Video Transcript: Denominalization in the American Colonies

This is Roger Williams and Religious Diversity in Rhode Island. So we've kind of reminded ourselves about how important Roger Williams was and how important Rhode Island was, and then the rise of the Quakers. We talked about the rise of the Quakers, George Fox, the rise of the Quakers, and then we got the Quakers over here to America. So they are obviously a very important group, and settling mainly in Rhode Island, although not exclusively. So that's kind of where we left off. We didn't get to the Baptists yet.

Hello, Chris. Oh, we're taping this, so I better just keep going. We didn’t get to the Baptists yet, so let's go to the Baptists and then we'll move on to lecture three. So, Baptist denominations in Rhode Island and then the continued history of the Baptists. In Rhode Island, there were basically two kinds of Baptists: Calvinist Baptists and, after John Calvin, the Armenian Baptists named after Jacob Arminius. On the right-hand side are the dates of John Calvin.

There were two kinds of Baptists in Rhode Island. First, the Calvinist Baptists, and there’s a picture of John Calvin on the right-hand side. But there were some people who didn't agree with the Calvinist Baptists, and they took on the label Armenian Baptists, named after Jacob Arminius. Here's a picture on the left-hand side of Jacob Arminius, and those are the dates of Arminius.

Now, there’s not a lot that separated Arminius from Calvin. Arminius was asked, in a sense, to kind of defend the Calvinist theology, and there were some things he could defend and others that he couldn't. But for our purposes, the one place that seemed to be appealing to a lot of Baptists in terms of theology was in the area of Free Will. So, they looked at Arminius as kind of their proponent of freedom of the will to say yes or no to God, whereas, of course, the Calvinist Baptists were predestinarian folks who believed that some people are predestined to be saved and other people are predestined or elected to be lost.

So, the Armenian Baptists came along, and there was this split in Rhode Island over the Calvinist Baptists and the Armenian Baptists. Now, let’s talk about this kind of theological controversy. You can guess what side Roger Williams is going to take. Remember, we said Roger Williams was a Baptist, but for a very brief time, and he actually helped to build the First Baptist Church in America. You can guess what side he's going to take because Roger Williams is all about freedom, isn't he, in terms of his political life and what he set up in Rhode Island? Absolute religious freedom, that's what he's all about in a political and civil life. Well, you know that he's going to be an Armenian Baptist when he becomes a Baptist because the Baptists emphasize freedom of the will.

So sometimes, there's this coming together of a belief in political freedom, civic freedom, and freedom of the will in terms of religious life as well, and Roger Williams will do that. It’s not surprising that he would join the Armenian Baptists to emphasize this freedom. Now, there is another name for the Armenian Baptists: they took on a name called the six principal Baptists. The six principal Baptists took on Hebrews 6:1 and 2 as their kind of denominational doctrine to explain their denominational doctrines.

There are six principles in Hebrews 6:1 and 2 that I'll mention here. I have actually met people who belong to the Six Principal Baptist Church, because, as we will see, a denomination formed by that name out of the Armenian Baptists. There are a lot of Baptist denominations around today, and you'd be surprised. We’ll show another time some of those Baptist denominations in America, and there are a lot around. Some of you may be Baptists. It would be interesting to know at the end of the course what your Baptist affiliation is.

Here are the six principles as far as they were concerned. These are the six basic principles of Christianity. This really explains Christianity from Hebrews.

Number one: repentance. Principle number one is repentance. Very important, obviously.

Principle number two, of course, is faith.

Principle number three, that you would not be surprised about, is baptism. The third principle is very important.

Principle number four is the laying on of hands, and the laying on of hands signifies the reception of the Holy Spirit from one generation to another generation. So, it is also the laying on of hands that became the way in which ordination was carried out—the congregation laying on of hands to ordain someone to the pastoral ministry.

Number five: the resurrection of the dead.

And number six: eternal judgment. So, as far as they're concerned, looking at this Hebrews passage, those are the six principles of the Christian faith, and they're going to be our principles. So, we're not only going to call ourselves Armenian Baptists, we're going to call ourselves Six Principal Baptists.

