Skip to main content

The 18th Century New Evangelicals

The new Evangelicals were New Light or Separate Baptists from New England, whose leaders began to sift into North Carolina and Virginia in the 1750s, and who soon began to establish their own churches and create new ones. Baptists had appeared in the South earlier in the century – Charleston had had a Baptist congregation since 1695 – but they were quiet, well-mannered folk who were not active proselytizers.

The New Lights, however, were neither quiet nor well-behaved even by Evangelical Presbyterian standards, for they openly attacked the Anglican clergy, ordained semiliterate men as ministers, stubbornly refused to apply for licenses to preach, and valued emotional outbursts in their meetings as a sign of God’s presence and favor.

Through these actions, the Baptists managed to attack most of the underpinnings of colonial order. They denied the authority of the Crown to direct the moral life of the community through the Church of England, as well as the right of the Crown to legitimate religious leadership.

The Separate Baptists did not insist that education should be a prerequisite for ordination. They were scornful of traditional prerequisites for spiritual leadership and did their best to repudiate all traditional forms. The New Light Baptists taught there were three distinguishing characteristics of the true Christian.

(1) A personal religious experience of overpowering emotions rooted in a specific time and place.  So powerful were the emotions released at Separate Baptists meetings that they were often characterized by seizures, convulsions, and uncontrollable weeping.

(2) The immersion in living water of adults who professed faith in Christ Jesus.

(3) Submission to the authority of the church to scrutinize carefully the personal as well as public life of each Christian.

Within four years of their settling in North Carolina, the Separate Baptists had converted enough people to enable six churches to form an association on New Light principles.

SOURCE: Religion in the Old South by Donald G. Matthews © 1977; The University of Chicago Press; Chicago, IL; pp. 22-24.

Let us know if you like this:
Go to our Facebook page by Clicking Here and – “Like it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why did they lay their coats at Saul's feet?

The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew   sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the   sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are Saul and Paul the Same Person?

There has always been some confusion over whether Saul and Paul is the same person. The confusion begins in the Book of Acts. ● “Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul . . . he brought him to Antioch . . . for a whole year they taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called ‘ Christians ’ in Antioch .” ( Acts 11:25-26 ) ● “ Then Agrippa said to Paul , `You almost persuade me to become a Christian .’” ( Acts 26:28) ● “ Then Saul , who also  is called   Paul . . . ” ( Acts 13:9a ) Based on the three verses above, we would assume they are references to the same person – but is he the Paul we read about in the Epistles? The name “ Saul ” doesn’t appear in the Epistles. In order to answer that question we must examine the stories of the “ conversion experiences ” of Saul in Acts and Paul in Galatians . Pay close attention to the time periods and places mentioned in both accounts. Saul’s experience is found in Acts 9 and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise’s Sermon at Synagogue on Jewish Jesus Causes a Storm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Samuel_Wise#/media/File:Stephen_Samuel_Wise.jpg Rabbi Stephen S. Wise gave this sermon in late December 1925 and it set off a storm of protests in Jewish communities.  Before you read the article, it is important for you to be aware of some of the accomplishments of Rabbi Wise. ● a founder of the New York Federation of Zionist Societies in 1897 ● first vice-president of the   Oregon State Conference of Charities and Correction in 1902 ● appointed Commissioner of Child Labor for the State of Oregon in 1903 ● co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ● founding of American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) in 1918 ● founded the   Jewish Institute of Religion, an educational center in New York City  in 1922 ● founding president of the World Jewish Congress in 1936 (created to fight Nazism) ● co-chair of the American Zionist Emergency Council in WWII ● hel...
Post a Comment
Read more