This Day in Presbyterian History

We continue today with Dr. Woolley’s series of articles on Presbyterians in America. Do keep in mind that these articles were written in the early 1950s and so much has changed since that time. Tomorrow’s post will focus on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Bible Presbyterian Church.

Presbyterians in America
by Rev. Paul Woolley

IV – Cumberland Presbyterians

[Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, 86.1 (January 1952): 1-2.]

               At the end of the America Revolution, this country entered upon a period of tremendous expansion.  Thousands crossed the Appalachian Mountains to settle in the Middle West.  There they found almost no churches.  What could they do?  The Methodists sent circuit riders throughout the area.  The Baptists had hundreds of backwoods preachers.  In neither instance were these men well-educated, or adequately prepared for a proper ministry.  The Presbyterian Church had not enough men for its settled congregations.  How meet the need?  Some Presbyterians who settled in Kentucky said, We can find enough exhorters.  They have not had any appreciable education and they are not entirely in accord with Presbyterian doctrine.  But they will fill the gap.

               So these Kentuckians asked the Presbyterian General Assembly for permission to ordain men who did not meet the educational standards of the Form of Government of the Church.  The debate was earnest, but the Assembly decided that that was not the honest way to meet the need.  After waiting some years, the patience of one Kentucky Presbytery wore out.  It felt it must provide more ministers, and proceeded to ordain men who did not meet the requirements.  After being dissolved for disregard of the standards of the Church, it reconstituted itself as an independent Presbytery, and thus brought into existence, in 1810, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

               The Church revised the Westminster Confession in order to remove statements about phases of God’s gracious election.  They objected particularly to the notion of reprobation.  Thus the Cumberland Church attracted to it persons who tended toward an Arminian theology but who liked Presbyterian principles of worship and government.  It became a large Church in the southern part of the United States and at the beginning of the twentieth century had about 195,000 members.  The great majority of them were in the south central states, though there were some as far north as Pennsylvania and Illinois.

               In the early years of the century the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. modified its doctrinal standards.  It made certain changes in the Westminster Confession.  It added two new chapters to the Confession.  It adopted an additional Declaratory Statement explaining portions of the Confession.  The major changes were designed to explain the Confession in such a way as to make it palatable to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church with its Arminian tendencies.  The objective was obtained.  The majority of the Cumberland Church agreed to union with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  This was effected in 1906.  Thus the so-called Northern Presbyterian Church came to have great numbers of congregations scattered throughout the south in competition with the congregations of the (Southern) Presbyterian Church in the U.S.

               A minority of the Cumberland Church refused to enter the union.  It was composed of those more consciously Arminian, on the whole, than the unionists.  Probably it numbered only about 15,000 people.  It constituted itself vigorously, however.  Now it has grown into a church of 81,000 members, having congregations as far east as Ohio, as far north as Michigan, and as far west as California.  Between 1916 and 1936 it lost ground.

               In the last fifteen years, it has more than made up what it lost.  Foreign missions are conducted in the Far East and in South America.  The foreign missionary budget is about $90,000 per annum.  Headquarters of the national activities, which include a large publishing plant, are in Nashville, Tennessee.  Affiliated with the Church is Bethel College of McKenzie, Tennessee, co-educational, with four hundred students.

               Soon after the Civil War the Negro members of the Cumberland Church organized congregations separate from the white members.  Ultimately they sought complete independence, and this was granted by the General Assembly of 1869.  Thus began the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church.  It was not affected as radically by the 1906 union as was the older Church, and continued its organization intact.  Its doctrinal principles are similar to those of the other Cumberland Church.  Membership figures are available only in round numbers, totaling about 30,000.

               Cumberland Presbyterianism is essentially for semi-Arminians.  Believing in final perseverance but not in unconditional election, they like Presbyterian government and worship.  The question is, however, What does the Bible teach?  “To the law and to the testimony! If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.” (Isa. 8:20).

We continue today with Dr. Woolley’s series of articles on Presbyterians in America. Do keep in mind that these articles were written in the early 1950s and so much has changed since that time.

