The 100-Year Pattern:Fourth Pattern Era

If the pattern holds, then another heresy connected with the reigning philosophy of the day should have entered the evangelical world sometime in the 1990s.  And it did.  In 1990s Bob Buford of the Leadership Network got several youth leaders and young pastors together to work out how to reach the young adults in their churches.  What many older Christians didn’t realize was there had been a huge philosophical change, the first time in 400 years which not only shook the western world but also the Catholic and evangelical churches. The liberal Protestant churches were able to slide easily into the new philosophy because they were more open to its tenets. But once again, the pattern of how satan maneuvers into churches held as the concepts of original sin and the substitutionary atonement were downplayed and eventually in some quarters outright denied. This group called themselves the emergent church and lately Progressive Christians.  The leadership includes many who attended those meetings as well as some who joined the "group" later—Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball and so on. Their theologian is Jurgen Moltmann, their Systematic Theology guy, Stanley Grenz, and their literary story writer, Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz). The philosophy of the day is Postmodernism which I have described in previous posts (see Part 1 of my postmodern philosophy series here).  Now we are waiting for God’s response of revival, if the pattern holds.  I hope to see an effective revival that will change the entire country of America and perhaps other western countries, instead of a few churches or a small area. Such a model can be found in learning about the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 which I strongly recommend reading about. I have posted a short 2-part video on this revival at the end of this post.

The Emerging Church movement is seeking to revitalize the faith but may infect an entire generation with a philosophy that kills it….

(from: http://www.christianpost.com/news/emerging-church-movement-threatens-church-foundation-says-pastor-36600).

There are some differences this time around because the philosophy is different than any of the three pattern eras.  In postmodern philosophy, especially deconstructionism, the way one interprets text (i.e. the Bible is a text) isn’t too concerned with what the author meant, but rather how the individual, with influences from groups (or communities as they are called in postmodernism), interprets it. It isn’t as much a generational gap between generations we are seeing today as a huge philosophical gap. We badly need people of all ages who understand postmodernism and have teaching ability to teach these things in our churches. While younger adults pretty well understand both philosophies, the rationalistic modernism we’ve just come out of and the postmodernism we are now getting into, older adults really do not have a clue about postmodern thinking.   This isn’t their fault as no one has helped them to understand it. I am hearing more and more from grandparents, both Christians and non-Christians, that they just cannot seem to connect in talking with their adult grandchildren. I had never heard this being so severe before the last 10-15 years.  So, instead of allowing senior citizens to group together all the time, let’s help them to join the small groups within their churches, especially those that have younger adults.  And instead of studying Paul’s travels for the umpteenth hundredth time, why not take some time to bring in someone who can teach them a little postmodern philosophy so they can fathom the huge change taking place in their churches.

Postscript:

I recommend highly that you learn about the Welsh Revival. This link will take you to a very good video of that revival:

Part 1=http://www.ovguide.com/1904-1905-welsh-revival-9202a8c04000641f800000000058c55f

Part 2=http://www.ovguide.com/1904-1905-welsh-revival-9202a8c04000641f800000000058c55f

 

The 100 Year Pattern: Third Pattern Era

The heresy that came in during this period was liberal Protestantism. The philosophy was still reason but with an emphasis on science and the newly found Darwinian evolution. Actually, the outcome really didn’t differ that much from its predecessors, Deism and Unitarianism. It came out of the philosophy of Kant and more specifically a German theologian-philosopher, Frederick Schleiermacher. He brought Christianity into a more subjective, experiential feeling-oriented religion. We shall see in a later post the similarity to what is happening today. The Bible being questioned in parts, the skepticism toward miracles and the virgin birth as well as original sin, hell and the atonement of Christ for sin were all hallmarks of liberal Protestantism. Later in the early 20th century the social gospel began to figure very prominently. At this point let me say that Christians should not be against the social gospel, but they shouldn’t treat it as the foundation of Christianity, but rather as an outcome.
And what was God’s response to all of this? It was in the 1870s that a Chicagoan, Dwight Moody became a well-known evangelist. He started as a Sunday school teacher because he saw so many poor children in Chicago who had nowhere to go to hear the Christian message. In 1870 he met Ira Sankey who would become the famous singer leading worship in Moody’s revivals.
In the early 20th century another man who came to Christ as an adult was Billy Sunday, a hard-living popular baseball player. He was converted and began to have revival crusades. What both of these men had in common was their later conversions and they spoke the “language” of the common people instead of a very educated speech.
Also in the very late 19th century-early 20th century Pentecostalism arrived. It began in Kansas City, MO and Pasadena, CA, the former wanting the gifts that they read about in the first century in the Bible, and the latter starting as a prayer meeting. It all ended up in Texas and in Los Angeles in a building on Azusa St. This revival soon spread across the country, although in mostly poor and blue collar areas. In the 70s Pentecostalsim began to be introduced to the middle class through people like Jack Hayford and TBN (Christian TV).
During this time there were smaller wars (i.e. the Spanish-American War and WWI) and then the big war following this era, WWII.