Now, let’s move to number G, the continued history of the Baptists. Let’s say a few things about the continued history of the Baptists. The Baptists were a very small group in the 17th century. They didn’t start to pick up steam until the 18th century. So, let me just mention a couple of examples of Baptist formations in the 18th century. The first is a university that they founded in 1764. It was called Brown University. Brown University was founded—not actually in Providence—but in a town called Warren, Rhode Island. I forget, I need to look at the cards to see if some of you are Rhode Islanders here, but it was founded in a town called Warren, Rhode Island. It moved to Providence about 10 years later or so, and it was called Brown University.

Very interesting. It was founded by the Baptists to train Baptist preachers and also founded because it was believed by the founders that the Baptists in Rhode Island had become liberal and weren’t really maintaining their biblical stance and weren’t maintaining, this was a Calvinist movement, basically founding Brown, and weren’t really retaining the good Calvinist doctrines and so forth. So, the founding of Brown University was to kind of bring Baptists of Rhode Island back into where they should be in terms of the Bible and theology.

Now, you fast forward to Brown University today as one of the Ivy League schools. You could ask a lot of people on that campus, "Why were you founded?" I’m sure many of them would have no idea that they were founded by Baptists for Baptists and specifically for Baptist preachers. So, Brown is kind of a good example of that continued history in terms of trying to maintain those emphases that we’ve mentioned.

Another thing we should just mention is that there were some other Baptist denominations founded in this area. I’m going to just mention two. But as I say later in the course, we’ll mention others. One group was called the Particular Baptists. That’s the label that got kind of attached to them. The Particular Baptists believed only in believers' baptism, of course, which meant adult baptism. They felt that some Baptists were kind of slipping in this doctrine, so they reaffirmed the doctrine of adult baptism, believers' baptism, which, of course, is the thing that kind of signifies the Baptist movement in general. But they got the label Particular Baptists.

The second group I just want to mention—and I only mention this group because we come across a similar group a couple hundred years later—is the Seventh-Day Baptists. The Seventh-Day Baptists were founded in 1666 because they believed that Christians were living up to nine commandments but not to the tenth commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." So, they worshipped, and still do, on Friday night and Saturday—the Seventh-Day Baptists.

Now, I mentioned them because in the later 19th century, we come upon Adventist groups. The largest of the Adventist groups, which we’re going to see much later on in this course, is going to be the Seventh-Day Adventists. The Seventh-Day Adventists are going to come along with the same doctrine of "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

So, anyways, a couple of Baptist denominations to watch for as they move along and increase. But those are two names: the Particular Baptists and the Seventh-Day Baptists.

So, Roger Williams and Religious Diversity in Rhode Island. Let me stop there for just a minute. Anything about this lecture? Here, we’re looking basically at Roger Williams, and then we looked at the Quakers, and then quickly looked at the Baptists and saw what’s happening in Rhode Island.

It was originally in a place called Warren, Rhode Island, a small town near Providence. There’s still a church there commemorating the founding of Brown University in that small town, but then it moved to Providence, which was much more the center of life in Rhode Island at that time.

The belief that caused the division between the two groups was this. The first group that was founded in Rhode Island were these Calvinist Baptists. However, some people within that movement didn’t believe in predestination or election, so they moved out, called themselves Armenian Baptists, and then some of them started calling themselves Six Principal Baptists, but still with an Armenian belief in Free Will and so forth.

This all happened in Rhode Island, which was the place of absolute religious freedom. The Puritans didn’t like the Baptists, and I’m sorry to say, they didn’t like the Quakers either, but you couldn’t get your hands on them in Rhode Island because this was a bastion of religious liberty. The Puritans were offended by the Baptists in general, as they were by the Quakers.

Now, let's move on to Lecture Three, which we're supposed to be on this week. This lecture focuses on denominationalism in the American colonies. We’re going to do two things here: we’re going to look at various places and leaders and find out how these denominations got settled into the American Colonial period. By the time we get to the American Colonial period, we will draw some conclusions, looking back geographically.