Presbyterians in America
by Rev. Paul Woolley

III – The Presbyterian Church in the United States

[Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, 85.12 (December 1951): 97-98]

               The United States was a lively place in which to live in the thirties, forties and fifties of last century. Unusual ideas were popping up here, there, and every where. There was just as much, perhaps more, pressure to conform to conventional opinion then as now. But the radicals were bolder and the opposition came usually from the mass public, not from the national government. An idea which awakened tremendous opposition, but which was unhesitatingly championed in the face of the mob fury, was the abolition of slavery.

               Early in the century there were strong opinions among Presbyterians favoring the gradual ending of slavery. But in the thirties views began to harden in both directions. After the division into the Old School and New School denominations, a difference between the atmosphere of the two in the matter of slavery was obvious. The New School church contained a number of ardent anti-slavery men. The Old School seemed generally to take the position that slavery as such could not be condemned on a biblical basis, but that there was much that was very un-Christian about existing American slavery. The New School had few southern adherents in any case. Its New England theology was never popular in the south. Long before the outbreak of war in 1861, the New School had sloughed off its small southern presbyteries because of the slaveholding principles.

               When the war came, however, the Old School Church was strong in both north and south. The General Assembly which met the month after the firing on Fort Sumter was faced with a vigorous northern demand that it declare that the Church supports the federal union. The opposition was vigorous, led by Charles Hodge, the famous Princeton theologian. However, it regrettably failed and the Assembly committed the Church to the maintenance of the union. Presbyteries of the south rallied behind the conviction that it was improper for the Church to give voice to a political utterance. In December, commissioners from all parts of the confederacy packed bags and journeyed to Augusta, Georgia. There, in the First Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America was born, and James Henley Thornwell wrote a noble address to the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the world affirming its principles.

               At the end of the war the Church of the south not only changed its name—to the Presbyterian Church in the United States—but it received large accessions of membership from the border states. The northern Church entered upon a wild riot of super-patriotism. It demanded that any minister or member who came from the south and wanted to join a presbytery or a local church must declare that he had always favored the union or admit that he had been a traitor. The application of this sort of nonsense drove many congregations into the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the name of the southern Church differs from that of the northern only by the omission of the words “of America” at the end.)

               The south was poor after the war and reconstruction was, of course, bungled by the federal government. But gradually a new south has come into being, a brave, vigorous, lively south. With it the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. has grown, too.

               Today it numbers approximately 702,000 communicant members and contributions from living donors totaled over forty million dollars in the year ending in 1951. It added on profession of faith in that year nearly 30,000 members. Its growth is now, proportionately, considerably more rapid than that of the northern Church. In five years its communicant membership has increased by more than 18 per cent.

               Foreign missionaries, about 380 in number, are working in eight countries. In 1950-51 over 10,000 professions of faith were made on the foreign field. The income of the Board of World Missions, under the stimulus of a Program of Progress, is about one and three-quarter million dollars in a year. The Board represents in general a genuinely evangelical program. For example, its Japan Mission held recently that its limited force of men and money could best be used in other ways than in supporting the proposed Japan Christian University for which money is now being raised. The University’s connection with Christianity is tenuous, and the Mission wanted to keep on with the main job.

               While the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. has preached the gospel to the negro throughout its history, it is only now abolishing segregated presbyteries and a segregated synod. It has moved more slowly than it might have in carrying out the gospel in this sphere of social relationships. Unfortunately loyalty to biblical doctrine often coincides with disloyalty to biblical practice in southern Presbyterianism.

               Today the burning question among Presbyterians in the south is the issue about uniting the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. into one Church. The climate of opinion of our day is favorable and modernist elements in the north particularly, but also in the south, are bending every effort to accomplish this union. The southern Church has maintained, as against the northern, certain principles such as the parity in church courts of ruling and teaching elders, and the abstention of the church from participation in political issues. The great difference, however, lies in the fact that the proportion of believers in modernism is much higher in the north than in the south, both among the laity and among the clergy. The evangelicals of the south do not relish the prospect of domination by the modernist hierarchy of the northern Church which is firmly in control and which, because of the larger size of the northern Church, would be able to perpetuate that control over the united Church. Bible-believers in the Presbyterian Church, U.S. have organized the Continuing Church Committee. Through its weekly organ, The Southern Presbyterian Journal, it is combating modernism and union. It also gives assurance that should union be voted, a Presbyterian Church opposed to modernism will continue to exist in the south.

We continue today with Dr. Woolley’s series of articles on Presbyterians in America. Do keep in mind that these articles were written in the early 1950s and so much has changed since that time.

