Calvinism in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1789--1873 (Devereux Jarratt, William Meade, Reuel Keith, John Johns, Charles Petit McIlvaine)

An historical examination of the theological legacy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, or the American Episcopal Church, reveals that there was a persistent and significant strain of Calvinism, or Reformed theology, in the nineteenth-century American Episcopal Church. Furthermore, this strand of Calvinism has been overlooked, minimized, or even denied in the standard histories and monographs dealing with the history of the American Episcopal Church, even by more contemporary writers dealing with the low church or evangelical wing of the Episcopal Church.; This Calvinistic stream within nineteenth-century American Episcopalianism was evident within the overall theological underpinnings and self understanding of a significant portion of the evangelical wing of the overall Episcopal church, defining such things as the nature of salvation, the role and place of the sacraments, the relationship between the Episcopal Church and other Protestant denominations, and the nature of the relationship between the Episcopal Church and Roman Catholicism, amongst other issues. Furthermore, this Calvinism is explicitly evident in the writings of several bishops and seminary professors, the focus of this particular study, especially in the discourse of these leaders as they related what they believe to be the true historical identity of the overall Anglican and Episcopal heritage as rooted firmly in the legacy of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation in both Britain and continental Europe.; By necessity, this study also delves deeply into the historical legacy and evolving connotations of the term “Calvinism,” tracing the shaping impact of such movements as Protestant scholasticism and pietistic revivalism upon the Reformed heritage subsequent to the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. Also closely related to these developments is the close connection between the historical and theological self-understanding of American Episcopalians with that of developments within the contemporaneous Church of England across the Atlantic Ocean. The figures of this study, among them Devereux Jarratt, William Meade, Reuel Keith, John Johns, Charles Petit McIlvaine, and others, viewed themselves as being closely tied into the issues, problems, and overall theological conflicts taking place within the Mother Church.; This study begins by briefly providing historical and theological background material related to the leaders examined in detail. The figure themselves span the period from the official founding of the American Episcopal Church immediately after the American Revolution, to the Reformed Episcopal schism of the 1870s. This period marks the apex of influence of theological Calvinism within the American Episcopal Church, which since has waned substantially. This study also relates the close and complex relationship between Calvinistic Episcopalianism and other Protestant groups in nineteenth-century America, particularly New England Congregationalists and Old School Presbyterians. This connection itself is placed within the overall context of the expanding evangelical, revivalist religious majority of nineteenth-century America, with which contemporary Episcopalianism had a complex and ambiguous interaction.