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www.stephendawes.com CHURCH HISTORY
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I'm not a Church Historian by trade, but have some interest in bits of it. I had to do some serious input to the SWMTC Church History Easter School in 2004, and here is what I came up with in the areas assigned to me.
INDEX
(SWMTC - South West Ministry Training Course - Church History Easter School 2004 - Introduction to the Church History Week) 1
Why study Church History?
2 But ‘Church History’ isn’t the most accurate title for what we are studying – which is better called ‘Church Historiography’ Because we cannot really get back to any events in themselves, the ‘happenings’ or the ‘happenedness’ or the ‘History’ of the Church, for ‘History = Event + Interpretation’ and it is very difficult to disentangle the two. St Luke or the Venerable Bede are ‘historiographers’, not ‘historians,’ and we can get back to their writing about the past, but not to the past itsel 3 To study ‘history/historiography’ means asking different sorts of questions The ‘what happened?’ type of questions will not go away. But the ‘Who tells the story?’ ‘To whom is the story told?’ ‘Why is it told?’ and ‘What are the consequences of the story being told like this?’ type of questions need to be asked too. As does the ‘What kind of a story is this?’ question 4 Remember the hermeneutic of suspicion but also do not forget the hermeneutic of trust!
2 Beginning with the Resurrection - according to Tom Wright (SWMTC Church History Easter School 2004) 1 A fact in need of an explanation a/ We are here! A movement associated with an obscure Galilean rabbi who died around 33CE has become in the 21st century numerically the world's largest religious movement. That itself is a story worth telling/hearing; a fact in need of an explanation, and an unavoidable question for the historian b/ N T Wright's project (‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’) is to address it in 5 major volumes up to the end of the first century CE [The NT and the People of God (SPCK 1992 530pp); Jesus and the Victory of God (SPCK 1999 750pp), The Resurrection of the Son of God (SPCK 2003 815pp) c/ His argument is that the only explanation big enough to fit the facts is the bodily resurrection of Jesus! 2 Easter – the beginning of the Christian Way Wright is not alone in this view, for in NT the resurrection of Jesus is the definitive moment in the history of the Church – as Paul says, ‘No Easter: No Faith’ (1 Cor 15:13f) Easter is, of course, highly problematic: the claim that ‘Christ is risen/He is risen indeed!’ – understood factually/literally/bodily - makes huge demands on our ability to believe such a thing. And the stories themselves do not help for they do not answer even our simplest questions (Who discovered the Empty Tomb? In what order did these events take place? What was the risen body of Jesus like?) and they are silent about what happened in the tomb If we go back to the formula (History = Event + Interpretation) we see just how entangled ‘fact’ and ‘interpretation’ are here, and equally sincere Christians find themselves differing over the ‘what-happenedness’ of it all, ie how they read the stories by which ‘Easter’ and ‘the resurrection of Jesus’ are proclaimed or mediated to us 3 Wright’s thesis 1 Wright opposes what he calls the ‘current scholarly consensus’ that:
Thus: ‘The … burden of the present book (The Resurrection of the Son of God) is that there are excellent, well-founded and secure historical arguments against each of these positions’ (p7) 2 His arguments can be summarized like this:
3 Chapter 18 – ‘Easter and History’ acts as a summary and the following quotes are taken from it: ‘The historical datum now before us is a widely held, consistently shaped and highly influential belief: that Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead. This belief was held by virtually all the early Christians for whom we have evidence. It was at the center of their characteristic praxis, narrative, symbol and belief; it was the basis of their recognition of Jesus as Messiah and lord, their insistence that the creator god had inaugurated the long-awaited new age, and above all their hope for their own future bodily resurrection. The question we now face is obvious: what caused this belief in the resurrection of Jesus?’ (p685) ‘The two things which must be regarded as historically secure when we talk about the first Easter are the emptiness of the tomb and the meetings with the risen Jesus. Once we locate the early Christians within the world of second-Temple Judaism, and grasp what they believed about their own future hope and about Jesus’ own resurrection, these two phenomena are firmly warranted. The argument can be set out in seven steps:
