History Of The Church
Lesson 12: American Denominationalism

Speaker: John Phillis
Date: December 1^st, 2004, Wednesday Evening Adult Bible Class

We are looking at the history of the church, going all the way back to Pentecost, and following along to see from a historical point of view what happened to the church that Jesus built and was established on the Day of Pentecost—how it went into apostasy. We’ve been through the Reformation, and we are now into the establishing of the colonies in the United States. We’re into the 1600’s to the 1900’s. We saw how that the settlers in the New World were, for the most part, motivated in coming to the New World for religious freedom. They were looking for tolerance in what they wanted to do religiously. And so, much of the activity that surrounded the settling of the colonies had something to do with religion, and we looked at some of that in the last lesson.

What we want to do is sort of set the stage for the way America would look in the early to mid part of the 19^th Century and on into the early part of the 20^th Century. We want to see how religion is going to develop, in a very broad sense, and thus, we will be able to maybe have an appreciation when we begin—probably next week—to look at the movement that we refer to as the Restoration Movement. We will know something of what the religious landscape in America looked like at that time, and, perhaps, have some understanding of part of what the motivation was for those early leaders of the Restoration Movement, men like Barton W. Stone, Alexander Campbell, and so on—what motivated them to do some of the things that they did.

However, we want to briefly have a little bit of a review of the Reformation. I think that that’s necessary because of the time which has elapsed between lessons, but will also bring us up-to-date in our minds about some of these activities which have transpired recently.

You recall that in the early 16^th Century to the mid-17^th Century, there were efforts that were ongoing on the European Continent to reform the Catholic Church. There were a number of individuals involved, and we commented how interesting it was that some of this, not all of it, but some of this was actually taking place simultaneously in different locations on the continent of Europe. These men were not cooperating one with another, but each one was motivated for his own reasons, from his own experiences, from his own misgivings about what was going on in the Catholic Church; they had a desire to reform what was going on, to reform the Catholic Church from within.

We’ve talked about men like Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. We also mentioned a name that won’t be quite as familiar to you, but one Menno Simons [an Anabaptist preacher in the Low Countries], and others. And as a result of their efforts to reform the Catholic Church, there were a number of protestant groups and different doctrines which would emerge, such as Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Anabaptist movement, and others.

Well, then, we looked at the Reformation that took place in the British Isles. Here again, some of this was taking place simultaneously with what was occurring on the European Continent. And we saw that how the actions, the desires, of King Henry VIII resulted in England severing her ties with the Catholic Church, and how that the Church of England was established because of that.

However, basically the Church of England was just the Catholic Church with a new name. And so, there were many in England who had a desire for further reformation. A group called the Puritans emerges, because their desire was to “purify” the Catholic Church. Then, there were some others that we talked about—some who were considered to be even more “radical” than the Puritans. They weren’t interested in just purifying the Catholic Church; they wanted to be separate from the Catholic Church, and so they’re referred to as Separatists, or Independents. The Pilgrims who came here to America in the early part of the 17^th Century were among those Separatists. Others who trace their roots to this Separatist movement include the English Baptists and the Congregationalists. Then, there were some other reformers that we talked about, namely John and Charles Wesley; it would be from their efforts that the Methodist Church was established. There was one named George Fox. His efforts and his followers established the Quakers, or Friends. And then, there also some reforms that were going on in Scotland under the leadership of one named John Knox. Because of his efforts, the Presbyterian Church would come about.

That brings us up-to-date with where we are in terms of the present period of time, looking at the beginning of the 17^th Century and the beginning of the settlement and the development of America.