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Chapter Fifteen |
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New Worlds: Britain and
North America |
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| I. | The Industrial Revolution--England becomes a world power in spite of the fact that had just lost its thirteen colonies in North America. It destroyed Napoleon's attempt to make France the dominant power in Europe because of its own emergence as being an Industrial Nation. | ||
| A. | Economic growth--the industrial revolution did not happen overnight. Massive economic growth in England occurred over a thirty year period of 1750-1780 A.D. The great impetus to this growth occurred with the development of the steam engine. | ||
| B. | Changes in society--a balance between farming and manufacturing happened and the people in England became wealthier as a whole. Materialism became available even to the poor. This caused a problem for the church. Even the poor had more money to spend and leisure time to spend it. The Church of England had been concentrated in London, since it was the largest city in England and now with the Industrial Revolution other cities sprang up and the church had to embark on coping with new churches and the legal purchasing of new lands for them. | ||
| II. | English Churches in the Eighteenth Century--the Church of England had to deal with two other complex problems; i.e., they had lost large numbers of church members to both Catholic and Protestant groups; and a whole new group of clergy had emerged in the church that wanted to play down the mysterious and awe-inspiring role of Christianity and make it more practical for people. | ||
| See Handout #201 | |||
| A. | The Latiduinarians--these were clergy in the Church of England that modeled themselves as the learned and talented preacher Latitudiarian, divine John Tillotson (1630-94 A.D.). He was the Archbishop of Canterbury and he proclaimed a "low temperature" religion fully prepared to profit from the government's control over the church. Bishops were in the House of Lords and they courted politicians to increase their wealth. This made church morale low with the bishops and aspiring bishops becoming increasingly wealthy while the common pastor in parishes remained relatively poor. | ||
| B. | The Dissenters--The dissenters became the Presbyterians and Congregationalists who were quite wealthy in the land. The Baptists, and the Quakers had fared as well financially and the religious fervor of the previous century cooled down during this time and the next Protestant religion to emerge was the Unitarianism, a less intense and more relaxed view of God. | ||
| C. | Roman Catholicism in England--Catholics were viewed in England as just another group of dissenters along with the other Protestant religions from The Church of England. For the most part martyrdom for Catholicism was over, yet in 1780 A.D. in the city section of Gordon there were anti- Catholic riots that exploded into a campaign of hatred, random loss of life and property destruction. For the most part Catholics were allowed to practice their dissenting religion if it were done quietly and discreetly. Catholicism was gaining a broader base among professionals at this time and leadership in smaller communities was falling more and more into the hands of Catholics. | ||
| See Handout #202 | |||
| See Handout #203 | |||
| III. | Catholicism in Ireland | ||
| A. | Catholic Resistance--England wanted the Church of England to be firmly planted in Ireland, but missionary efforts by the Gaelic friars held firmly to the loyalty to Rome except for the northern Ireland. The English had too many other pans in the fire to deal effectively with this firm hold on to Catholicism. | ||
| B. |
Ulster Plantations--the cultural divide between the Catholics and Protestants has disfigured Irish life to this day. King James VI encouraged Protestants to settle in Ulster which caused this country to split apart and into full scale rebellion occurred as a result of this settlement. When King James VII of England fled to Ireland because of his Catholic leanings open war broke out for two decades. He was killed in battle of Boyne in 1690 A.D. and Catholics were now regarded as second class citizens in Ireland. The rulers of the country were Protestant and they instituted a series of Penal laws designed to make and keep the Catholics poor. The Anglican Church of Ireland was the only recognized church of the land with the rights of privileges forbidden to Catholics. Both sides committed atrocities in the name of God and religious freedom. However, the bulk of the Irish population remained Catholics despite the Presbyterian influence from Scotland and those descendants from Ulster. |
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| 1. | Two Churches--despite the government of England, the Catholic church through clandestine moves continued to gain wide support among the people and dioceses and parishes flourished, especially those of religious orders. As Rome gradually dropped its support of the Catholic Stuart family line because they were less of a threat to the government, Great Britain found themselves with a large Catholic population in French Canada. This soften England's hard line on the Irish Catholics left behind in Ireland. | ||
