PRESBYTERIANS

American Presbyterians are related to other Calvinistic denominations in the Reformed heritage such as the Puritans, the Congregationalists, the French Huguenots, and the Dutch Reformed Church. These groups protested, hence the term Protestant, some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, beginning in the sixteenth century; this period of Christian Church history became known as the Reformation. Presbyterians had a congregation in Jamestown Colony, Virginia, as early as 1611, predating the 1620 founding of Plymouth Colony by the English Separatists ("Pilgrims") and the 1630 founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the English Puritans. While the Puritans and Congregationalists dominated New England and Virginia largely embraced the Church of England, the Presbyterians prospered primarily in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. Later, Scotch-Irish immigrants took Presbyterianism into the southern colonies.

At the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776, twelve of the fifty-six members who signed the Declaration of Independence were Presbyterians, not counting Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), who was raised in the Presbyterian Church but who later became a deist. In brief, deists believed that the world was created by a deity that no longer concerns itself with the ongoing affairs of its creation. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. Thus Presbyterians have figured prominently in American history since the earliest days of the Republic.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE DENOMINATION

Presbyterians look to John Calvin (1509–1564) as their spiritual founder. The French lawyer followed the lead of Martin Luther (1483–1546) in converting from Roman Catholicism to the Protestant movement. Relocating to Geneva, Calvin shaped a denomination with innovations in worship, theology, and governance. The lineage of Presbyterians extends to Scotland's John Knox (c. 1513–1572), a student of Calvin in Geneva. Although Lutheran teachings existed in Scotland before Knox returned from Geneva, he attacked Roman Catholicism so enthusiastically that the Scottish parliament abolished Roman Catholicism and installed the Presbyterian Church as the state religion in 1560. While the English Protestants dispensed with some of Roman Catholicism's theological precepts, they retained many of the liturgical practices, so the gulf between the independent-minded Presbyterian congregations and the hierarchical English church widened.

Many Presbyterians came to America directly from Scotland and Northern Ireland (the Ulster Scots). Arriving in America from Ireland in 1683, the Reverend Francis Makemie (1658–c. 1707 or 1708), an Ulster Scot, became known as the "Father of American Presbyterians" because of his energetic preaching among the congregations dispersed along the east coast. About 1704–1706 (the date is uncertain) he organized several congregations into a presbytery; following Makemie's death, four presbyteries or representative assemblies reorganized into a synod. A presbyter, from the Greek, is an elder; Presbyterian congregations typically have a session of ruling elders and a diaconate consisting of individuals with the title of deacons (although some churches have experimented with a unicameral board of directors). Ministers are often referred to as teaching elders. These terms reflect the denomination's traditional desire for governance through democratic principles rather than episcopal authority (such as is held by a bishop). The U.S. Congress's two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives, mirror the upper and lower houses of the Presbyterians. When the Presbyterian General Assembly convenes, individual congregations send delegates, and every delegate has an opportunity to participate in the democratic process of selecting leaders.

SOME HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CONNECTIONS

Eight presidents of the United States were Presbyterians: Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan. Six vice presidents were Presbyterians: Aaron Burr, Daniel D. Tompkins, John C. Calhoun, John C. Breckenridge, William A. Wheeler, and Henry A. Wallace.

IMPORTANT DATES FOR AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANS

1517:

Martin Luther breaks with Rome and launches the Protestant Reformation.

1536:

John Calvin arrives in Geneva, Switzerland, where he develops Presbyterian Church government.

1559:

John Knox returns to Scotland from study in Europe.

1560:

The Scottish Parliament banishes Roman Catholicism and establishes Presbyterian as the national religion.

1683:

The Reverend Francis Makemie, an Ulster Scot, arrives in America.

1701:

Connecticut Presbyterians establish Yale College.

1704–1706:

Makemie organizes congregations into a presbytery.

1746:

Presbyterians establish the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

1861:

Southern Presbyterians form the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America at the outbreak of the Civil War.