First, we’ll start with New England. You already know what the denominational makeup of New England was. The denominational makeup is mainly Congregational, because the Puritans and the Pilgrims came together to form Congregationalism, which became the dominant religious tradition in New England. So in every little town, you might see a white steepled Congregational Church. Some of those Congregational churches became Unitarian, but that’s another story for another time. The churches are still there, and they might be Unitarian churches now, but there’s no doubt that in New England, that was the case.

Other groups then took a foothold in New England, including the Quakers and the Baptists. Another group we want to mention that was able to come into New England and stay for a while were the Anglicans. The Anglican Church came into New England, and there are Anglican churches in Rhode Island, but eventually even in Boston. You can pass by a lot of them in Boston, and we’ll talk about some of the more famous ones.

Now, let's mention Rhode Island. Of course, we know that in Rhode Island, because of that religious liberty, it included anybody and everybody who wanted to come. But it was predominantly Quaker, Congregational, and eventually Baptist, and then Anglicans settled into Rhode Island as well. So for New England, it’s predominantly Congregational, but then also Baptist, Quaker, and Anglican.

Now we come to New York. First, the name of New York was originally New Netherlands. New York was founded as a Dutch colony, primarily as a Dutch trading colony. The people who came to this Dutch trading colony from Holland were from a denomination called the Dutch Reformed. They were reformed, mainly Calvinist in their theological orientation. Since they came from Holland, they got the label of Dutch Reformed. The Dutch Reformed folks had a pretty high view of ordination, and when they came here, they didn’t have any ordained ministers. The lay people could do some things like visit the sick and read sermons, but they were limited in terms of what they could do. The Dutch Reformed Church was kind of run by lay people until the first ordained minister came.

The first ordained minister set sail from Amsterdam on January 24th, 1628. He sailed with his wife and family, and the Dutch Reformed Church was now planted in New Netherlands. This brings us to one of the most famous figures not only in American church history but also in political history: Peter Stuyvesant. Peter Stuyvesant was the governor of New Netherlands from 1647 to 1664. He wanted to make the Dutch Reformed Church the church of New Netherlands. If you were going to be a voting member, you had to be Dutch Reformed. He also had the same kind of Puritan dislike for dissenting groups, particularly the Quakers in New Netherlands. He didn’t like them and there was a lot of oppression against this small Quaker colony in the New Netherlands.

In 1664, the English took over New Netherlands and renamed it New York. With the English came a growing tolerance and understanding of religious liberty that had been developing in other colonies. This allowed other groups, particularly Anglicans, to come in. The Quakers also felt comfortable here, and a small contingent of Roman Catholics came over to New York as well. So New York began to become a place of freedom and toleration.

Now let’s move to William Penn and Pennsylvania. William Penn was British, coming from a wealthy landowning family in England. He came from money, wealth, power, and influence, and was part of the Anglican Church. William Penn was an interesting person because he received what was called “convincement” from the Quakers. He was taken by the simplicity of the Quaker message and life, following Christ in a very simple way. Eventually, he became a Quaker in 1666. The Quakers appealed to all classes of people, including the wealthy as well as those in the servant classes and everything in the middle so that quakerism really went across the board. 

What happens is very interesting. In 1681, William Penn got a charter from the King of England. Of course, he would have known the king of England. The charter is a land charter. England is kind of dominating things over here in certain parts of the country, certain parts of this land. The king of England gives William Penn a little bit of land. Today, we call it Pennsylvania. The state of Pennsylvania. That's a pretty good deal if you're going to give somebody land the size of the state of Pennsylvania. Of course, it was named after William Penn—Penn Woods, Pennsylvania. Penn Woods was named after Penn and his family. He then founded a city the very next year, which is going to be called Philadelphia. The city of Brotherly Love. Are there some folks in Philadelphia here? I need to look at the cards. Somewhat near Philadelphia. I like Philadelphia. We’ll actually talk about this in just a minute. So, he gets this land, Penn Woods, and then he founds this city, the City of Brotherly Love. Sounds very Quaker, doesn’t it? The City of Brotherly Love. Let's all love one another. It sounds very Quaker.