‘We are left with the conclusion that the combination of empty tomb and appearances of the living Jesus forms a set of circumstances which is itself both necessary and sufficient [on sufficient and necessary conditions see the penultimate paragraph on p687] for the rise of early Christian belief. Without these phenomena, we cannot explain why this belief came into existence, and took the shape it did. With them, we can explain it exactly and precisely’ (p696) ‘The empty tomb and the ‘meetings’ with Jesus, when combined, present us with not only a sufficient condition for the rise of early Christian belief, but also, it seems, a necessary one. Nothing else historians have been able to come up with has the power to explain the phenomena before us’ (p706)
3 The First Hundred Years - according to Rodney Stark (SWMTC Church History Easter School 2004) 1 A fact in need of an explanation Assuming that the only explanation big enough to fit the fact of the beginning of the process which led to the Christian Church is the resurrection of Jesus, what happened in the rest of that first Christian century? 2 The way the story is usually told and the growth of the Church explained
Thus Church History is either theology or hagiography! In which case the rise of Christianity in the first century is attributed to the Holy Spirit and to St Paul But without wishing to deny either the role of God or the contribution of great people, there are all kinds of other things involved - eg the role of politics in the Reformation or of economics in the Evangelical Revival of the 18th century or of culture - in the shape of militant consumerism and post-modernity - in the decline of the Church in the West in the twenty-first century, or of the role of real people in real places in real times - most of whom are little people - as espoused by Social Historians and Liberation Theologians 3 The thesis of Rodney Stark For a summary see the article from Issue 57 of Christian History, with the sexy title ‘Live longer, healthier and better’ and the subtitle, ‘The untold benefits of becoming a Christian in the ancient world’. In a nutshell, that is the thesis of Stark’s book, The Rise of Christianity, Harper 1997, with its subtitle - 'How the obscure, marginal Jesus Movement became the dominant religious force in the Western world in a few centuries' Stark is Professor of Sociology and Comparative Religion in Washington, and in his book he offers a thesis based on Historical Sociology. (Sociology is the study - which often includes much statistical research - of societies and social processes and of the systems and mechanisms which constitute them and by which they operate, change and develop - or something like that. Historical Sociology tries to do that with ancient societies). Reading the book we encounter not only descriptions of 'non-theological factors' affecting the rise of Christianity (that term has often been used in Church History) but also of mechanisms of social change and the growth of religious movements which are observable, even measurable, in societies and religious movements today. Here are the chapter headings and some of what they contain: 1 Conversion and Christian Growth: How did it happen? Through the mighty work of God in huge conversions as in Acts? From the numbers at the start to the generally accepted estimate of 5-7m at the year 300CE, you can posit a 40% increase per decade (which matches the 43% per decade of the growth of the Mormons), which gives you 7530 Christians at the end of the first century and the process of that church growth is best described as 'networking' rather than 'conversion' 2 The Class Basis of Early Christianity: was probably much more 'middle class' (‘the solid citizens of the Empire’) than the popular view of a church of the marginalised would like it to have been! 3 The Mission to the Jews - Why it probably succeeded: Jewish Christianity probably played a prominent role in the church until almost the end of the second century - which might explain why Marcion was deemed to be a heretic despite having some very cogent arguments which appealed to Gentiles 4 Epidemics, networks and conversion: A bowl of soup a day works, more Christians survive epidemics proportionally than non-Christians. Care works, is a good witness and being cared for is an incentive to join this caring community 5 The role of women in Christian growth: no abortion and no infanticide of girls among Christians means more Christians and the health of Christian women is better than average and so, therefore, is their fertility rate. Early Christianity values women and makes the church a good thing for them to join! 6 Christianising the Urban Empire - a Quantitative Approach: some stats 7 Urban Chaos and Crisis - the case of Antioch: a case study 8 The Martyrs - Sacrifice as Rational Choice: There wasn't much martyrdom, except of leaders occasionally. It frightened off the nominals, and toned up the moral and spiritual muscles of the rest. Its 'invincible obstinacy' was a good advert too: there must be something in it if they're prepared to die for it! 9 Opportunity and Organisation: Both were there! 10 A brief reflection on virtue: Christianity brought a new conception of humanity to a world saturated with capricious cruelty, and that was a saleable product