| See Handout #204 | |||
| IV. | The Evangelical Renewal | ||
| A. | New Religious Groups--because of the "low temperature" attitude of religion in England a new evangelical spirit rose in the church as a counter reaction. This new evangelical spirit was hungry to save souls and saw existing Protestant and The Church of England as obstacles to this new explosion of the Spirit. Methodism burst forth with an energy that was to overcome the self satisfied church of the state. John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield in the late 1700's preached sermons that electrified congregations in Britain and America alike. | ||
| B. | The Wesley Brothers--both brothers came from a clerical family of The High Church of England. They studied at Oxford University and became members of a religious group called the "Holy Club". Along with Whitefield, the two Wesley brothers were ordained to The Church of England and volunteered to go to America as evangelists. After a dismal failure as a missionary in the Americas they returned to England and met the Moravians, a dissident group of Protestants who experienced "conversion" episodes in their lives. John discovered the amazing feat of how excited and emotional people could be brought about by fervent preaching and the Methodists came into being. | ||
| See Handout #205 | |||
| C. | Methodist Organization--John Wesley soon had thousands of followers and he was a genius in organization. In order to finance his new enterprise he organized traveling preachers and permanent fellowship societies. The traveling preachers would coalesce these groups by coming around as on a circuit and unite all of these groups. This carefully structured and centralized religious organization, along with the highly emotionally charged religious hymns of John Wesley made for an entirely different religious group. For The first time emotionalism played a large part in religious services. | ||
| D. | Anglican Reaction--The general reaction from The clerics of The Church of England was negative and hostile. They viewed Wesley as one more dissident and he began to act like it. He broke from the church and began organizing his own dissident meeting houses and the split became real when he began ordaining his own ministers. | ||
| E. | Methodism in America--Wesley appointed a Dr. Thomas Coke as a "superintendent" of the America. And following the mind set of Wesley, Coke renamed himself as bishop and Wesley was not pleased. American Methodism has always had an episcopal organization although it never claimed apostolic succession. English Methodism expanded at a tremendous rate and consequently began to split up into many different factions; 1st Methodist, 2nd Methodist, Reformed Methodist etc... | ||
| F. | The Countess of Huntingdon's Connection--George Whitefield eventually broke away from the Wesleys because he thought they had gone too far in their emotional approach to religion and found a patroness called the Countess. He remained an Anglican Catholic and believed in the salvation of all firm believers. | ||
| See Handout #206 | |||
| VI. | The Awakenings in America | ||
| A. | Quarrels and Controversy--Whitefield traveled to America and established what has become known as The Revivalist preacher. He converted thousands by his eloquent and oftentimes emotional preaching. These religious experiences were called "awakenings" though Whitefield never encouraged this reaction to his preaching. | ||
| B. Baptist Influence--in the south of North America the Baptists found the tenet of emotional preaching worked to deepen people's spiritual lives. And revivalism reached the south and those Baptists were now called Separate Baptists. This form of preaching was to shape Protestantism in America and become one of the leading forces of the Protestant churches here. | |||
| C. Varieties of American Protestantism--with revivalism came the ever expanding Protestant religions and it became increasingly clear that no one Protestant religion would be dominant in America and no one Protestant religion would have any more or less control over the government than anyone else. This further led to the separation of state and religion. This revivalism and wide spread of differing Protestant religions led to a form of Christianity of the Awakenings that was filled with a sense of expectancy, self confidence and excitement which was to become characteristic of American life in general. The Awakenings contributed powerfully to the ethos (character) of what is now the super power of the world. | |||
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Handouts |
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| 201 | Eighteenth Century English Society. The Anglican Church rules society. | ||
| See Full Text | |||
| 202 | English dissent. A dissenter feels the wrath of the Anglican Church. | ||
| See Full Text | |||
| 203 | Isaac Watts reflects on time. A poem about his watch. | ||
| See Full Text | |||
| 204 | Why the papists aggrieved? An Anglican archbishop tries to justify his stance against Catholics. | ||
| See Full Text | |||
| 205 | John Wesley. His conversion, his preaching, his argument with a bishop of his church. | ||
| See Full Text | |||
| 206 | Whitefield in America. Hell fire and brimstone preacher of the first class. | ||
| See Full Text | |||
