Colonial denomination size

[TimV]

At Bible Study just now, it was said that the biggest denominations during the Revolutionary War were in order of size Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and then Quakers.

It would seem that some, like Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Catholics etc.. would have been larger than Quakers.

Does anyone have any information on this?
Thanks

 

[Christusregnat]

At Bible Study just now, it was said that the biggest denominations during the Revolutionary War were in order of size Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and then Quakers.

It would seem that some, like Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Catholics etc.. would have been larger than Quakers.

Does anyone have any information on this?
Thanks

Tim,

No specific information, but you may want to look up which colonies had which established churches, and what the population of said colonies was. For instance, Virginia was the most populous, and was Anglican. Therefore, this makes sense. Quackers? Hmmm.... probably some banished from Massachusetts into Maryland or Pennsylvania... not sure there would have been much. New York was originally settled by my ancestors, the Dutch, so it is likely that they had more than Quackers, but I'm unsure.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, mate,

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Here is one statistical snapshot for you.

Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-2005, p. 28:

Table 2.1
Number of Congregations per Denomination, 1776

Denomination - Number of Congregations

Congregational - 668
Presbyterian* - 588
Baptist** - 497
Episcopal - 495
Quakers - 310
German Reformed - 159
Lutheran*** - 150
Dutch Reformed - 120
Methodist - 65
Catholic - 56
Moravian - 31
Separatist and Independent - 27
Dunker - 24
Mennonite - 16
Huguenot - 7
Sandemanian - 6
Jewish - 5

Total - 3,228

Source: Paullin (1932)

* Includes all divisions such as New Light, Old Light, Associate Reformed, etc.
** Includes all divisions such as Separate, Six Principle, Seventh Day, Rogerene, etc.
*** Includes all synods.

[AM: Paullin refers to Charles O. Paullin, Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States, 1932. Table is edited for formatting purposes.]

 

[TimV]

Thanks, Andrew. The idea of the man was that Presbyterians were the second biggest denomination, but they suffered more than everyone else, and that's why Presbyterians lost influence immediately after the war.

He said 50 Presbyterian churches were burnt down, and that the reconstruction meant that other denominations could spend more resources spreading West. And since more Presbyterians were military leaders, they lost more of their leadership than others.

Any comments?

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Thanks, Andrew. The idea of the man was that Presbyterians were the second biggest denomination, but they suffered more than everyone else, and that's why Presbyterians lost influence immediately after the war.

He said 50 Presbyterian churches were burnt down, and that the reconstruction meant that other denominations could spend more resources spreading West. And since more Presbyterians were military leaders, they lost more of their leadership than others.

Any comments?

You're welcome. I'm sure it's true that the [Scots-Irish] Presbyterian churches suffered greatly as a result of the war since they were the heart and soul of the resistance to British tyranny (King George referred to the war as a "Presbyterian rebellion"), although I don't know about the number of churches which may have been burned.

I'm also sure that many reasons could be cited for the loss of Presbyterian influence in society. I would point to changes in Presbyterian beliefs and practices as reflected in the revisions to the Confession and Directory for Worship which occurred in 1788, which was part of the spiritual trajectory embracing Enlightenment principles which had begun decades earlier and has continued into the 21st century, as being one factor which I think weakened the distinctive witness of the Presbyterian Church (as the new republic rejected religious standards for public office in the Constitution, the Presbyterian Church in general also embraced increased separation between church and state). Immigration from Europe (particularly from Roman Catholic nations) would also be a factor, along with the resulting demographic changes in society. Gary North cites the shortage of ministers in particular.

Gary North, Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church:

A Shortage of Presbyterian Ministers

Let me remind the reader: the word "shortage" should not be used without considering its necessary analytical corollary: "at the price offered."

After the Revolutionary War, the Presbyterians began to lose their direct influence in American society, although they retained special influence among the educated elite. In the seven years before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the College of New Jersey had sent 75 men into the ministry. Over the next eighteen years, it sent only 39, an average of two men per year. At the same time, the population of the middle and southern states, where Presbyterianism was strongest, rose from 1.75 million in 1783 to 2.75 million in 1790.(30) Two new pastors per year could hardly be expected to keep pace with this population growth, let alone carry the gospel to other regions, especially the Western territories, which were growing even faster. As members moved west or south, older congregations gradually died off.(31) Yet W. W. Sweet began his 1936 collection of Presbyterian Church primary sources with this observation: "No church in America, at the close of the War for Independence, was in a better position for immediate expansion than was the Presbyterian."(32)

What went wrong? From the point of view of Presbyterian tradition, nothing. From the point of view of maintaining the Church's dominant position in the United States, everything. The problem was the Presbyterian tradition of an academically certified ministry. It was restricting the supply of ministers. During the War, there had been a growing demand for Presbyterian ministers. In 1783, the Synod refused to permit the licensing of men who had not received a liberal arts education, which meant the Latin classics. In 1785, the Synod even went so far as to recommend a two-year divinity degree beyond the four-year liberal arts degree. This was postponed for a year and the rejected in 1786.(33) Nevertheless, it indicates what the commitment of the denomination was.

A related problem was that a growing number of graduates of the College of New Jersey ceased to go into the ministry. In the 1770's, nearly half of the college's graduates went into the ministry. It fell to 21 percent during the Revolutionary War and 13 percent in President John Witherspoon's final decade, 1784-94. From 1803 to 1806, it was nine percent.(34) Ashbel Green, who drew up the plan for Princeton Seminary in 1811 and who became the president of the College in 1812, pled before the General Assembly in 1805: "Give us ministers."(35) On the supply side of the economic equation, this shortage was the institutional price of the old Presbyterian tradition of a formally educated, institutionally certified pastorate. This price grew ever-higher over the next century until the Presbyterian seminaries all fell to the humanists and modernists, and Machen was de-frocked. The Northern Presbyterian pastorate was very well educated in 1936; it just wasn't Calvinist.

30. Trinterud, American Tradition, p. 265.
31. Ibid., p. 266.
32. William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier, 1783-1840, vol. II, The Presbyterians (New York: Cooper Square, [1936] 1964), p. 3.
33. Ibid., pp. 8-9.
34. Mark A. Noll, Princeton and the Republic, 1768-1822 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 172.
35. Ibid., p. 170.