What he is going to do as he establishes this, so now we’ll move on to Pennsylvania itself, is to establish this place as a place of religious freedom. Rhode Island has been a model now. He says, “Yes, I want this colony to be a place of religious freedom, religious liberty because I'm a Quaker and I know as a Quaker what it was to be under state oppression, to be harassed. I know the history of Quakers being hanged in the colonies.” So, well, we’re not going to do that in Pennsylvania. Religious toleration was absolutely important for the founding of Pennsylvania.

He opens the doors. The doors are open. Pennsylvania. It’s very interesting. One of the first groups of people to come in were German immigrants because Europe was still hassling with a lot of religious war. A lot of German immigrants started to pour into Pennsylvania, which is very interesting. Of all kinds of stripes, the largest group, of course, were German Lutherans. They are finding a real home in Pennsylvania. This gets me to tell a little personal story here. Anyone from the Philadelphia area? I went to high school and college in Philadelphia. City of Brotherly Love. I know it well. The name of my high school was Germantown High School. I don't know if you’ve ever heard of Germantown High School, but Germantown, a section of Philadelphia, started to be called Germantown because of all the German immigrants who were coming in. I went to Germantown High School. So that's a very interesting personal history here. I can really relate with what is going on here.

Now, what’s important here is that this is really another group. These, and there were a lot of different German denominations coming in. Lutheranism was the largest. One of my favorites was a German denomination called the Dunkers. They were called Dunkers because they baptized. They really believed in baptism, you know, putting your right under. There were a lot of German denominations. What is interesting here, however, is that a new kind of wing of the Reformation is starting to take hold in America, in the colonies. Because so far, what we've seen is the Calvinist influence, Reformation influence, coming into the colonies through the Puritans, certainly through many of the Baptists. We're seeing now a whole different atmosphere, a whole different group, a whole different Reformation thinking group with these German immigrants, especially the Lutherans. So they are not Calvinists, they’re Lutherans, or they're from other German kinds of denominations. So that is really important.

Because there was so much religious freedom, religious liberty, and because Philadelphia had been a really well-established city, there were two groups that really found freedom to establish themselves denominationally, really to sink down their roots denominationally. Let me mention the two groups. First of all, there were Baptists, and there's a very important date for the Baptists in Philadelphia: 1707. What happens in 1707 is the first formation of a Baptist association. They feel they can do this in Philadelphia because it’s such an important city, obviously a growing important city when you think of the Revolution. So it’s such an important city, and also, it’s a city that allows religious freedom.

For Baptists, what is the central place of authority for the Baptist Church? It's obviously not the pope. It's obviously not some archbishop or bishop or cardinal or something like that. What would you say is the place of authority for Baptist theology, for the Baptist Church, in terms of who ordains, who has the power to ordain in the Baptist Church? The congregation is the center of authority. Nobody can tell that congregation what to do, even Baptists. Therefore, the Baptists—well, I was going to say “you Baptists,” but the Baptist in Gordon College was founded as a Baptist institution, so we know this from our own history. The center of authority is the local congregation. So this becomes very autonomous. The local congregation becomes very important and very autonomous here as a center of authority.

However, by 1707, you’ve got these Baptist groups, even different denominations, churches and so forth, and they’re all autonomous. By 1707, the Baptists start to figure out, “Boy, it’d be good if we could form ourselves into an association.” Nobody’s going to tell those Baptists what to do, but those individual Baptist churches started to figure out that it would be helpful to support each other and discuss important things with each other. So the first Baptist Church association in America was formed in Philadelphia in 1707. That is a very important date and a very important event happening there.

The second group that found Philadelphia to be important were a group of people starting to call themselves Presbyterians. Some of you may come from Presbyterian backgrounds. In 1706, the first presbytery was founded in Philadelphia. If you are Presbyterian, you will know that the authority for the Presbyterian Church is not only in the local congregation but it is an association of lay people and pastors who come together to discuss Presbyterian issues. These Presbyterians in 1706 would be very Calvinist people. They would be people rooted in Calvinist theology. So, in 1706, the first presbytery in America is formed in Philadelphia. That is very important.

Here’s a quotation to summarize this: “No other colony presented such a variety of religious bodies as Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania became known for its variety. Pennsylvania became known for having a lot of groups. We got German Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and so forth.So that becomes kind of the hallmark of Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. William Penn and Pennsylvania. 