For Part 6 of this series, go  here.

The 100 Year Pattern: Second Pattern Era

Our next pattern begins in the 1790s when America is now a country.  Harvard, sadly, had pretty well gone in the direction of the Deists and was taken over by the Unitarians in 1805..  And Yale was deteriorating too.  Princeton was also on the skids as it was difficult to find many true Christians in these institutions.  The sad thing was these were the primary American seminaries training the next generation of pastors.  The philosophy of the day was the Enlightenment which stressed reason over many Biblical occurences like the virgin birth or miracles.  The new heresy on the block streaming into the churches and seminaries was called Unitarianism. The American Unitarian Association, a kind of denomination, was formed in 1825. And by 1833 Unitarianism had surplanted Congregationalism as the major religion in Massachussetts.  Unitarians did not believe in the Trinity as such and were very heavy into what we today call the social gospel. They also moved more into universalism which believes everyone will be saved.

The Second Great Awakening

At the same time, in the 1790s a new presdient came to Yale and revival hit at there in 1802.  The son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards,his name was Timothy Dwight.  He was appalled at the spiritual condition he found there and began to disciple some students and gave sermons on infidelity.  This revival began to spread to other New England states.

Meanwhile in the South, a revival broke out that lasted almost 50 years.  It began at a camp meeting in Cane Ridge, Kentucky and for the first time brought pastors and evangelists together as speakers from different denominations.  There were Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist speakers throughout the long revival.

In Upstate New York a lawyer had accepted Christ and began a series of revivals.  During his ministry he visited New England and also the Ohio Valley where he started Oberlin College.  His name was Charles Finney, but there is much controversy around his “revivals” as he didn’t believe in original sin or the substitutionary atonement of Christ.  Other revivalists arose but many of the “conversions” of Finney and some of the other revivalists were short-lived and questionable.

So again, we see the same pattern.  First, we see an apathy among Christians.  Then the heresy of denying original sin, the substitutionary atonement and the deity of Christ floods into many churches.  Denominational and college leaders either do not try to stop this flood or they are ineffective to do so.  Christian colleges and seminaries become infected.  In the midst of this revivals break out.  Then there is a big war afterwards.  This time it was the Civil War.

For part 5 go  here.