1983:

The southern and northern branches reunite as the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Presbyterians influenced literary and popular culture, ranging from the merely tangential to the important. Charles Scribner (1821–1871), born in Switzerland, established his publishing firm in New York City in 1846 for the purpose of making available books on Presbyterian theology. Washington Irving (1783–1859), an American author of the first rank, was the son of a Scottish immigrant who inculcated him with solid Presbyterian doctrines. The Romantic novelist and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), known for his legendary bouts with alcoholism, was buried in the yard of Baltimore's Westminster Presbyterian Church. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, sister of Edward Beecher, and wife of Calvin Stowe, all Presbyterian ministers. Prompted by her strong religious upbringing and sense of social justice, she penned Uncle Tom's Cabin, published serially in 1851 and 1852, bringing the degradations of slavery to the fore and swaying public opinion in the years preceding the Civil War.

Presbyterians influenced the education of children in the nineteenth century. In 1836 William Holmes McGuffey (1800–1873), a professor of moral philosophy, produced the first of his famous Readers, encouraging virtuous acts among young people. In 1859 Anna Bartlett Warner (1827–1915) and her sister Susan Warner (1819–1885), Presbyterian authors of popular sentimental works, published the novel Say and Seal (1860), containing the song "Jesus Loves Me," sung by generations of children. Presbyterians in America also have a long history of promoting higher education. Yale College was founded by Connecticut Presbyterians in 1701 (and settled in New Haven in 1716). In 1746 Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University, as an alternative to Yale College. From those early years Presbyterians have continued their commitment and maintain a covenant relationship with more than seventy schools, colleges, and universities.

"DECENTLY AND IN ORDER"

Presbyterians tell jokes on themselves that indicate how the general public often perceives the denomination. One old joke holds that "the Methodists shout, 'Fire, fire,' the Baptists cry, 'Water, water,' but the Presbyterians insist on 'Order, order.'" Another long-standing joke from the pulpit mentions in passing "John the Baptist . . . Jesus the Presbyterian." Self-deprecatingly referring to themselves as "God's frozen chosen," Presbyterians acknowledge their stereotyped image as unemotional, orderly, systematic, and hard-working (the so-called Protestant work ethic). Presbyterian congregations seldom act impulsively on important matters, preferring instead to form a committee, to conduct a survey, to engage in prayerful consideration, or to discuss issues in a deliberative manner in their various governmental bodies, the general assembly, the synod, the presbytery, the session, and the diaconate, and in congregational meetings. A phrase often mentioned in these deliberations is "decently and in order."

In chapter 17 of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (published in book form in 1852), a free black man, George Harris, age twenty-five, is attempting to elude armed white men who would prevent him, his wife, and his child from escaping to Canada. Stowe's authorial voice intrudes on a tense, confrontational scene to offer a reasoned argument reflecting her Presbyterian beliefs.

If it had been only a Hungarian youth, now bravely defending in some mountain fastness the retreat of fugitives from Austria into America, this would have been sublime heroism; but as it was a youth of African descent, defending the retreat of fugitives through America and into Canada, of course we are too well instructed and patriotic to see any heroism in it; and if any of our readers do, they must do it on their own private responsibility. When despairing Hungarian fugitives make their way, against all the search warrants and authorities of their lawful government, to America, press and political cabinet ring with applause and welcome. When despairing African fugitives do the same thing,—it is—what is it?

Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, p. 299.

Mark Twain (1835–1910), who was raised as a Presbyterian, frequently made comic use of the reputation of Presbyterians. In chapter 21 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), one of the girls in Tom's school recites in a declamation contest a dark and dreary Romantic story. Mark Twain says, "This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript and wound up with a sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took the first prize" (p. 173). When he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1907, Twain appeared at one of the ceremonies inappropriately attired in a tuxedo instead of his scarlet academic gown. He said, "I looked as out of place as a Presbyterian in hell" (Paine, p. 1395). Mark Twain was playing on the central—but often misunderstood—doctrine for Presbyterians: predestination.