Let me just mention Lord Baltimore, and then I'll give you your break. So let's go to Lord Baltimore and Maryland. Let's talk about Lord Baltimore before I give you the break. Alright, here he is, George Calvert is his given name, and Lord Baltimore is the name that he takes when he becomes a privileged person there. Long story short about George Calvert, he was also Anglican. George Calvert was Anglican and received his title as an Anglican, but he started to be attracted to another group. He started to be attracted to the Roman Catholics in England, no easy thing because the Roman Catholics were also persecuted. But he started to be attracted to them, and like William Penn becoming a Quaker, Baltimore became Roman Catholic. So he took the Roman Catholic side. Now, he received a charter earlier than William Penn did. He received a charter in 1632, just at the time of his death. He received a charter, and he decided that he wanted to establish a place in the New World for, under the aegis of religious toleration, religious liberty. This leads us to Maryland and the establishment of Maryland.

The first group of people, let me just say this, and I promise I'll give you a break, but the first shipload of people coming over to this colony, they're going to name it after Queen Mary. The first shipload comes in 1634, so after his death. On that ship, there were a lot of Roman Catholics because this colony had been established as a place of religious freedom, a place of religious liberty. Roman Catholics would know that they could go to the New World under that banner. The thing we want to take note of is that while there were a lot of Roman Catholics, they were not the majority. The majority of people on that ship were Anglicans. So, while there were a lot of Roman Catholics coming into this new colony, the Anglicans still were the majority. Maryland is going to be a place where the Catholic Church is welcomed. Roman Catholics are welcomed in Maryland, but it is not going to be controlled by the Roman Catholics. It's going to be controlled by the Anglicans.

Okay, take a quick 5-second Monday kind of break. Anybody need the attendance sheet while you're at it? Let's talk about what happens in this place called Maryland. What happens is that through a man by the name of Thomas Bray, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, is established as what we might call the state church of Maryland. The Church of England is established as, not the Roman Catholic Church, of course, they were there, but they weren't in a majority. The Anglican Church is the church that is the established church by law.

Now, Thomas Bray, what about this guy? Thomas Bray actually, this colony was under the aegis, under the control, as were other colonies, of the bishop of London. So the bishop of London was the person who oversaw Maryland and this portion of the New World. But there's a long distance between London and the New World, and so somebody has to kind of be on site to run this thing, and the person who was chosen for that was Thomas Bray. So he was appointed by the bishop of London as the overseer, the word that was used in those days was the "commissary," or the overseer of the colony of Maryland. Thomas Bray was the person in charge of that.

Now, Thomas Bray is best known for two societies that he founded. Let me mention the two societies, which are still functioning societies today, founded by the Anglican Church, founded by Thomas Bray. The first was a society for the promotion of Christian knowledge (SPCK). So, if you ever see the initials SPCK in a textbook or anything, you'll know what this is: the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. For Thomas Bray, what this was important for was to build libraries in the New World so that people would have, not massive libraries like we think of them today, but have books available. Build libraries in the New World. They could be connected to Anglican churches and so forth, but so that people would understand the Christian faith. This was a kind of educational enterprise, so he founded that. That enterprise forwarded not only Christian knowledge but basically Anglican understanding of the Christian faith.

The second group that he founded was a society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts (SPG), a missionary endeavor. This was to support any missionary work among what we today call Native Americans, among people who are considered heathens who don't belong to any denomination. So, the society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts was important for Thomas Bray, as it helped spread Christianity in the new world. He was instrumental in getting the Anglican Church established as the official church in this place called Maryland.

Now, did that mean that Maryland was intolerant or unreceptive to other people coming in? The answer is no. Other groups felt comfortable coming into Maryland. While you had to be Anglican to vote or to be elected, other groups were still welcome. Even though it was run by the Anglican Church, in a sense, it was still open.

