Presbyterian Heritage Sunday. The third Sunday in May which
harks back to May 21, 1789 (a rainy Thursday, actually), 11 AM.(1)
It remembers an old man, hair all gray and figure showing too
much enjoyment of good food, clumping slowly into the pulpit.
The sight in his right eye was all but gone, lost in that ill-fortuned voyage to England five years before. He was in the 68th
year of a hard-lived life, and it was obvious.
But John Witherspoon was not to be denied. Thirteen years
earlier and two blocks down the street he had affixed his
signature to a Declaration of Independence which announced the
freedom of his adopted country from the nation of his birth. Now
he was participating in a putting-together rather than a
declaring-apart, and this one last time his friends had chosen
him to preside. Scotch accent repressed as usual in his public
speaking, he called the commissioners to order - 30 or so men
representing just under a dozen Presbyteries. The first General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America was in session. May 21, 1789 - 212 years ago tomorrow.
Witherspoon's one good eye was not that good, but no matter;
he had been committing his sermons to memory for years, and this
was a scripture he had used before. He preached to them from I
Corinthians 3:7 - in the lilting language of the King James
Bible, "So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he
that watereth; but God that giveth the increase."
That was a word needed by those men. This first General
Assembly had been called in response to the continuing growth of
Presbyterian witness on these shores that had begun with some of
the Pilgrims on the Mayflower almost 170 years earlier. Over 100
years before, a young Irishman by the name of Francis Makemie had
answered the call to preach in the colonies. New churches had
been established, then connected with one another in presbyteries
and synods. It would have been easy for the commissioners to fly
off to heights of inordinate pride in the accomplishments of the
American Presbyterians, but Dr. Witherspoon's word about WHO is
responsible for growth brought them back to earth.
The church continued to grow. It pushed west, and by 1822,
the Rev. Amos Chase, a missionary from the Presbytery of Erie,
established a new congregation in the beautiful Allegheny River
town of Warren, PA. They were few in number at the beginning,
just nine faithful souls who had been worshiping together in the
home of Abner Hazeltine. Three years later, on April 20, 1825,
the Rev. Nathan Harned became the first settled pastor here
serving not only the Warren congregation but Sugar Grove,
Lottsville, and Great Brokenstraw as well. Although Mr. Harned
stayed in Warren only one year, the church enjoyed his ministry,
and he was able to establish the first Sunday School.
The membership increased gradually - by 1831 there were 26
on roll. At that time, Cyrus Tanner, who was considered an
eccentric, urged a revival meeting. With his own hands, he made
additional benches for the schoolhouse which folks laughingly
derided as being unnecessary - not that many people would come.
But Cyrus would not be discouraged and continued his efforts.
What would come to be known as "The Great Revival" lasted two
weeks and the large crowds proved that Cyrus Tanner had been
right, even though he had been ridiculed for his idea. Cyrus
had, in his own way, planted and watered, and God DID give the
increase - 42 men and women were added to the membership who
would become faithful workers and leaders in the church.
First Presbyterian struggled through the ensuing years.
Financial constraints made it difficult to pay expenses to
maintain the new church building on Market Street (where the
parking lot of the First Baptist Church is now located) and to
retain full time ministers. It would be after the War Between
the States and the arrival of the Rev. William Rankin in May,
1866 that the congregation would begin to thrive. With vigor and
ability, he served the church for sixteen years during which time
church membership increased from 84 to 418. The growth would
continue through the years - by the time this congregation
celebrated its centennial in 1922, membership numbered 1,178.
One-hundred and seventy-nine years now have passed since the
organization of the First Presbyterian Church in Warren, and 212
years have passed since that first General Assembly in
Philadelphia. Instead of the 400-plus congregations existing in
1789, there are now over 11,000 around the country.
Some incredible ministries have been established. The
celebration of the work of our Hope Tutoring Center today is a
reminder of the strong emphasis presbyterians have always placed
on education. Ever since John Calvin, the father of
Presbyterianism and the one who was called the "Educator of the
Reformation," we have thought of "the life of the mind as the
Service of God." Wherever the Reformed community went, it
established schools alongside their churches - not only to teach
the Bible, but the whole range of arts and sciences as well.
Learning was considered a Christian duty.
In America, the tradition took root in a small, twenty-foot-square building outside of Philadelphia called the "Log College."
It was founded by the Rev. William Tennant, an immigrant from
Ireland in 1718, for the theological training of his four sons
and others who wished to join them. Tennant's college closed
before his death in 1746 but the influence of his effort spread.
Over 50 other schools were soon started including one called the
College of New Jersey with four of the first twelve trustees of
that institution being Log College men. In 1756 that school
moved to the town of Princeton where the citizens had donated 200
acres of woodland and 10 acres of cleared land to encourage the
school to locate there. What would become known as Princeton
University also became known as the "Mother of Colleges."
Presbyterians today continue to hold higher education with
great regard - there are currently 69 colleges and universities
plus 10 theological institutions related to our denomination.
With Calvin, we still understand "the life of the mind as the
service of God."
The bulletin cover reminds us of the unswerving commitment
of presbyterians to social justice. Our church early on was one
of the most vocal critics of inhuman treatment accorded people
because of their color. Indeed, well over 200 years ago black
men were licensed by presbyteries to carry the Gospel. In 1815
George Bourne of the Presbytery of Lexington, VA published a work
called The Book and Slavery Irreconcilable in which he condemned
the institution of slavery on Biblical grounds. In 1818 the
General Assembly issued a strong anti-slavery statement calling
for gradual emancipation and for kind treatment of slaves. The
Assembly asked Presbyterians not to resort to a "plea of necessity" as an excuse for not facing the issue of slavery and
eventually doing away with it.
