The general movement of evangelicalism as a whole between the awaken-ing of Jonathan Edwards’s Northampton congregation in 1734 and the widely noticed revivals in Ulster and the northern United States at the end of the 1850s was, indeed, from national churches towards gathered churches. Evangelicalism, which began as a series of interconnected renewal move-ments within state–church European Protestant regimes, was being transformed into a series of interconnected denominations defined by the free actions of those who made up those denominations. That movement, how-ever, did not proceed uniformly; nor did it entail foreordained consequences with respect to the place of the laity. As a partial explanation for those com-plexities it is important to sketch the emphases within evangelicalism that helped to redefine the church, even as they also redefined the nature of lay religion. Along the way will be mentioned briefly some of the evangelical adaptations to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Anglo-American culture that assisted those redefinitions. In conclusion, some of the reasons will be revisited for suggesting why the general synergy between evangelicalism and the rise of the laity was always variable, often complex, and even occasionally ironical. It is axiomatic that the personal religion of evangelicalism pushed in the direction of heightened lay involvement. Three of the four characteristic marks of evangelical religion that have been helpfully codified by David Bebbington markedly expanded the role of the laity. First, the evangelical

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-74

Chapter

The general movement of evangelicalism as a whole between the awaken-ing of Jonathan Edwards’s Northampton congregation in 1734 and the widely noticed revivals in Ulster and the northern United States at the end of the 1850s was, indeed, from national churches towards gathered churches. Evangelicalism, which began as a series of interconnected renewal move-ments within state–church European Protestant regimes, was being transformed into a series of interconnected denominations defined by the free actions of those who made up those denominations. That movement, how-ever, did not proceed uniformly; nor did it entail foreordained consequences with respect to the place of the laity. As a partial explanation for those com-plexities it is important to sketch the emphases within evangelicalism that helped to redefine the church, even as they also redefined the nature of lay religion. Along the way will be mentioned briefly some of the evangelical adaptations to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Anglo-American culture that assisted those redefinitions. In conclusion, some of the reasons will be revisited for suggesting why the general synergy between evangelicalism and the rise of the laity was always variable, often complex, and even occasionally ironical. It is axiomatic that the personal religion of evangelicalism pushed in the direction of heightened lay involvement. Three of the four characteristic marks of evangelical religion that have been helpfully codified by David Bebbington markedly expanded the role of the laity. First, the evangelical

Chapter

The general movement of evangelicalism as a whole between the awaken-ing of Jonathan Edwards’s Northampton congregation in 1734 and the widely noticed revivals in Ulster and the northern United States at the end of the 1850s was, indeed, from national churches towards gathered churches. Evangelicalism, which began as a series of interconnected renewal move-ments within state–church European Protestant regimes, was being transformed into a series of interconnected denominations defined by the free actions of those who made up those denominations. That movement, how-ever, did not proceed uniformly; nor did it entail foreordained consequences with respect to the place of the laity. As a partial explanation for those com-plexities it is important to sketch the emphases within evangelicalism that helped to redefine the church, even as they also redefined the nature of lay religion. Along the way will be mentioned briefly some of the evangelical adaptations to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Anglo-American culture that assisted those redefinitions. In conclusion, some of the reasons will be revisited for suggesting why the general synergy between evangelicalism and the rise of the laity was always variable, often complex, and even occasionally ironical. It is axiomatic that the personal religion of evangelicalism pushed in the direction of heightened lay involvement. Three of the four characteristic marks of evangelical religion that have been helpfully codified by David Bebbington markedly expanded the role of the laity. First, the evangelical

ABSTRACT

Still other characteristic aspects of evangelicalism pointed even less ambiguously towards lay engagement and the expansion of lay activity. Evangelicals more or less invented hymnody as a broadly-practised means of simultaneously catechizing, creating fellowship, personalizing the Christian faith and expressing heartfelt religious sentiment.11 Hymnody and its effects have been understudied in the history of evangelicalism, in part because the sheer breadth, diversity and depth of attachment to hymns defies the comprehension of any single scholar. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, in black as well as white evangelical movements, among formalists and antiformalists, hymn-singing was noted as an activity that worked above all to inspire the laity. The momentously important promotion of the new evangelical hymnody by John and Charles Wesley was far from the least of the contributions by these elitist establishmentarians to the laicizing of evangelical faith.