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Church
History before the Pentecostal Revival Salvation,
then, is irreducibly historical. Nor, does history end with Jesus' death on
the cross, or with the apostles, or with the "victory" of the early
church over the pagan Roman Empire. Sowders declared that through the ages
since the early church God had a people in the earth not represented by that
religious system that came to dominate the world through the Dark Ages until
the Reformation. He declared that what he was doing was part of that vine of
Israel, which was carried to the New World by the Pilgrims. I saw
the Water of the River of Life one time while I was talking. It ran down from
Christ, on down through the Old Country, and across the waters into the
United States. I saw that stream cross the waters into this country; and,
thank God, when that stream hit this country those people got down on their
knees and began to give thanks and glory to God who had saved them and
brought them here. And it kept flowing. Right here, at 28th and Wilson, that
stream is located. It is still here. If God hadn't of used the Roman Catholic
Church in keeping it alive we would not have been here today. After much
historical investigation, I have discovered that Will Sowders was right. The
church which Jesus planted did, literally, as well as figuratively, flee into
the wilderness and remained outside the corruption of the great Medieval
system. This became the source of the Reformation; but that history will have
to wait for another time. There was a living vine. The Reformation churches
were not part of that vine. Pretty quickly they became part of that system;
but that living vine was the source of the Reformation. The Pilgrims whose conscious purpose was to plant the vine of
Israel in America, were escaping King James and a Protestant church.
It was a church, not a government or commercial colony, which was
transplanted in America. The similarities in that church of the very first
Pilgrims -- with everyone, including women, prophesying (testifying) as they
were led by the Spirit -- and "that little church" to which Brother
Sowders belonged at the beginning of his ministry, and a lot of other little
churches connected through Brother Sowder's
ministry, is amazing. About a hundred years after the planting at Plymouth
Rock, in which period a lot of other churches moved to America, a Great
Awakening of the Spirit took place. This revival became the first means by
which a national unity of the peoples in America took place. There was a
national church before there was a national government. The
churches as well as the nation as a whole prospered, expecting the
restoration of the Kingdom of God in America. Yet, as ancient Israel turned
from God when they began to prosper in the promised land, so did this
country. The turn, at first, was not an explicit rejection of God. The churches
at large remained nominally Christian; and, later, in Brother Sowders times,
even nominally revivalistic; but they did reject
the "movings of the Lord." Church and
community, or church and country, or church and denominational leadership
came to be identified. Those responding to the Spirit of God found themselves
at odds with those who wanted to build the church themselves. If you are
going to understand the ministry of William Sowders -- indeed, even
understand what he was talking about -- you must know something of what was
happening in the Methodist Church in the later years of the Nineteenth
Century. This was the church which Brother Sowders knew as a boy, and his
maternal grandfather was a minister in that church. This is also why Brother
Sowders made so many references to John Wesley. When I
was 13 years old in the Methodist Church, there were a good number of women
and men in the church house with their hands lifted and their eyes shut. They
would walk around with their hands lifted straight up in the air, with eyes
shut, for as much as one hour; for men timed them. Doctors have declared,
after timing them, and seeing them walk for one solid hour, and they would
turn as white as that shirt --- they declared that it had to be supernatural
power, for natural power would never enable a man or woman to hold their
hands up like that for one solid hour. I have seen them fall on the floor. I
have seen them shout, run, leap, dance. John
Wesley's ministry started out in the First Great Awakening. He was not the
source of that movement. Nor was he the most outstanding preacher in that
movement. He was not even the most outstanding preacher from the Holy Club at
Oxford, where he received the sudden warming of his heart -- his experience
with God. The great preacher in those days was Wesley's colleague George
Whitefield, who came to America and really brought the First Great Awakening
to its most notable peak. And there was also Joseph Fletcher. Wesley,
however, organized those responding to the revival, though not as a separate
church. The interesting thing about Wesley is that he never rejected the
Anglican Church, the state church of England. He came from a long tradition
of Tories. The Tories supported the King, the bishops, and the ceremonial
"high church". They were opposed by the Whigs, who supported
Parliament, and generally had "low church" roots. Remaining a good
Anglican, Wesley could not reject infant baptism, or the communion, which was
a ritual within the Anglican Church and something in which everyone could
participate. He could not associate his new heart-warming experience with any
of the sacramental formalities of the church without coming into conflict
with the Anglican Church. He didn't have anything by which to call his
experience. He just talked about it; but later the experience became known as
"sanctification", because the purpose of religious experience was
to change the life of the believer as Wesley's own life had been changed.
Wesley also inherited the Arminian tradition of the
high church rather than the Calvinist position of the low church. This meant
salvation was possible for everyone, and man could use "methods" to
bring about a revival. These new methods included holding revivals, then organizing those who were getting saved into "classes",
like the Pietist were having over on the Continent.