Ashmun Institute in Oxford, PA was founded in 1854 by John
Miller Dickey, a presbyterian minister, for the training of black
missionaries. After the Civil War it was renamed Lincoln
University. In 1867, two ministers attached to the Synod of
Baltimore began theological instruction for blacks in Charlotte,
NC. The school continues to thrive and is now known as Johnson
C. Smith University. Knoxville College in Knoxville, TN was
established in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North
America. First operated as a normal school, within two years it
became a liberal arts college and the center of the denomination's effort to provide teachers and pastors for the southern
states. The list could go on and on. "Let justice roll down
like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."(2)
Presbyterian Heritage Sunday is indeed a cause for
celebration. But every coin has two sides, and Presbyterian
Heritage Sunday is also a cause for dismay. After all, in recent
time there is no danger of unwarranted pride at our growing
numbers. In fact, there has been a distressing shrinkage. Again
this year, the report to General Assembly next month will reflect
a net loss of members - almost 35,000 last year - the
continuation of a numerical hemorrhage that has seen us lose more
than half of our constituency since 1965 despite the fact that
the American population rose by 80-million during the same
period.(3) Why the losses? Has God stopped giving increases? Or
perhaps have we cut back on planting and watering?
A closer look at the numbers gives the answer. Each year
our General Assembly publishes more statistics than you can shake
a stick at. In the most recent volume,(4) there are annual figures
from 1996, '97, '98, and '99. In each of those years, almost
150,000 people joined Presbyterian congregations either by
profession of faith or letter of transfer from another church.
In each of those years, we lost approximately 80,000 members by
letter of transfer or death. Terrific! That is a net gain of
almost 70,000 per annum - God continues to give increase. But
during that same period, more than 100,000 Presbyterians have
been removed each year from church rolls for lack of
participation. They have not left us for other churches; they
have just left...stopped coming. Someone has calculated that, at
the current rate of decline, somewhere in the middle of this 21st
century, there will be no Presbyterians left at all. We who have
been given the task of planting and watering - ministers and
members alike - have fallen down on the job.
This is no trivial matter. We are in an era of swift and
stunning social change - continuing moral confusion; race riots
in Cincinnati; an ongoing mistrust of institutions that is only
fed by an FBI that cannot manage crucial documents or an
electoral system that does not insure that the winner is the one
who gets the most votes. If the mainline church, the church that
provided the moral compass for this nation during our first 200
years, continues to decline, who will shape our nation's values
as we move into the 21st century? Will we who are the heirs of
John Witherspoon and company who made America great to begin
with? Or are we willing to take our chances with whatever or
whomever comes along? For those of us who CARE about the future,
that is too big a gamble.
How then can that trend be reversed? A column by George
Will some time back may have some applications for us.(5) It was
titled "The SCAQMD, Hair Spray and You." Will's subject was 123
recommendations proposed by the South Coast Air Quality
Management District, which was responsible for reducing smog in
the Los Angeles basin - "13,350 square miles, an area larger than
nine states and home to five percent of the nation's population -
more than the populations of 47 states." Will says the
possibility exists that visibility could be increased from 10 to
60 miles within just a few years if the plan were fully
implemented.
Listen to what he says: "The SCAQMD operates on the provable
premise that when 12-million people live together, anything that
large numbers of them do, from driving cars to painting patio
furniture to firing up barbeques, matters a lot. It matters
because life is a matter of cumulations."
Is it any different with a church? What we as 2.5-million
American Presbyterian individuals do is critical. Life IS a
matter of cumulations! If 2.5-million Presbyterians around the
nation (or just 500-plus at First Church, Warren) make the
commitment to some very basic individual spiritual gardening -
the planting, watering, weeding, pruning - little things that, in
the hurly-burly of modern life, often get neglected, the trend
will be reversed. Personal prayer and Bible study, weekly public
worship without fail, nurturing our youngsters in the faith,
ethical behavior in business, proper management of resources,
caring for those in need. In a congregation like this one,
multiply those things 500 times, and you KNOW there will be an
impact.
The truth is that significant renewal and growth will only
occur in the Presbyterian Church from congregations like ours.
General Assembly, Synods, and Presbyteries have a role, but only
as individuals and congregations commit themselves to the task
will it happen. And it must. The future of our nation and the
world is at stake. If we are spiritually healthy at the core,
careful to tend to our planting and watering, we will be the
church God calls us to be, and everything God wants us to do in
the world will be done.
Planting and watering. Fortunately, we are not alone in
those tasks. The lesson from old John Witherspoon and our
Presbyterian heritage is that God WILL give the increase. God
will indeed!
Amen!
1. Much of the scene-setting background material comes from Vic Jameson, "The First General
Assembly" in Presbyterian Survey, June, 1988, pp. 21-26
2. Amos 5:24 (NRSV)
3. http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/popclockest.txt
4. Minutes of the 211th General Assembly, Part II, Statistics, (Louisville, KY ; Office of the
General Assembly), p. IV-12
5. Robert Bullock, "A Matter of Cumulations", Presbyterian Outlook, April 17, 1989
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