The 100 Year Pattern: First Pattern Era

The first heresy appears in the very late17th century and continues until the middle 1740s, thus following our pattern. In the late 17th century there was much moral laxity among Christians and at the New England seminary, Harvard. As the early 18th century progressed, a heresy called Deism began to filter into the churches and also into Harvard. Deism basically denies miracles, the concept of original sin and therefore the need for a substitutionary atonement. During this period of time revival broke out in New England. The major revival was in Jonathan Edwards’ church, lasting for some time. Meanwhile, in the Middle states, the Presbyterians were up to something to combat the spiritual deadness in their churches too. William Tennant and his son, Gilbert were evangelizing there, beginning revivals. William started a Presbyterian college to train pastors. Today that college is named Princeton University. In 1729 there was a controversy in the Philadelphia presbytery (Philadelphia area Presbyterian churches) about whether to “subscribe” to the Westminster Confession of faith that was formulated in England in the 1640s. Subscription didn’t mean they would receive a magazine, but agreeing with the Westminster Confession. A decade later two pastors from Newcastle County wanted the same thing, to require Presbyterian pastors to subscribe to the Westminster Confession as they were required to do in the churches in Scotland and England. They weren’t required to do this in the colonies, neither in the Presbyterian or Congregational churches (the ones in New England). One of the delegates to that 17th century assembly in England, that wrote that Confession, was George Gillespie. He was one of the six Scottish consultants invited to help the English Anglican Puritans in the meeting. His Grandson, also named George Gillepsie brough this family to America and finally settled in New Castle County, Delaware. He and another man were the ones who went to the Philadelphia presbytery and asked for subscription to be implemented so that pastors who were Deists could not pastor in Presbyterian churches in that presbtery. It took a long time for the Presbyterian and Congregational leaders to say OK to subscription. After this fifty year period there was a big war, the Revolutionary War. So now, we begin to see the pattern:

1. A heresy comes into evangelical churches, colleges, seminaries and organizations.
2. Some pastors and other leaders object
3. The main leaders really don’t seem to want to do much about it
4. There is a revival
5. After the 50-year period and before the next one there is a big war.
6. The pattern usually begins in the 90s and goes into the 40s in the next century. The only exception to this was the late 19th and early 20th century when it began around the 1870s and went to the l920s.


Part 4 is found here.

The 100 Year Pattern:Religious Background of the Colonies

By the 1690s the colonies were fairly established in their religious and civic life, although many colonies still need to get their final charters in the early and middle 1700s. In New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island) the state religion was Congregationalism along side Baptists in Rhode Island. In the middle colonies (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey) was found a dominance of Presbyterianism with some Quakers in Pennsylvania, Dutch Reformed and Judaism (there were many Jews at this time living on Long Island) in New York and Catholicism in Maryland, although in 1649 the Acts of Toleration were passed which guaranteed all residents of Maryland, both Catholics and Protestants freedom of religion. It was first state to pass such an act. In the southern colonies (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) you would find yourself in almost exclusive Anglican (Episcopalian) territory except for Georgia where many denominations coexisted and there were also quite a few Jews. It surprises many of us today to know that with the exception of a very few colonies like Rhode Island, there was no separation of Church and state. Most colonies had a "state" religion (denomination) which the colony government supported through taxation of the citizens of that colony. This money paid for ministers' salaries, church upkeep, etc. It is in this backdrop that our first pattern emerges in the 1690s and continues on into the early part of the 18th century which we will look at in the next post.

Part 3 of this series is found  here.

The 100 year Pattern in American Evangelicalism: Introduction

In my long study of American evangelical history, I am seeing a pattern which I call the Hundred Years Pattern. I have never heard anyone teach this so perhaps I am an original. Kidding aside, I see this pattern as explaining what is happening in the evangelical church today and why it's happening. This also affects the country when it occurs. I want to present this in about 4-5 posts over the next several days. First, here is the overall description of the pattern: Every hundred years we go through the same thing that lasts for about 50 years. Here is the pattern: In the '90s--The apostasy first appears. It looks cool, hip, modern and relevant because it always joins with whatever philosophy is in vogue in the Western world, that is, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. It's fingers begin to creep into evangelical churches and colleges/seminaries (and today, Christian publishing, media and parachurch organizations). In the beginning of the next century-- A big revival in several areas of the country arrives and usually goes into the 40s. Between the 40s and 70s--There is a big war, although there can be smaller wars during the 50 years. Between the 70s and 90s--The church begins to get dry and into politics, worldly affairs, etc. until the next apostasy comes in full force starting in the 90s and continuing the 50 year pattern into the 40s of the next century. In my next post we will see how this has played out in four centuries, beginning in the 1690s. It's interesting to also note that the apostasy comes in through the fourth and fifth generations, although some of the older third generation members can be involved too.

See Part 2  here.

Must Read. Dan's Blog Today

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum has written one of the best posts of the year. Why are we not being successful in evangelism today? Dan has such a great answer to that question. Read his blog post here.