This Week in Church History – Aug 4
This week we take another peek into the church’s history book and we set our glance on the small town of Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Looking at the history book allows us to discover the circumstances and lessons found on those pages. G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.” Here are a couple of items that happened this past week, years ago.
August 6, 1801 | Cane Ridge
America’s largest and most famous camp meeting revival, known as the Cane Ridge Revival, took place in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. The revival started on the 6th of August and lasted until the 13th. Considered the most important camp meeting of the Second Great Awakening, this meeting launched many smaller camp meetings across the frontier.
The camp meeting was based at the Cane Ridge Meeting House near Paris, Kentucky, about twenty miles beyond Lexington. The meeting drew between 10,000 and 20,000 people, though probably 10,000 were all that could be present at one time during the week.
The meeting was hosted by the Presbyterian church at Cane Ridge and its minister, Barton W. Stone. Stone had invited other local churches to participate in its annual Communion service. Eighteen Presbyterian ministers had agreed to preach, along with several Methodists and Baptists.
The meeting began on a Friday evening with preaching continuing all night long and through Saturday. The Communion service was scheduled for Sunday morning. During the meeting several ministers would be preaching at the same time in different locations throughout the camp, using stumps, wagons, and old crates as makeshift platforms.
Cane Ridge: An Unlikely Place for Revival
Very few people would have predicted a religious revival at Cane Ridge. Since the American Revolution, Christianity had slowly declined. Though the frontier’s population increased, church membership shrank in every denomination. Methodist bishop Francis Asbury reflected that not one in a hundred came West to get religion. The rigid structure of the denominations wasn’t compatible with the adventurous American spirit.
Alcoholism and greedy land-grabbing motivated the vast majority of the settlers. They did not like to be told what to do – even during their worship services – by someone else. They especially didn’t like a religion they didn’t understand.
Preach the Grace of God
The preaching was down-to-earth and emotional. The message was filled with the love and graciousness of God. The weekend passed quietly and reverently, as weekend Communion services usually proceed.
Most camp meetings would end with Communion around noon and people sharing a meal before heading home. But the sun began setting that Sunday evening and people were crying out for the ministers to continue preaching. When was the last time you heard someone ask the preacher to make the sermon go longer?
By sunrise on Monday, several people, including preachers, were sitting on the floor near the pulpit, weeping over their sinful lives and praying for a glimmer of hope. One woman rose and began shouting and singing. Others began to jump and dance. Ministers stood and began to preach and people who had not been present over the weekend drifted in to see what was taking place. The revival lasted the rest of the week.
Few could comprehend, and even fewer could describe what had happened at the meeting. Stone observed, “A particular description of this meeting would fill a large volume, and then the half would not be told.” This much soon became clear: Religion was the talk of Kentucky and the nation.
Asbury University Revival
Perhaps the Cane Ridge story gives you a little more insight into the furor last year when, on February 8th, a routine 50-minute chapel service at Asbury University turned into a 16-day event that captured attention from around the world and drew visitors from far away. Asbury – only about a 20-minute drive from Cane Ridge – was having a revival. The event was sparked by students spontaneously feeling the need to hear God’s word in a way that touched their lives and hearts.
Throughout the pages of history, the hopelessness of the evils of culture and society, the depraved nature of people, and the bleak expectations for the future push people to search vigorously for God’s presence. Deep inside almost everyone burns a desire to live at peace with others and to have hope for a life beyond this one.
In many ways, Cane Ridge was a very human affair – a very American affair. Eventually, the revival split several denominations and gave birth to several more. Church historians cannot help but notice that what happened in Kentucky looked very similar to the events of the Great Awakening of the 1740s and the revivals in Europe. A moment takes place when faith, culture, and passion are all tossed together in a messy, unexpected way. The result allows people to see God in a much clearer way.
Revive us again, O Lord.
August 8, 1471 | Thomas a Kempis
Thomas a Kempis, Dutch theologian and author of the devotional book The Imitation of Christ, dies at the age of 91. In the classic devotional, he wrote, “We must imitate Christ’s life and His ways if we are to be truly enlightened and set free from the darkness of our own hearts. Let it be the most important thing we do, then, to reflect on the life of Jesus.”
