History of Christianity in America

Note: Some of the following articles require the PCSBGreek font to display Greek characters correctly. The font and instructions to install it are available here.

Readings for the History of Christianity in America

First Great Awakening and After

On Church & State Relations

The Bible in America

New England Theology and Finney

Unitarianism / Transcendentalism

Millenarianism

The Debate Over Slavery

Higher Christian Life / Holiness Movement

Keswick (Britain) and the Victorious Life Testimony (American Keswick)

Dwight Lyman Moody

Holiness Tradition vs. Moody-Scofield Connection

Pentecostalism

Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

Moody-Scofield Evangelicalism vs. Princeton Calvinism

Christianity and Women

Neo-Evangelicalism

Archives And Research Collections

Historical Links Pages

Other Links Compiled by Dr. Huggins

Readings for the History of Christianity in America

The Cambridge Platform (1648)
http://www.athens.net/~wells/neway/cpint.htm

John Cotton, The True Constitution of the particular visible Church
http://www.athens.net/~wells/neway/cotton1.htm

John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity (1)
John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity (2)

Michael Wigglesworth, “God’s Controversy With New England”
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/nwcourses/history155/religion/god.html
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/33-wig.html (abbreviated form)

Anne Bradsteet, “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House, July 18th, 1666

Perry Miller, “Preparation for Salvation” in Seventeenth-Century New England,” Natures Nation (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ., 1967) 50-77

The Seekers Notes on the Seekers (a religious sect who believed that authentic Christianity could not exist apart from an institution in which valid ecclesiastical ordinances were in operation) by Ron Huggins

First Great Awakening and After

Gilbert Tennent, Danger of an Unconverted Ministry (1740) (1)
Gilbert Tennent, Danger of an Unconverted Ministry (1740) (1)
(Key document in divide between old and new lighters)

Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative” (1)
Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative” (2)

Jonathan Edwards, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God

John Fletcher's Section on the Three Dispensations from his Portrait of St. Paul

Works by and about John Fletcher

George Whitefield's "Short Account" (1740)

The Story of Wesley’s Conversion as described in his Journal

Works by and about John Wesley

John Wesley's Sermon "The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption"

Major Sources on Wesley and Wesleyanism (1)
Major Sources on Wesley and Wesleyanism (2)

Charles Chauncy Against Revival

John Bunyan, From "Pilgrim's Progress; In the Similitude of a Dream."

On Church & State Relations

Declaration of Independence (Rough Draft)

Declaration of Independence (scans of Rough Draft)
Draft 1
Draft 2
Draft 3
Draft 4
Transcription

Declaration of Independence (scans of earliest draft)
Fragment 1
Fragment 2
Transcription

Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom – Draft (1779)

Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786) (1)
Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786) (2)
Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786) (3)

Thomas Jefferson, The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom – Draft (1779)

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) (1)
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) (2)
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) (3)
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) (4)
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) (5)

Isaac Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty” (1773) (1)
Isaac Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty” (1773) (2)

John Wesley, “A Calm Address to Our American Colonies” (1775) (1)
John Wesley, “A Calm Address to Our American Colonies” (1775) (2)

Anonymous, “Constitutional Answer to Wesley’s Calm Address” (1775)

Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenent of Persecution (1644)

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)

House Debate over the First Amendment (15 Aug 1789)

Millenarianism

Hiram Edson’s account of the Great Dissapointment» in The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century (ed. by Ronald L. Numbers and Jonathan M. Butler (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987) 213-17.

The Debate Over Slavery

Albert Barnes, The Case of Onesimus, the Servant of Philemon (1855)

Robert L. Dabney (1820-98), The Onesimus Incident, (1867).

Robert L. Dabney, The Golden Rule Compatible with Slavery, (1867)

Princeton's Charles Hodge Defends the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

Frederick Augustus Ross Defends Slavery in a Letter to Albert Barnes

Charles Finney On The Fugitive Slave Act Of 1850

Higher Christian Life / Holiness Movement

Phoebe Palmer, “Sanctification Retained: How Entire Sanctification is to be Retained,” in Entire Devotion to God (pp. 76-78)

Phoebe Palmer, The Way of Holiness
(Phoebe Worrall Palmer is famous for her Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Christian Holiness and for her Altar Theology. This is her autobiography)

Phoebe Palmer, Entire Devotion to God

William Edwin Boardman, The Higher-Christian Life (1859)
(This is the book that launched the Higher-Life Movement)

B. M. Adams, Reasons for Professing Holiness, Guide to Holiness N.S. 19.3 (Sept 1873) 82.

Keswick (Britain) and the Victorious Life Testimony (American Keswick)

Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (1)
Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (2)
Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (3)
(This is an important work in the Higher Christian Life, which had a part in inspiring the Keswick Movement)

Evan Henry Hopkins, The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life
(Hopkins was the closest thing there is to a theologian of Keswick, and this is his most important book)

Charles G. Trumbull, “What is Your Kind of Christianity?” in Victory in Christ: Messages on the Victorious Life, 7-16.

J. I. Packer Critiques the Keswick Movement

Evan Henry Hopkins (1837-1918), The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life (1884)

Dwight Lyman Moody

I suggest we read Torrey on Moody
R. A. Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody (1923) (1)
R. A. Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody (1923) (2)
R. A. Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody (1923) (3)
R. A. Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody (1923) (4)

Dwight Lyman Moody, Heaven (1908)

Biographies

J. Wilber Chapman, The Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody (1900)

William Haven Daniels, D. L. Moody and His Work (1876)

Holiness Tradition vs. Moody-Scofield Connection

H. A. Ironside, Holiness: the False and the True (Neptune, N.J.: Loizeaux, 1912) 7-40.
(George Marsden calls this book “the most famous attack on the separatist Holiness movements”

Aaron Merritt Hills, Pentacost Rejected (1902)

George Cutting, Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment (1)
George Cutting, Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment (2)
George Cutting, Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment (3)
George Cutting, Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment (4)
(This tract, by an obscure Plymouth Brethren writer, is one of the most frequently reprinted tracts n history, it also contributed significantly to H. A. Ironside’s defection from the Holiness Movement)

Evangelist Dwight L. Moody Weighs In On The Doctrine Of Sinless Perfection (1897)

Pentecostalism

I suggest we read the two Synon pieces the first couple of issues of Apostolic Faith, the LA Times Report and the Holiness response of Phineas Bresee.

Vinson Synon, “The Origins of the Pentecostal Movement” (1)
Vinson Synon, “The Origins of the Pentecostal Movement” (2)
Vinson Synon, “The Origins of the Pentecostal Movement” (3)
(Synon is a contemporary scholar of pentecostalism who defends the movement from the inside)

Confession of Faith of the Azusa Street Mission (Sept 1906)
Apostolic Faith (Newspaper of the Azusa Street Mission)

Apostolic Faith 1.1 (Sept 1906) (Scanned 1st page)
Apostolic Faith 1:1 (Sept 1906)
Apostolic Faith 1:2 (Oct 1906)
Apostolic Faith 1:3 (Nov 1906)
Apostolic Faith 1:4 (Dec 1906)
Apostolic Faith 1:5 (Jan 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:5 (Jan 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:6 (Feb-March 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:7 (April 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:8 (May 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:9 (June to Sept 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:10 (Sept 1907)
Apostolic Faith 1:11 (Oct to Jan 1908)
Apostolic Faith 1:12 (Jan 1908)
Apostolic Faith 1:13 (May 1908)