(SWMTC Church History Easter School 2004) 1 If ‘Old Dissent’ means the Independents/Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers, then ‘New Dissent’ refers to the new religious movement which emerged in England in the 18th century – namely the Methodists, who cornered the market in religious revival in that century in England; though John Wesley himself – the Founder of the Methodist Movement – stoutly resisted for most of his life allowing Methodists to be thought of as ‘Dissenters’ at all – old, new or any other kind 2 Despite Rodney Stark and ‘history from below’ there would be no such thing as ‘New Dissent’ – were it not for a great man (John Wesley) and his God 3 May 24th, 1738 – the usual ‘start date’ for Methodism - must be set in the wider context of Wesley’s life and times 4 John Wesley was born on 28th June 1703, the fifteenth child of Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth, and his spirited wife, Susannah. Both grandfathers had been ministers (and one great-grandfather), both ejected at the Restoration – so ‘old-Dissent’ was in his genes. But both his father and mother had returned to the established Church and were Anglicans by choice and conviction. The vicarage family might well be described as ‘dysfunctional’ Susannah took special interest in the education of ‘little Jackie’ - ‘the brand plucked from the burning’ (so called because he was rescued from the fire when the rectory was burned down when he was six – the fire was perhaps lit by disgruntled parishioners!) – and from his mother’s powerful knee John received a thorough and powerful education, not least a religious education, which impressed on him that true Christianity was a very serious business and that there was a huge difference between mere churchgoing and real Faith. For good or ill JW was obsessed with that distinction, and that left something of that obsession as a longstanding legacy within Methodism In 1722 he was awarded a scholarship to Oxford. After taking his degree in 1726 he decided to become an Anglican priest, was ordained in 1728 and had a year curacy with his father. Then he returned to Oxford as a Fellow of Lincoln College, and joined ‘Holy Club’ which had been started in his absence with the aim of taking religion seriously. It was here that the nickname ‘Methodist’ was first used, although it was a jibe, Wesley and the others accepted it gladly, for they thought that religion was something to be methodical about Trying to deal with his ‘am I a Christian or not?’ angst he went as a missionary to Georgia in 1736. It was a disaster. He returned in January 1738, after the first of many unhappy experiences with women, a sad and unhappy 35-year old, searching but not finding 5 Socio-cultural history of this time does not show the moribund CofE picture beloved of Methodist hagiographers. There were, for example, thriving ‘Religious Societies’, in one of which Wesley was to have that life-changing experience on May 24th, 1738. The first of these societies is usually said to have begun in Westminster in 1678. They took various forms, eg local fellowships where ordinary people met together to pray, listen to sermons and read their Bibles, sponsored by parish churches and independent chapels alike, and often led by clergy. There were also some national ones, The Society for the Reformation of Manners (1691), The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge’ (SPCK – 1698) and The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG – 1701) 6 Wesley returned from Georgia in January 1738 and spent time in London where he attended a number of these ‘religious societies’ until, in the words of his Journal, In the evening I went, very unwillingly, to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death Whether this experience should be called ‘conversion’ or something else, it was this experience which gave W the assurance he lacked. He now knew that he was a Christian 7 W was gifted and able and that was soon recognised in the network of the religious societies, and he quickly began to move around them preaching and teaching. ‘The world is my Parish’ was his slogan, on the basis that his Fellowship of Lincoln College gave him a legal right to preach anywhere, without the local parish priest’s or bishop’s permission. He was asked by George Whitfield, a leading figure in the network and an evangelist with a growing reputation for making new things happen – another reminder that spiritual things were happening in the mid-18th century before W got involved - to go to Bristol to speak at a society there, and there, much against his will, he was persuaded to preach in the open air for the first time. After he ‘consented to be more vile’ as this