The Church During the Age of Enlightenment (1648 - 1789)

Moore's Corner Church

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The next period is the Church during the Enlightenment. So this is 1648 to 1789, the

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Church during the Enlightenment. Here's what one person said about this. The Enlightenment, also known as the

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Age of Reason, was a time when man began to use his reason to discover the world, casting off superstition and fear of the medieval world, the effort to discover the natural laws which govern the universe led to scientific, political, and social advances.

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Enlightenment thinkers examined the rational basis for all beliefs and, in the process, rejected the authority of church and state.

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We're gonna spend less time on this period since the Reformation era was really the most significant as far as all of the change, but we're gonna cover some important events that happened here in America during the

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Enlightenment period. What's one event that happened? It's called the

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Great Awakening. Right, so important figures of the

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Enlightenment period were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. So they were leaders during this revival, as people call it, known as the

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First Great Awakening. This started around 1730. So, you know, we're kind of getting towards modern times a little bit, right?

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1730, we're getting there. Whitefield and Edwards believed that churches should be organized to be entirely distinct from New England governments.

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You have to remember in Europe, Catholic Church ruled the world, and then the Protestants, you know, they took over, the

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Lutherans controlled Germany, the Anglicans controlled Europe, so there was still a merger, really, church and state were united.

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And here in Massachusetts, church and state were linked together. The Congregationalists were the official

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Church of Massachusetts. So during the First Great Awakening, these preachers were saying, no, church and state should not be joined together like this.

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Another thing they preached, that salvation was only of God, okay?

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So who are the two men? Whitefield and Edwards, right? They preached that salvation was only of God, and that humans did not possess any ability whatsoever towards salvation.

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Reactions? Wow. Okay, it came only as the result of God's saving call.

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So are these men more on the Calvinist side or the Arminian side? I said, you're gonna lean one way or another.

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Guess which side they were leaning towards. Yeah, the First Great Awakening was kind of a movement of Calvinism.

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So in other words, they said, man's righteousness would not save him no matter how many good deeds he has done.

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Of course, a lot of this is true, whether you're a Calvinist or not. Furthermore, the doctrines of predestination and election were regularly preached during this period, which upset many, as well as drew in many.

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So as many people that didn't like it, there was a lot of people, they were saying amen, but they said

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God's decreeing from eternity past, it decided who would be saved and who would not.

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This was an electrifying concept. So people really, and this is really true, something

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I've noticed. You either love that or you hate it. You either love that teaching or you don't.

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So the First Great Awakening advanced Calvinist doctrine in America. The Second Great Awakening advanced what other doctrine?

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Yeah, the Second Great Awakening was more Arminian. So it called on men to move your will and you make a decision.

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And really the Billy Graham style of evangelism, of decisional Christianity was more, it's argued that Billy Graham got it from Billy Sunday and Charles Finney and some of these guys out of the

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Second Great Awakening. So the Second Great Awakening began around 1795 and it was more a movement of Arminianism.

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But as for this concept, Whitfield and Edwards held that churches should be distinct from government.

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What do you think? Should the government and the church be, should the Leveret Select Board choose an official church of the town of Leveret?

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Well, I have no, well, I won't say anything, but do we want the state of Massachusetts to pick an official church?

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It would be Buddhist if they did. Yeah, right. But actually when the

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United States was founded, many of the states had official state churches, but they said there wouldn't be an official church of the federal government.

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So there actually were a lot of states that had official churches. Here's the thing, here's the way it worked.

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Because these churches that were linked together with the state, when a child was born, the child was what?

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Baptized, right? So becoming a citizen and getting your name on the tax rolls was all linked together with the church and baptizing babies.

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So it was all like one list. So guess what? When the Baptists didn't baptize their children, this created a little problem.

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And the government didn't like that and that's what led to the Baptists being persecuted. In fact, here in Massachusetts in the early days,

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Baptist churches were, they were considered illegal. So you can kind of see how this is shaping up.

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The Baptists were persecuted in Europe and now they're being persecuted here in America.

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Okay, any questions on that? I find some of this stuff fascinating, just the way it used to be.

