Religious Revivals-- an import from Ulster (unfinished)
(W) Marilyn Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening 1625-1760, Oxford Univ. Press, 1988
(S) Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism, Eerdman’s, 2001
Colonial America during the 1730’s and 1740’s is often referred to as The Great Awakening due to the seemingly sudden occurrence of revivals from New England to thru the Middle Colonies. While examining the role of women in these events, Marilyn Westerkamp noticed that there was little in the way of theology or ideology to explain their rise. (W p.8) Instead, she discovered “that most Presbyterians in this region, and an increasing proportion as the century progressed, had emigrated from Ireland.” (W p.13) Following the ritual of these revivals led her to Ulster.
“The Great Awakening in the middle colonies represented neither innovative religious behavior nor a statement of challenge to the establishment. Rather, that revivalism, first observed in the colonies during this time, was actually part of Scots-Irish religiosity…” (W p.14)
Leigh Eric Schmidt would have us begin this story a little earlier with holy fairs. “Lengthy events, usually lasting four days, these evangelical festivals had burgeoned in post-Reformation Scotland and throve there. In due course these occasions were celebrated with similar fervor among Presbyterians who left the homeland, first in Ulster and then in North America.” (S p.3)
Protestantism arrived late, but suddenly, in Scotland during the 1550’s due to a combination of political and religious events. John Knox returned from Geneva a passionate advocate of Calvinism. Many Scottish nobles were chafing under the political domination of France and they received backing of Elizabeth, Protestant Queen of England. (S p.13)
In this realigned Scotland, the Protestants set up church courts “to oversee the social, moral, and spiritual discipline of the community”. Great effort was made to strip away “Catholic superstitions”, including kneeling,the veneration of saints, choirs, five of the seven sacraments, prayers for the dead, devotions to the Virgin, relics, pilgrimages and festivals. Bible-reading, long erudite sermons and psalm-singing took their place. This led to conflict between “legacies of Catholic devotion and the innovations of Protestant worship”. (S p.14, W p.21)) To maintain the loyalty of the laity, a set of evangelicals offered great public events centered on the celebration of the Reformed Lord’s Supper.” (S p.18)
Westerkamp admits that it’s impossible to tell whether Ulster or Scotland held the first revivals, but she points the Six-Mile-Water Revival in 1625 as a possible starting place. Preacher James Glendinning, who would ultimately cross “that fine line separating the prophet from the madman” (S p.29), had a great voice and vehement delivery. His topics were “nothing but law, wrath, and the terrors of God for sin”, which drove his hearers to fainting, crying and screaming in terror of their own consciences. They began to ask Glendinning what they must do to be saved, but he was at a loss to answer them. (W p.23-4)
Neighboring ministers came to his aid. They began a monthly lecture series with a sermon on Thursday evening and more sermons all day Friday, attended by “hundreds of people gathering to hear the gospel preached and to pray for twenty-four hours at a stretch.” By 1630, the excitement had travelled beyond Antrim and Down. Three- to five-day prayer meetings involving thousands of people became a frequent occurrence.” (W p.24-5)
“Less than twenty-five years after the Scots had begun to settle Ulster in considerable numbers and less than ten years after the first Scottish missionaries had arrived, Ulster was shaken with the “Six-Mile-Water Revival”… Recognized by Irish church historians as the beginning of the Irish Presbyterian church, this revival was the first of its kind, at least the first recorded, to rise up in the British isles. Converts swooned, panted, shouted, and wept. Scandalous sinners forsook their evil ways, embraced Christ as their Savior, and radically changed their lifestyles…Furthermore, this enthusiasm soon appeared in the west of Scotland, moving back and forth, to and from Ireland, as ministers and congregants traveled in both directions.” (W p.16)
In 1630, a young Presbyterian preacher named John Livingstone stopped at the kirk of Shotts, just across the sea in Scotland, to celebrate communion. With other popular ministers, meetings went on for “4 or 5 days”, culminating on a Monday when Livingstone preached for 2 and a half hours through a soft rain. Some 500 listeners claimed that a discernable change had come over them. (S p.21)
This form of Presbyterianism ran into opposition from the Church of England on and off, with different pressures applied toward conformity in Ulster and Scotland, depending on the circumstances. One of the periods of strongest conflict occurred in southwest Scotland during the 1670’s as Covenanter rebels mixed political and religious rebellion. Communion festivals were taken to the fields and meetings of several thousands were not uncommon. (S p. 39)
Naturally, over time, these events developed a ritual. “They were scheduled so that the celebration in one parish would not conflict with that in any other. Neighboring congregations were then notified of the coming celebration of the Lord’s Supper and invited to attend.” (W p.30) “(S)ervices were rarely held in mid-spring or in the autumn, and were held most frequently in late May through early July, right after planting, and in November, right after the harvest.” (W p.31)
“At Killinchy, John Livingstone began the practice of holding a special meeting of the sessions Saturday morning in order to identify any scandalous persons before the actual Sunday celebration. These persons were then summoned before the elders and told to appear before the congregation that very afternoon and acknowledge their sins.” (W p. 33) “On the fast day preceding the communion, tokens were distributed to all communicants in good standing… Moreover, all those who were given tokens were reminded through the preparatory sermons that while they appeared worthy, in fact they were probably not, and only they and God could really know the state of their own souls.” (W p.33)
“With the transplantation of Presbyterianism to the American colonies came Old World ways of organizing worship and devotion. The sacramental occasion, as one of the most prominent features of the evangelical Presbyterian tradition, was soon re-created in America. In New England, for example, enclaves of Presbyterian immigrants almost immediately staged sacramental occasions fully reminiscent of Scotland and Ulster.” (S p.53)
“In the half century preceding the American Revolution the colonial Presbyterians established a durable, largely continuous tradition of revival and renewal. From Londonderry, New Hampshire, to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to Cub Creek, Virginia, the sacramental occasion was re-created in the colonies.” (S p. 59)
“Equally notable to the evangelical power of the meetings was the precision with which the Scottish traditions were maintained. The basic forms of a Thrusday fast, a Saturday meeting of preparation, the lengthy Sabbath exercises, and a Monday thanksgivng seervice were clearly preserved. But more than that such customs as the use of the “old tunes” with the Scottish psalms, the practice of “fencing the tables” or the use of communion tokens… were also interwoven…” (S p.61)
“Scottish patterns of revival had indeed contributed profoundly to the forging of America’s evangelical tradition, but by the mid-nineteenth century, American Protestants had done far to solidify their own forms of renewal… center(ing) finally on camp meetings, anxious benches, protracted meetings, professional evangelism, inquiry rooms, and other new measures, not on the sacramental season.” (S p.208)
“Though the sacramental occasion was never limited to Scots or Ulster Scots I its missionary outreach in America, it was nonetheless a notably ethnic tradition.” (S p. 208)
“Other evangelicals, such as the early Methodists, Baptists, and Moravians, added other “apostolic” rituals to their worship—love feasts and watch nights, for example—as rich liturgical patterns emerged from their restorationist and scripturalist search.” (S. 215)
Wednesday, February 15, 2006