Double predestination, as it has come to be known, recognizes that God will choose some to be among the elect while others will not be chosen. God calls human beings to be among the elect regardless of their qualifications or achievements. The elect do not earn this distinction through good works but through God's grace or undeserved love. To some this doctrine appears to deny an individual's free will. How can one act morally and ethically if God chooses who will be among the elect who enter heaven? Predestination does not absolve individuals of their responsibility to "do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly" with God (Micah 6:8). Presbyterians view predestination as an acknowledgment of God's authority and his unqualified mastery over the plan for all creation. That human beings cannot know or even understand the plan affirms the mystery of God's limitless sovereignty. When Presbyterians become too smug in thinking that they are among God's elect, they are supposed to remember that Jesus Christ, the revealed embodiment of God, represents mercy, forgiveness, humility, and kindness.

PRESBYTERIANS AND TRANSCENDENTALISTS

Presbyterians often speak of the via media, the middle way. They prefer the happy medium, the reasonable, the golden mean. Presbyterians shun appeals to the emotions from the pulpit; the flamboyant, the ostentatious, and the loud are anathematic to the Presbyterian tradition. Similarly, Presbyterians prefer to act as an informed group, following the collective wisdom of the congregation. Following the desires of one's own heart conflicts with the idea of glorifying God. Presbyterians found themselves positioned between the rationalists of the eighteenth century and the transcendentalists of the first half of the nineteenth century. The rationalists rejected spiritual revelation, basing belief upon the exercise of reason and logical thinking. The transcendentalists believed that knowledge derived from intuition, not objective experience. Drawing upon the best features of both movements, Presbyterians sought the via media.

According to the theologian Erskine Clarke, "Members of Reformed communities, believing their calling and election to be sure, have had a strong tendency not to be preoccupied with introspection, with worrying over the state of their soul—or much less discovering their 'true self'—but rather with action that will be to the glory of God" (p. 16). Although Presbyterians refer to God as a Transcendent Being, they are far afield of the transcendentalists, the philosophical Romanticism that influenced writers in New England in the 1840s. George Ripley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and others met frequently in Boston and Concord to discuss the idea that some force in human nature transcends human experience. An individual's relationship to God could be established directly without the need for the trappings of orthodox religion. While not a denomination—they had no ministers, churches, liturgies, and the like—the transcendentalists sought communion with what Emerson called the "Over-Soul." The movement was a reaction against Puritanism, which was also closely associated with New England. The transcendentalists informally sponsored Brook Farm, a utopian community in Massachusetts from 1841 until 1846. There they could discuss their epistemology. Presbyterianism, rationalism, and transcendentalism were not opposing movements, but they were different in their approach to religious philosophy. Reformed churches in general held that God is reasonable, therefore Nature must be orderly. Rationalists thought that Nature is orderly, therefore God must be reasonable. Emerson's Nature (1836) abstractly discusses the "advantages which our senses owe to Nature" (p. 1076). Emersonian views would not be compatible with Presbyterian reliance on critical and analytic thinking, logic, and deliberation as a means to acquire truth. But the transcendentalists believed that systematic thinking was not as important as instinct, imagination, and feelings; for them, the inner spiritual life of the individual and the full, free development of each individual's human personality were paramount.

Seeking the via media, Presbyterianism tries to balance critical and analytic thinking with creativity and intuition. Logical thinking and artistic endeavors can be complementary, not mutually exclusive. Presbyterians believe that a person can remain a self-realized individual while functioning as a contributing member of the congregation. Because Presbyterian doctrine asks its members not to be concerned with personal moods and feelings, they are expected to direct their thoughts to doing good deeds that serve the community and, ultimately, God.

See alsoCalvinism; Catholics; Protestantism; Religion; Transcendentalism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Works

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. 1836. In The NortonAnthology of American Literature, 5th ed., vol. 1, edited by Nina Baym et al. New York: Norton, 1998.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. 1852. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1876.

Secondary Works

Clarke, Erskine. Our Southern Zion: A History of Calvinism in the South Carolina Low Country, 1690–1990. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996.

Lingle, Walter L., and John W. Kuykendall. Presbyterians:Their History and Beliefs. 4th rev. ed. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1978.

Loetscher, Lefferts A. A Brief History of the Presbyterians. 4th ed., with a new chapter by George Laird Hunt. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983.

Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912.

Smylie, James H. A Brief History of the Presbyterians. Louisville, Ky.: Geneva Press, 1996.

Spence, Hartzell. The Story of America's Religions. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.

Philip W. Leon