Circuit-rider ministers would regularly visit the local classes. It was an
organization in the making. The
situation in America was different. Here people had an option in religion.
The great masses of the people in the early Eighteenth Century did not belong
to any Church. The Great Awakening was essentially a salvation revival. The
great cry in the First Great Awakening was "What shall I do to be
saved?" The leaders of the revival declared that there were ministers
who weren't saved, and this stirred not a little opposition to the revival.
How could the unsaved really be in the church? This caused some of the most
thorough-going revivalists to re-baptize those who were saved in the revival,
and separate themselves from the Old Church. This was the real beginnings of
the Baptist churches. There were Baptists before this time, but they were a
tiny minority, then called General Baptists, who
actually opposed the Separate Baptists until persecution from the Anglican
Churches in North Carolina and Virginia brought the two Baptist groups
together. The other important revival groups in America were the
Congregationalists and the Presbyterians. Because these churches believed in
infant baptism, the revivalists in these churches focussed
more on participation in the Lord's Supper as the requirement for standing in
the Church. Only those who had actually been through an experience of
condemnation, and had repented and received the effects of "saving"
as opposed to "common" grace, were allowed to participate in
Communion. Too much certainty about one's salvation was not regarded as a
sign of saving grace, but rather as a delusion, and though one was suppose to
live a holy life, everyone was suppose to remember the Reformer's position
that everyone remained a sinner, saved by grace. Wesley challenged this
uncertainty about one's salvation, and the continuing need to sin. Without
the Calvinistic baggage, Wesley was free to explain the new experience in his
own terms. The experience was not for salvation. It was for sanctification.
The purpose of the experience was to eradicate sin from the life of the
individual, and to let someone know for certain that they were saved. This
became the theological basis for reform and perfectionism in Nineteenth
Century America. Americans became concern about all kind of sins both
personal and social. Because almost everyone was a church member in the early
days these things became merged together. At the Revolutionary War there was a
tremendous problem all over the Country with alcoholism. People were getting
drunk at funerals, and at the Lord's supper, just like at Corinth. Everyone
from the Old Country drank beer or wine, but the Great Awakening turned this
into a nation and kingdom of Nazerenes. At first
the individual and the family, then the entire church, and often that meant
the entire community; and, finally, that meant universal temperance. And
there was to be more strict observance of the Sabbath, no dancing, no
gambling, no slave holding, and, in some cases, not even marriage. Some were
concerned about saving the entire nation. Others believed that the perfect
should live in separated communities, such as those of the Shakers. These
ideal communities, especially the Owenites, became
the model for European socialism and the Marxists. Wesley had
a miserable experience on his first trip to America. He received his
heart-warming religious experience after he got back to England, and he never
again came to America. But he did preach against the Americans who were
rebellious to the English King. This alienated the man from the very people
who in America were responding to the revivals. The revivalists were Patriots
almost to a man, and those opposed to the revivals were Tories almost to a
man. After the war, Wesleys' American lieutenants
decided to separate themselves from Wesley and begin their own Methodist
movement. Before the Revolutionary War, the Methodists were the smallest and
least significant church in America, and their ministers were neither well
educated nor socially prominent. At that time ministers were expected to be
learned, and this was true even of many Baptist ministers. These Methodist
circuit riders, however, became the most successful preachers in the back country;
and their system was specifically suited to the moving and expanding West.
They emphasized experience and sanctification, opposing alcohol, tobacco,
slavery, jewelry and cosmetics for women, as well as social dancing. By the
time of the Civil War the Methodist had became the largest church in America,
though the Baptist were not far behind. The Methodist were not the only ones
preaching revival and reform in America, but they were the best organized. In the Guilded Age, after the Civil War, many Americans were
prospering and becoming rich, some had more money than they knew what to do
with, especially after they died. It could be used, perhaps, to buy
salvation. There were many self-made men. Some of them had to belong to the
biggest churches. This money was used to build churches, and those with great
building projects needed church members who could support these things. The
Methodists leaders, who had humble beginnings, were proud to have these
prosperous new members. They didn't want to tighten up the standards so as to
drive these members out of the church, and in the South most of the rich
members were slave owners or tobacco growers. Beautiful church buildings also
needed professional choirs; and, they didn't want a lot of "Amens" and shouting interrupting these professional
performances. To keep the people in line for the worship, they were handed
programs with the "order of service", and to keep them in tune they
were given songbooks and even responsive readings. More and more the Methodist
Church started looking like the Anglican or Episcopal Church from which it
had separated. This was also the beginning of the "princes of the
pulpits", though they were mostly in the Congregationalist and Baptist
churches. These were great and talented preachers who could attract crowds
and build big churches, especially in the big cities. These great preachers
and evangelists, like D.L. Moody, didn't want competition from the audience.
They taught the ushers to quietly remove those who still "had religion"
which might compete with the shining stars on the stage. |