Presbyterians in America
by Rev. Paul Woolley

Part II – The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

[first published in The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, 85.11 (Nov. 1951): 87-88.]

               The largest Presbyterian Church in the United States has the title of this article as its official name.  Sometimes it is called the Northern Presbyterian Church but since the early years of this century it has had a great many congregations in the southern states too.

               The Pilgrims who came to Plymouth in 1620, and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay a few years later, were Presbyterian in much of their doctrine.  They accepted the Westminster Confession, when it was written, as a good doctrinal statement.  But their church government was not Presbyterian, for the highest authority, in theory, was the local congregation.  The oldest congregation of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is probably the church at Jamaica, Long Island, organized in 1672.  The minister of this church, however, was not among the men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1706 and organized the first presbytery.  Although the first page of the minute book was lost, we know with reasonable certainty who these men were.  It was this presbytery meeting that constituted the first organization in a fully Presbyterian sense of what is not the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

               Today that church has almost two and a half million communicant members and over nine thousand ministers.  Statistics do not indicate exactly how many of these ministers are pastors, evangelists and stated supplies and how many are engaged in other duties.  The relative proportion of the latter is probably larger than the average of all American Churches together, since Presbyterians have stressed an educated ministry more than most Churches.  Perhaps one-eighth of the ministers are engaged in teaching and administrative duties.  These, of course, are as important in the long run as the pastoral work.

               There are four large corporations of the Church – the Boards of Christian Education, of Foreign Missions, of National Missions, of Pensions.  The annual income of the four in dollars is approximately 1.9 million, 6 million, 5.4 million, 2.2 million, respectively.  There are about 1150 foreign and 2900 national missionaries in active service.  The foreign missionaries work in all five continents and in about 23 different countries.

               In spite of its Presbyterian governmental principles, the actual conduct of affairs in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is largely directed by the General Council and one of its members, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.  The General Council has 24 members, of which number 15 are elected by the General Assembly, 5 are nominated by Boards and the Council on Theological Education and elected by the Assembly, and 4 hold office ex-officio.  The General Council, in 1951 was authorized to elect a full-time Secretary one of whose duties is “to develop proposals….in relation to the over-all program and long-range planning and strategy for the Church.”  This executive officer will apparently take over some of the political influence of the Stated Clerk and between them they should be able to dominate and direct the policy of the Church even more effectively than the General Council and the Stated Clerk has done together in the past.  The Rev. Glenn W. Moore is Secretary of the General Council, and the Rev. Eugene C. Blake is Stated Clerk.

               This concentration of power is the consequence of a long historical process.  The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is the result of a great many compromises.  In the middle of the eighteenth century it was divided into two sections for about fifteen years over questions growing out of the revival movements of the time.  The break was unfortunate.  After its repair, differences of tone and attitude continued to be manifest.  The Church appears to have had difficulty in recognizing that differences which do not run counter to the requirements of its constitution can become a source of strength.

               In the early nineteenth century, however, much more serious differences appeared which did affect the constitution.  They stemmed in part from the close contact between New England and the territory west of the Hudson.  The Westminster Assembly theology which had characterized early Massachusetts and Connecticut had been transformed by the end of the eighteenth century into something quite different, a rationalizing system of logical thought which tried fully to explain and defend the theology of the Bible at the level of fallible human thinking.  In doing so, the effects of sin upon men were severely minimized.  The result was a division of the Church in 1837.  Until the end of the Civil War there were two Churches calling themselves the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  The burst of patriotic fervor in the north at the close of the conflict drove out of men’s minds the importance of truth and in 1869 these two Churches voted to reunite without making any attempt to solve their divergent views of truth.

               From that time on there was a relative lack of interest in truth in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  The important things were good feeling, brotherhood, financial prosperity, numerical growth, moral and emotional tone.  These, with an emphasis on social problems have continued to occupy the thought and energy of the Church.

               Independent journalism has largely died out in the Church and its major organ of opinion is the officially sponsored and ably edited Presbyterian Life. The Church is at a high peak of efficient organization in the interest of the propagation of a mild brand of moral and social goodness without serious discussion of matters of basic principle

Yesterday we ran a post with a genealogical chart of Presbyterian denominations in North America. As it was from the 1950s, it’s dated, but adequate to provide the basic scheme of things. (see the embedded link).
Today we begin with Part 1 in Dr. Paul Woolley’s brief series on Presbyterian denominations in North America.