practice was completely against his high-church principles, the spectacular results convinced him that this was what God required, a prime example of W’s ‘pragmatism’ 8 W then organised – and organising was probably his greatest genius – a system to nurture those affected by his preaching, a system of ‘Methodist societies’ with Society Stewards and smaller ‘classes’ with Class Leaders, while encouraging the members of these to worship at parish church. He organised a network of fellow workers, clergymen like his brother Charles, and increasingly a group of committed lay workers, arranging their oversight of the societies in ‘circuits’, preaching ‘rounds’ which they circuited/travelled on a regular basis. He then formed these lay people, first called ‘Helpers’ and later ‘Assistants’, with his ordained Anglican colleagues into an annual Conference, first held in 1744. His language and organisation was unapologetically hierarchical for Wesley was an autocrat; they didn’t call him ‘Pope John’ in later life, and behind his back, for nothing He split with Whitfield and the majority of the rest of those involved in the general Evangelical Revival on theological grounds: he was firmly Arminian and they firmly Calvinist. The so-called ‘Four All’s of Methodism’ which were formulated in 1903 sum up his position well:
For a highly polemical statement of the Methodist Arminian position against the Calvinists, see Charles Wesley’s magnificent hymn, ‘Father, whose everlasting love’. And do not underestimate the selling power of no.3 in a society where death was commonplace and the ‘fear of Hell’ was real W was a popular preacher (though neither as popular nor as exciting as Whitfield), a tireless traveller, and a great organiser. New converts were added to the Societies, put into Classes under a Class Leader and carefully taught. Wesley wrote books, ran a printing press, produced literature and wrote endless letters of encouragement. He and his followers were not always popular, and at times he was abused and his converts beaten by rioters: but the movement spread 9 There was, inevitably, some tension with CofE. The 1757 Conference made a ‘solemn declaration never to leave the Church of England’ but the pressures kept building, especially the pressure to provide ordained oversight for the societies, including provision for the sacraments and the occasional offices by their own ‘ministers’ and in their own buildings. Wesley resisted the pressure strongly, but in 1784 he ordained three of his Assistants for the large Methodist work in America (which had, of course, recently booted out the Church of England in the War of Independence of 1776), three for Scotland in 1785 using the same argument and in 1787 for England. At the 1786 Conference Methodist services were permitted to be held, in certain circumstances, at the same time as those in the parish church, and in 1787 Wesley finally felt compelled to license his Preachers and Preaching Houses, though he still wriggled over calling them ‘Dissenters’ For as long as W lived he was a CofE priest - ‘I live and die a priest of the Church of England’ he said – but the longer he lived the more maverick a priest he became, at least in good Anglican eyes. And when he died in 1791 the reality of separation, to which he had always closed his eyes, was apparent for all to see 10 When W died on March 2 1791 there were 72k Methodists in Britain, 43k in USA, 4,5k in West Indies and 800 in Canada. There had been an annual Conference of Methodist Preachers since 1744, and it had the legal authority to do what it finally did in 1795 which was to declare itself separate from the CofE. By that time the organisation of the whole Connexion, as W called it, into Circuits under Superintendents, and Districts under Chairmen, much as we have it now was complete. Geographically the spread across England was uneven 11 Methodist Preaching Houses, soon to be known as ‘chapels’, were usually square and squat, with pews packed in to enable as many people as possible to hear the preacher. A typical Sunday morning service would be little different from that of a parish church, using Wesley’s slightly adapted Order for Morning Prayer from the order in the Prayer Book, but with hymns and a longer sermon. Evening services would last about an hour and a half and consist of hymns, prayers, Bible readings and a sermon, with the hymns sung either unaccompanied or accompanied by a group of instrumentalists – no organs yet. Each member was expected to attend a Class Meeting once a week, where each shared their spiritual journey and commented on those of others as well as prayed loudly and long, pay a weekly subscription to support the Society, and engage in local evangelism. In some areas, Cornwall being one, there was a strong revivalist tradition, but this was not universal. Sobriety, hard work, honesty, thrift and neighbourliness were to characterise Methodists at work, and here too Susannah’s