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So there was the First Great Awakening. Other important figures and movements include

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John and Charles Wesley. You know the Wesleys, right? They started, the

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Methodist Church exists because of them. Originally, they were missionaries in the Church of England and they had returned home after an unsuccessful mission in the colony of Georgia.

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They were disillusioned and discouraged with their own faith and they began attending prayer meetings in London, searching for answers.

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And apparently in 1738, both brothers had revival experiences.

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John Wesley described this strange, warm feeling in his heart.

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It sort of sounds similar to like the Mormons get the burning in the bosom. But he claimed that something happened to him and he had a revival experience and he felt it.

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And with this newfound excitement in energy and spiritual matters, the Wesleys began to develop guidelines or methods in seeking spiritual renewal.

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So why are they called the Methodists? Because they were very methodical in how they did ministry.

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So this led to a renewal movement within the Church of England. So the

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Wesleys had a major impact. This revival was brought to America by the colonists.

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And John Wesley sent preachers, including Francis Asbury to the colonies to help strengthen and guide the

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Methodist efforts. So if you remember that revival, supposed revival that happened, what, six months ago at Asbury University, you know, some of these names sound familiar.

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John Wesley was the preacher and theologian. Charles Wesley was known for what? Yeah, he was a great hymn writer.

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And there's several hymns, I think, in our hymnal that were written by Charles Wesley. Yep, and can it be one of my favorite hymns written by Charles Wesley.

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So around this time with the Wesleys in this conversion experience, you know, I felt this warmness in my heart.

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This is the time where there's another shift. So now the conversion experience, instead of just being baptized as a baby and being brought up in the church, and I've always been a

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Christian since I was a baby. I've just always known Christ. Now the emphasis is on a conversion experience.

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Now the emphasis is on experience and emotion. That along with the music became a potent mix and helped lay the groundwork for Pentecostalism.

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Not that there's anything wrong with a conversion experience, but with the music and, you know, looking for experiences, the

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Wesleyan holiness movement, it really did lead to the rise of Pentecostalism.

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So Wesley and his followers so emphasized holiness that they taught the doctrine of full sanctification or sinless perfection.

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This idea became known as the second blessing or as the

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Pentecostals today call it, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So the idea is you could have been saved 10 years ago, but you know, you're a carnal

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Christian, you're not really getting victory in your life. You kind of question whether or not you're really saved. You're kind of just struggling to get, then all of a sudden you can have this like moment where it's just, you get sanctified and some people will claim that from that time,

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I have not sinned since. So there's a lot of people out there that believe that you can reach this exalted level.

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Of course, today they say it's accompanied by speaking in tongues. I don't think the method has said that, but that's what some people believe, full sanctification that you will no longer sin.

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But we'll talk about that more with the rise of the Pentecostals. But it really came out of the

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Wesleyan holiness movement, United Methodists, okay. So from the very start, the

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Methodists were concerned with personal holiness. Again, that's not a bad thing. They emphasized the need for an experience of salvation.

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So this was a new concept to people. Now we're accustomed to hearing preaching from John chapter three, you know,

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Jesus telling Nicodemus, you must be born again. So it's sort of just in our thinking that, yeah, even if you're born in a

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Christian home, you still need to be able to point to some, maybe not a date, but some time where you really laid hold of it yourself.

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So this was kind of a new thing with the Methodist church and this movement, because up until now, remember, the

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Reformed churches and all the people practicing infant baptism, they all just assumed

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I've been a Christian since day one. I was baptized as a baby. What makes you a

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Christian is being baptized. So of course I'm a Christian because I've always been in the church.

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And even today, people can really struggle with this, especially people born in Christian homes.

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How do I really, because I've always sort of considered myself a believer. And, you know, I can understand how people have a hard time sorting that out.

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So things are changing rapidly between these different traditions because they really look at things differently.

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Okay, so the Methodist church came from the Westleys. The Methodist church became an integral part of the second great awakening, which again, 1790 to 1840, which made use of revival meetings and camp meetings to call people to conversion.

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The concept of a circuit riding preacher was developed by the Methodist. So they would just kind of go out on the frontier and just travel throughout the land.

