of their eternal souls. The Lord had prepared preachers to speak powerfully into this time: men like Gilbert Tennent (1703-65), Jonathan Edward (1703-58), John Wesley (1703-91), and George Whitefield (1714-70). The common message of these preachers formed the basis of what we'd call Evangelical Christianity today. They emphasized 1) the sin nature of all people; 2) the eternal doom of sinners to separation from God in hell; 3) the availability of salvation to all who confess their sins to God and rely on the grace made possible by Jesus' substitutionary atonement; 3) the necessity of being "born again," a direct and emotional experience of new life in Jesus and closeness to God; and 4) that worship should not be cold and formal, but more personal and emotionally powerful.
We know that the First Great Awakening had a powerfully transformative effect on society and churches, but it also produced a shaking and transformation of churches. Some churches dwindled and died, while new ones sprang up and grew rapidly. The future of existing churches was pretty much determined by how they responded to the revival. Take the First Baptist Church of Boston for instance. The pastor at the time was Rev. Jeremiah Condy, a Harvard-educated man who definitely valued reason and order. He listened to the dramatic, emotional preaching of men like George Whitefield, and witnessed the ecstatic religious expressions of the audience. He was absolutely repelled, and forbade any such exuberance in his church. He had several congregants who supported the revival; they were offended and went on the attack. They charged him as an "Arminian." This was a meaningless charge, since the preaching and fruits of John Wesley were quite powerful as well--the church members were simply Calvinists and couldn't think of anything more insulting than to call him an Arminian. At any rate, they left the church and formed another congregation: the Second Baptist Church of Boston. But here's the interesting point to notice: the new, pro-revival Second Baptist Church grew rapidly, while the traditionalist, First Baptist Church went into a steep decline.
Another example was the experience of George Whitefield and his surprising friendship with Rev. Jenkin Jones of the Baptist Church in Philadelphia. An Anglican priest himself, Whitefield sadly found much rejection among his own kind. The Anglicans of that time favored formal, liturgical worship--that shouldn't surprise us. But in America, there were Baptist churches who were warmly supportive of the Great Awakening and the preachers who spread it. These were the "New Light" churches, as opposed to the "Old Light" churches who held to tradition and formalism. Jenkin Jones enthusiastically invited Whitefield to come and preach in Philadelphia. Whitefield had a background in acting which he put to good use. He knew how to modulate his pitch and volume. During his preaching he would shout, tremble, weep as the occasion called for it and the people responded with powerful, emotional conversion experiences. Jones proclaimed Whitefield a great blessing to the Church and openly prayed that God would prosper him ministry. Whitefield knew where the winds of God were blowing; instead of the traditional churches we gladly "went to the Baptist and Independent meetinghouses, where Jesus Christ was preached." There were theological differences between him and Baptists like Jones, of course--Whitefield believed in infant baptism, and Jones didn't. But still, Whitefield considered him a true brother in the faith. He said that Jones preached "the truth as it is in Jesus," and that he was "the only preacher that I know of in Philadelphia who speaks feelingly and with authority."
Jenkin Jones had an assistant pastor, though, named Ebenezer Kinnsersly. He was definitely an "Old Light" kind of preacher, who despised the emotionalism he saw in the revival. In open opposition to his senior pastor, he reached out to Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia Gazette to air his objections. He complained that the new converts were "filled brim-full of enthusiastical raptures and ecstasies, pretending to have large communications from God, to have seen ravishing visions..." He denounced Whitefield's preaching style: "What spirit such enthusiastic ravings proceed from...they proceed not from the Spirit of God...Such whinings, such harangues, big with affected nonsense...operate on the softer passions, and work them up to a warm pitch of enthusiasm." Jones called Kinnersly before the whole church and publicly censured him. Eventually, Kinnsersly was excommunicated from the church.
Clearly, the First Great Awakening produced a mixture of good effects as well as bad ones--Jonathan Edwards himself wrote to that effect. Nonetheless, it is clear that God blessed these new, Evangelical churches with rapid increase. The course of the Baptist churches in America was profoundly changed, and much of the results led toward our emphasis on world missions. We'll turn to that subject soon.
My sources for this article include Baptists in America: A History by Thomas Kidd and Barry Hankins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement by Anthony Chute, Nathan Finn, and Michael Haykin (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2015); and "Great Awakening" (History.com editors, 9/20/19), https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/great-awakening .
