Nathan Feldmeth - Reformed and Evangelical Across Four Centuries: The Presbyterian Story in America

With a masterly command of details crafted into unfolding narratives, Reformed and Evangelical across Four Centuries provides a sweeping overview of the precedents and pressures that have shaped evangelical Presbyterianism. It is comprehensive and meticulous in research. This is not mere denominational history. The authors introduce us to an astonishing array of people, some familiar and others fetched out of obscurity. They depict events and ideas with marvelous texture set upon the broad canvas of their political, social, and intellectual context. Theological controversies are explained with subtlety; social forces, such as immigration and civil rights, are freshly considered; the impact of intellectual movements in fomenting change is clarified. This rigorous work will serve as an indispensable guide to all who wish to understand evangelical Presbyterianism.

W ALTER K IM

PCA pastor and president of the National Association of Evangelicals

Reformed and Evangelical across Four Centuries is a useful introductory survey of Presbyterian history with an eye to the mainline Presbyterian Churchs legacy. The team of scholars represent various Presbyterian traditions who document the unity and diversity of many of the denominational, doctrinal, ethical, and ethnic challenges and developments that Presbyterians have encountered through the centuries. This book will serve as a helpful aid for a first study of the Presbyterian tradition and a ready reference for review and to gain perspective.

P ETER A. L ILLBACK

president of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

A much-needed updated history of the Presbyterian and evangelical movement since the Reformation that reflects twenty-first-century scholarship. However, the unique contribution of the book is that it addresses the key divisions that have occurred since 1971the formation of the PCA, EPC, and ECO. Writing from their denominational perspectives, Rosell (PCUSA), Stewart (PCA), Fortson (EPC), and Feldmeth (ECO) offer a careful and scholarly assessment of the impact of these three ruptures. By incorporating these separate streams into the broader Presbyterian story, they challenge the reader to consider commonalities in addition to the readily acknowledged differences between each of these streams.

J EFFREY J. J EREMIAH

Stated Clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (retired)

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2022 Nathan P. Feldmeth, S. Donald Fortson III, Garth M. Rosell, and Kenneth J. Stewart

All rights reserved

Published 2022

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN 978-0-8028-7340-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Feldmeth, Nathan P., 1945 author. | Fortson, S. Donald (Samuel Donald), 1956 author. | Rosell, Garth, author. | Stewart, Kenneth J., author.

Title: Reformed and Evangelical across four centuries : the Presbyterian story in America / Nathan P. Feldmeth, S. Donald Fortson, III, Garth M. Rosell, and Kenneth J. Stewart.

Description: Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A definitive history of the Presbyterian church in the United States, from its British foundations to its present-day expression in multiple American Presbyterian denominations, with special attention to Presbyterianisms evangelical influencesProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021029599 | ISBN 9780802873408 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Presbyterian ChurchUnited StatesHistory. | United StatesChurch history.

Classification: LCC BX8935 .F45 2022 | DDC 285/.173dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021029599

To the teachers who shaped us

R eformed and Evangelical across Four Centuries has a number of distinctive strengths. First, it offers a detailed and reliable new history of American Presbyterianism. Second, it is unusual among such histories in the thoroughness with which it recounts the British background. Third, it explicitly emphasizes the symbiotic relationship that has frequently existed between American Presbyterianism and American evangelicalism. Finally, the emphasis on such relationships orients the recent history toward the realignments among the more evangelical Presbyterians.

The interactions between American Presbyterianism and the larger evangelical movement in America have been a source of some strengths and also of some challenges for American Presbyterians. Since those interactions are so close to the center of this history, it may be helpful to reflect on some of the major similarities and differences between the two traditions.

One difference that comes out clearly in the early history of Presbyterianism in England and Scotland is that Presbyterianism was originally designed to provide a model for the state churches of Christendom. That goes back to the fact that the mainstream Protestant Reformation, including its Calvinist branch, was not designed to dismantle Christendom but rather to reestablish it on a new, more consistent basis. Early Reformed Christians, like Lutherans and Roman Catholics, typically assumed that princes or magistrates should support one true church and not permit counterfeits that might dishonor God and deceive the populace. In England and Scotland, Presbyterian efforts to establish such state churches were sharply contested. Many Presbyterians accordingly developed outlooks as dissenters even as aspirations to shape a state-supported establishment remained an important part of the heritage. Even after Scotland gained a secure Presbyterian establishment, various Presbyterians seceded from that to found what they saw as purer church institutions.

What became known as evangelicalism emerged as a major force within Protestantism by about the mid-1700s. As among the pietists in Germany or the Methodists in England, it was a collection of loosely related movements marked by efforts to revitalize established churches that had lost spiritual vitality. Rather than depending on church authority and formal privilege, evangelicals shifted the locus of concern toward individuals, emphasizing conversion, deep commitment, and practices of personal piety. Many evangelicals were or became Baptists who explicitly opposed state establishments.

Some Presbyterians in America wholeheartedly embraced the evangelical awakenings. Others did not. In either case, Presbyterians typically remained ambivalent about state establishments. In New England, where Congregationalists often were referred to as Presbyterian, state support survived until after the American Revolution. Throughout the colonies Presbyterians strongly supported the Revolution and aspired to help shape the American national project. Even while not aspiring to be state churches, they still exercised their cultural privilege, especially as leaders in education. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, for instance, most of the nations leading colleges or universities, including state schools, were led by Presbyterians or their New England Congregationalist allies.