values are clear to see. And of course there were tensions: particularly in an increasingly democratic age there was growing lay resentment at the autocratic attitude of many of the Assistants, now called Superintendents, and well on the way to being ministers as we know them, addressed as ‘Reverend’ and adopting clerical dress 12 In the next 50 years of the story (1800-1850) there would be great changes, some were good ones such as large increases in membership, and the beginning of an overseas missionary movement: others were bad, such as divisions and splinter groups for all sorts of reasons. By the famous 1851 census Wesley’s Methodism had split into five main groups: the Wesleyans, claiming continuity with Wesley, were the largest with a membership of 400k; next were the evangelical and fervent ranters, the Primitives, with 90k; the United Methodist Free Church, as its name suggests an amalgam of various smaller splinters, with 40k, the Methodist New Connexion (the earliest splinter group) with 25k and the Bible Christians of the South West with the same; adding up to nearly 600k members, with around a million more adherents or regular supporters, making Methodism in the 19th century by far the largest of the Free Church bodies
(SWMTC Church History Easter School 2004) 1 Fifty Years of Decline a/ 1901 – 1914 : the ‘Victorian twilight’ ‘The Victorian era ended at 11 o’clock on the 4th August 1914’ ‘(Up to 1914 we are) struck by the degree to which Christianity was at least passively accepted by the great majority of the population, and to which it helped to shape people’s world-picture, provided a basis for widely accepted moral principles, and provided rites which were used by the great majority of the population’ (McLeod: 2) Church of England: Easter Day communicants: 1871 - 1,110k; 1881 - 1,225k; 1891 - 1,490k; 1901 - 1,945k; 1911 - 2,293k; 1914 - 2,226k Methodist membership: 1871 - 571k; 1881 - 630k; 1891 - 690k; 1901 - 733k; 1906 - 800k Roman Catholic Church in England: worshippers up from 1,357k in 1891 to 1,793k in 1913; churches from 597 in 1851 to 1845 in 1913 and priests from 826 to 3650 in the same period But despite all this the historians point to this period as one of underlying decline and deterioration in the place religion held in the lives of individuals and the nation as a whole, and paint a picture of ‘escalating indifference to religious matters’: see the following two quotes from the time:
b/ The First World War
c/ The Inter-War Period The signs of the marginalisation of the churches become obvious
2 The Arrival of Pentecostalism The Pentecostal/Charismatic movement is the fastest growing group within Christianity today, with c500m adherents worldwide predominantly in Third World: but where did it come from? The North American Holiness Movement had Methodist roots (but UK Methodism never went that way) - between 1895 and 1905 over twenty separate Holiness denominations were set up, including the Church of God, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Church of the Nazarene, the Pilgrim Holiness Church and the Wesleyan Methodist Church (don’t confuse that with the real one in the UK!) Charles Finney (1821) - ‘a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit’, when the Spirit descended on him ‘in waves and waves of liquid love’. His revivalist theology was subsequently a great influence on North American Pentecostalism. A revival in 1858 in the northeast USA created a new expectancy throughout the Holiness movement linking the ‘second blessing’ experience of sanctification with a world-wide revival, the ‘latter rain’ that would precede the return of Christ Charles Fox Parham, a former Methodist minister, opened Bethel Bible College in Topeka in 1900 and enrolled 40 students. The Prayer Day of 31st December 1900 and its ‘watch-night’ service when Agnes Ozman spoke in tongues. By 1905 there were about a thousand people who had received Spirit baptism - the movement was known as the ‘Apostolic Faith’ William Joseph Seymour and the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906 and the Apostolic Faith Mission - Adverse press reports helped to publicise it, with headlines like ‘Whites and Blacks Mix in a Religious Frenzy’. A local white Baptist pastor said that Azusa Street was a ‘disgusting amalgamation of African voodoo superstition and Caucasian insanity’. Parham turned up to ‘control’ the revival and was disgusted by what he saw, particularly the inter-racial fellowship. He was rejected as leader, was never reconciled with Seymour and went into obscurity and eventual disgrace. The leadership of the movement passed to Seymour and took on international dimensions. 