Elesha Coffman on the Turning Points in Amercan Church History

“Turning Points in American Church History: How Pivotal Events Shaped a Nation and a Faith” by Elesha J. Coffman (Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group)

 

This is a fascinating look at how 13 different events changed the course of world and American history, particularly as it affected the church in America. You might be surprised at some of the author’s choices until you read the explanations!

 

1.The Spanish Armada is defeated in 1588. (This kept England a Protestant nation, setting the stage for the later Puritans and Pilgrims.)

 

2.Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts colony in 1635 (this ultimately resulted in “a wall of separation between church and state”, giving American religious expression “a continuous lively vitality”.)

 

3. The King Phillip’s War of 1675-76 (this regional conflict between Indigenous People and American settlers in southern New England could have been an opportunity for humility, but instead it was an archetype for the manner in which White settlers and Native Americans interacted ever since.)

 

4. George Whitfield and the First Great Awakening, 1740 (the first superstar preacher of the American colonies, George Whitfield was a powerful Methodist speaker who traveled across the colonies, exciting revival and “democratizing impulses” that set the spiritual stage for the American Revolution)

 

5. The First African-American Church is founded at Silver Bluff, SC in 1773 (the collaboration between White and Black church leaders; Brother George Liele, their first Black pastor; and how the Revolutionary War affected Black Americans.)

 

6. The election of John Carroll as the first Roman Catholic Bishop in the USA, 1789 (as Catholics found their growing place in a primarily Protestant nation)

 

7. The American Bible Society is founded in 1816 (as a result of the Second Great Awakening, we needed more Bibles, but it also became a battle between the Catholic translation and the Protestant KJV.)

 

8. The Methodist Church splits over slavery, 1844 (and most of the rest of the Protestant churches followed suit over the same serious issue. Its echoes continued in Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow)

 

9. Student Volunteer Movement Is Launched in 1886 (missionaries from college students to international posts)

 

10. the Azusa Street Revival catalyzes Pentecostalism, 1906 (A new, more inclusive racially and gender-wise branch of the Christian faith is born and spreads across the world. )

 

11. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial, 1925 (atheists seek to undermine the church with science, and propaganda wins the day)

 

12. The 16^th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, AL 1963 (galvanized white and black Christians who were on the fence over civil rights. There would be no turning back. )

 

13. With the Election of President Ronald Reagan, Religion moves Right, 1980 (Christians with conservative/orthodox positions became more outspoken, but failures became more injurious to the Body of Christ)