Presbyterians in America
by Rev. Paul Woolley

Part I. Introduction.

[first published in The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, 85.10 (October 1951): 73.]

Editor’s Note – With this introductory article we begin a series by Rev. Paul Woolley, Registrar and Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.  In addition to his position on the faculty of the Seminary, Professor Woolley is a keen interpreter of contemporary church affairs, an author, and Co-Editor with Rev. Prof. John Murray of the Westminster Theological Journal.  We welcome Prof. Woolley to the pages of the Reformed Presbyterian Advocate and look forward with eager expectation to the articles that are to come.

*   *   *   *   *

               It would be a great comfort to most of the people of God on earth, if there were no denominational divisions.  People would like to belong to one big church.  Sometimes when they do not stop to think, they believe this could easily be brought about.

               It is true that one cause of the existence of denominations is pure unalloyed selfishness.  That is not the chief reason, however.  The chief reason is that God has made men responsible for ordering their lives according to His Word and until men become free from sin, they will not perfectly know how to follow His Word.  Therefore one man believes the Bible to teach a somewhat different truth from another.  Believing God’s Word to be important, he wishes to support a Church which preaches the whole truth.  That is right and proper, and if a separate denomination is necessary to proclaim God’s truth, such a denomination is right and proper.    It should, at the same time, be recognized that not all truths are of equal weight.  Many are not of sufficient weight to offset the ineffectiveness of the testimony of a divided church.  Nor are the personal habits, customs and preferences of individuals as to worship or procedure adequate grounds for maintaining a separate church fellowship.  Such can be justified only when important principle is involved. 

               The name of a denomination may give little clue to the real reason for its existence.  Perhaps it did originally, but the passage of time often works a change in the situation.  It is my intention to say a few brief words, month by month about the denominations in the United States which are connected in their history with the Presbyterian and Reformed family.  It is important to recognize that for practical purposes the word “Presbyterian” and the word “Reformed” should be considered synonymns when they are used to describe denominations.  The former has a British background, the latter comes from the European continent.  There are some Churches which belong to this family which do not have either word in their official names.

               The Presbyterian and Reformed family, then, is made up in the United States of about fifteen different denominations.  A few more could be counted.  The distinctive mark of the family is that they all owe some marked allegiance as regards doctrine or government, or both, to the truths emphasized at the time of the Reformation by two great men who worked in Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin.  But, of course, the truths existed in Scripture before that time.  It was the service of these men to bring them to people’s attention.  They did not invent them, and the history of the Presbyterian and Reformed Church goes right back through the Reformation period and the Middle Ages, as a part of the history of the great church catholic [i.e, “universal”] to the time of Christ.  Nor does it stop there, for the church has been in conscious existence since God’s first revelation of himself to man in the Garden of Eden.  The Roman Catholic Church is, therefore, no older than the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.  All began together at the beginning.  The difference may be expressed by saying that some parts of the church catholic have looked at themselves in the mirror of God’s Word more frequently than others and, not liking what they saw, have proceeded to wash their hands and tidy their hair assiduously so that they might more closely resemble the pattern God has set before us.

This week we will be presenting a series of articles by the Rev. Dr. Paul Woolley [1902-1984], who served as professor of church history at the Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, from the start of that school in 1929 until his retirement in 1977.

This series of articles appeared on the pages of The Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, which was the denominational magazine of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod. Rev. Harry H. Meiners, Jr. was serving as editor of the magazine in the early 1950’s when these articles by Dr. Woolley were published, and as Rev. Meiners was a Westminster graduate, it seems a safe assumption that it was he who arranged their publication. To the best of my knowledge, these articles have not appeared anywhere else.

We start today with a chart, a Presbyterian family tree, which appeared in conjunction with the articles by Dr. Woolley. Some investigative work is ahead, as we try to determine whether this chart was prepared by Dr. Woolley or by someone else. I like the chart in part for the vertical presentation; others that I’ve seen run horizontally, but the vertical arrangement seems less confusing. Also, please note the correction at the base of the chart, making the correction that the Bible Presbyterian Church was formed in 1937, splitting off from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And of course, as this was published in 1951, it now needs to be updated.