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And if they could get enough people to where they could get a full -time minister, then they would call the minister, but the traveling preacher would stay there until that happened, but they'd just go from place to place.

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So really it was a form of missionary work. So Christianity was spreading West across America.

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Many new sects rose up. Some of them came from the Church of England.

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Some of them came from England, but they're not part of the Church of England. There is one group known as the

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Quakers. They started in Europe and came here. What are the Quakers known for?

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I think today they're called the Society of Friends. That's the Quakers, right? I should know this.

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I've been studying church history, but the Quakers are known for...

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You know the Quaker Oats guy with the long hair and the top hat? They were pacifists, right?

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So William Penn founded the Pennsylvania Colony as a safe haven for the

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Quakers. And because they had different ideas, Lutherans didn't mind going to war. A lot of the

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Protestants had no problem going to war, but these men were like, no, we believe in pacifism, and it just didn't fit in.

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So they were persecuted. When people are different, sometimes they get persecuted. So Pennsylvania was a safe haven for the

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Quakers. Some Quakers, we're almost done, but this is really interesting. Some Quakers held to evangelical doctrine.

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So you might know Quakers, and they don't believe the Bible at all, but there are some Quakers who are evangelical in their faith.

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However, there were other Quakers that were very anti -doctrinal. So instead of following the scriptures, they sought

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Jesus Christ within. Okay, they looked inward, to the inner light, to find

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Christ in me. Not finding Christ in scripture and hearing preaching and being born again and having the

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Holy Spirit. No, Christ is in all people. That's the way they viewed it. This led some of them into universalist doctrine.

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And you know what that means by now. Universalism is the idea that everybody goes to heaven, no matter what you believe.

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During this period in America, that was another church that rose up, the universalist church.

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And I just wanna be clear, groups like the universalists, who believe that everybody is saved no matter what, as well as the

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Unitarians, who denied the Trinity. And the Unitarians said Jesus was just a man, an enlightened man, but he was just a man.

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The universalists and the Unitarians, I am not, technically I'm not including them in church history because they are outside of the bounds of orthodoxy, okay?

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The Unitarians and universalists are not Christians. The Quakers are very different from us, but many of the

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Quakers did sincerely believe in Christ. Unitarians and universalists are outside.

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I would put them in the same group as the Mormons. Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, we dealt with them separately.

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They're not really part of church history. The Mormons, JWs, they're part of the cult.

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But all these different groups were rising up. And again, a lot of them sought

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Jesus Christ from within. So just to wrap up this section, I'll just mention one other group in passing because they have some similarities.

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There were some, and probably still are, some saved Quakers out there. But there was another church that rose up during this time, and they were very similar to the

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Quakers because the Quakers were another derogatory term, right? They fear

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God so much, they quake, you know? Well, there's the Quakers and the?

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Shakers. The Shakers. Or the Shakers were originally known as the

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Shaking Quakers. And they're really just flat -out a cult.

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The Shakers have great furniture, great artwork, really amazing, but they were organized by a woman named

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Anne Lee that demanded church members live, or make a vow of celibacy.

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So it was really hard to recruit people to their group. And there's still a few that exist.

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But again, they didn't look like they were to Christ, they looked within. Jesus Christ is within us.

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That's what they said. So they started to shake and quake, and just all this bizarre sort of religious experience.

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So their worship service was quite a spectacle, if you can imagine.

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So a lot of shouting and, yeah, shaking and quaking. They were given those names for a reason.

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But now there's just this real shift in churches in America where the focus is not on doctrine, and what does the

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Bible say? The emphasis is now on experience. The emphasis is now on emotion.

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And they claim, the Shakers claim, to receive visions and revelations through the spirit.

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But again, remember, they said Jesus Christ is within. Later on, the Pentecostals would claim similar experiences, but instead of shaking or quaking, the

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Pentecostals were given the term holy rollers because instead of shaking, they rolled around on the ground.

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And again, that's not to be mean or to poke fun, that's literally what many of them did.

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So in conclusion, during the Age of Enlightenment, it saw a rise in the phenomenon known as religious ecstasy.

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And it will continue into the next era of church history, the modern church.