26 different Pentecostal denominations trace their origins to Azusa Street, including the largest, the Assemblies of God But the Pentecostal revival in the USA was no isolated event and should not carry a ‘Made in the USA’ label. This style of Christianity had been represented in England since the Keswick Convention began in 1875, promoting the two distinct experiences of ‘new birth’ and the ‘fullness of the Spirit’, or as it began to be called more often, ‘baptism with the Spirit’ In 1904 the ‘Welsh Revival’ brought an estimated 100k people into the churches. Leader was Evan Roberts, a mineworker who had an ecstatic experience of ‘baptism in the Spirit’ and many received Spirit baptism and spoke with tongues at this time, including the brothers Stephen and George, who would later be big names in the Elim movement and the Anglican priest Alexander Boddy, vicar of All Saints, Sunderland The influence of the Welsh Revival on the emergence of British Pentecostalism was considerable and it created an expectation of revival throughout Europe but for the British equivalent of Azusa Street we have to go to Sunderland. A Norwegian Methodist minister, Thomas Barrett, had met people from Azusa Street while visiting the US on an unsuccessful fundraising mission, and he had brought the Pentecostal message to his church in Oslo in 1907 where revival broke out. Alexander Boddy invited Barrett to preach in his parish in September 1907 and it was All Saints, Sunderland, which became the Pentecostal centre in Britain. From there Boddy edited the Pentecostal periodical Confidence, and the Pentecostal Missionary Union was formed there in 1909, which joined the Assemblies of God in 1925 The first Pentecostal denomination as such in Britain was founded in Bournemouth in 1911 by Oliver Hutchinson - the Apostolic Faith Church. The Welshman and former Congregationalist minister George Jeffreys founded the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance (now the Elim Pentecostal Church), and his brother Stephen became an evangelist in the Assemblies of God. By 1950 there were a thousand churches with a membership of around 50k 3 The Beginnings of the Ecumenical Movement a/ At the international level the International Missionary Conference, Edinburgh, 1910 was key; and the three aspects of the movement at this level are: Mission, Life & Work and Faith & Order i/ Mission - was the raison d’etre of the Edinburgh Conference in 1910, which grew out of a growing together of leaders from churches across the world in the 19th century such as in the World Student Christian Federation which began in 1895, much of which was inspired by John Mott. Followed by Jerusalem 1928 and Kandaram, Madras, 1938 ii/ Life & Work was about finding ways in which Christians could help each other to bring their faith to bear on the life of society in politics, industry, education, international relations and so on, which grew out of various 19th century Christian socialist movements and American ‘social gospel’ thinking and its supreme architect and inspirer was the Swede, Nathan Soderblom (1866-1931), an academic who became Archbishop of Uppsala in 1914. The Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work was held at Stockholm in 1925, very similar to the COPEC conference (‘the Conference on Politics, Economics and Citizenship’) held in Birmingham in 1924 and presided over by William Temple iii/ Faith & Order - the initiator here was the American Episcopalian Charles Harold Brent, Bishop of the Philippines and later of Western New York. The first Faith & Order conference was held at Lausanne in 1927 attended by 400 delegates and although the Roman Catholic Church stood aloof, the Orthodox churches were represented b/ The other level of the ecumenical movement is the much more mundane church union one. The Church of Scotland and the United Free Church came together in Scotland in 1929. The Wesleyans, Primitives and United Methodists came together in Britain in 1932. In 1925 four groups of Canadian churches formed the United Church of Canada and the scheme of church union for South India began to take shape shortly after c/ In 1937 two important conferences were held in Britain: Life & Work in Oxford and Faith & Order in Edinburgh, and the lasting thing that emerged from these was the idea of a World Council of Churches which would draw the participants in the ecumenical movement more closely and permanent together and co-ordinate the various aspects of the movement. The implementation of the WCC was delayed by the Second World War but it was finally inaugurated in Amsterdam in 1948 with representatives of 147 different churches from 44 different countries. The Roman Catholics were not there because their exclusive claim to be the one true church kept them apart; and some groups of ultra-conservative Protestants weren’t there either. Neither were the Russian Orthodox for political reasons. But 1948 represented a huge achievement in global terms, just as the inauguration of the British Council of Churches in 1942 did in terms of the UK go to university diploma or degree go to university certificate (1) go to university certificate (2) |
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