Now, we should mention Virginia. The date for Virginia is 1607, and the town that was founded was called Jamestown. We talked about that in the very first lecture. Virginia was founded in 1607 as Jamestown, Virginia, after King James. But that colony, while it was the beginning, kind of disappears over time. However, by the time you get into the 1620s and 1630s, there were people in Virginia who were basically Anglican. Virginia had a particularly unique problem that didn't seem to be duplicated in any of the other colonies.

Virginia was a massive piece of land, and the Anglicans who were coming over were scattered. Unlike New England, where there were cities and towns that were almost connected to each other, everyone in Virginia was living in a very spread-out manner. The Anglicans, therefore, couldn't establish Anglican churches and couldn't bring priests over to minister to them. Instead, they ran their Anglican communities through what were called lay vestries. Lay people, through these vestries, would assume control of the scattered parishes.

This became a problem. Again, Virginia was under the control of the bishop of London, but there was a huge distance between London and Virginia. A ship trip to get there took 10, 12, or 15 days. So, what developed in Virginia that was unique in the colonial period was that these lay vestries began to like the power they had. They started to control the churches and parishes as lay people, which was not the Anglican way. The Anglican way was hierarchical, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the top, then bishops, then priests, and then lay people.

This caused a lot of issues, so the bishop of London sent over a man who would become very important for American church history. His name was James Blair. James Blair arrived in 1685 at the age of 29, and he remained in Virginia until his death. He was sent to bring control to the Anglican Church in Virginia. He dealt with these lay vestries and brought priests over from England to start working in the parishes. Blair was the person who mapped out what the Anglican Church in Virginia should look like.

One thing James Blair is known for is founding a college in 1693. It was primarily for Anglicans. The college was called William and Mary, founded in 1693, and it wasn't originally founded to train Anglican priests, but by the Anglican Church. The founding of these colleges is important. We mentioned Harvard in 1636, Brown a little later, and now William and Mary in 1693. The first few years of William and Mary were humble, with fewer than 20 students and just one building. Despite its modest beginnings, it eventually grew into a great university.

Now, let's come to the conclusions. I’ll cover two things in these conclusions. First, I want to look at the state of religious life in America by the beginning of the colonial period throughout the colonies. Second, I want to take each denomination and remind us where they were. I won't get through the second part today, so let's focus on the first.

What does religious life in America look like leading up to the colonial period? The first thing we notice is religious diversity throughout the colonies. We’ve seen various religious groups coming in and settling. So, there was a lot of religious diversity, with many different religious bodies and denominations. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is that there was no single dominant denomination in the colonial period. Unlike in Europe, where one denomination would become the state religion, in the colonies, there was no single denomination that was dominant. Massachusetts was Congregational, Virginia was Anglican, but you would never have one denomination that was dominant throughout all the colonies. The colonies avoided the situation that happened in Europe.

The third thing to note is that all the churches we’ve talked about here are transplanted churches. The denominations we’ve discussed came over from Europe into American life. We haven’t yet seen a denomination that originated on American soil. We’re still talking about immigrant churches, transplanted churches. Congregationalism is a perfect example. Though it was formed in America by Puritans and Pilgrims, it still had European roots. This would help shape American religious life, but eventually, new groups would start to form on American soil, which would be an important development.

These troops that are transplanted over, these groups that come over, they don't have the restraints that they had in Europe. So, they find over here a real freedom, a real liberty that they didn't experience in their Church life in Europe, and that becomes very freeing for these kinds of immigrant denominations. We should take note of that.

Another thing we should take note of is that a lot of these established churches found when they got over here, they were okay for the first or second generation; there was strength, there was kind of a sustenance in the first and second generation. But a lot of these denominations that came over started to find themselves in decline. They started to find that they weren't keeping the membership in their churches or in their denominations, and they started to find the people weren't joining their churches. That becomes very problematic for these groups, and the question is how do you deal with that?

Now, there are a lot of reasons for that decline of allegiance to the Anglican Church or allegiance to the Dutch Reformed Church or allegiance to the Congregational Church—lots of reasons for that.

We'll pick this up on Wednesday then, and someone remind me where we left off here. On Wednesday, we'll continue. Have a good day.

This is Dr. Roger Green in his teaching on American Christianity. This is session number four, “Denominationalism in the American Colonies”.