This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

ANGLICANISM IN COLONIAL AMERICA 27of the Book of Common Prayer; he rejected the historic episcopate as a necessaryprerequisite for a valid ordained ministry; he questioned the salvation of thosewho had not undergone a conversion experience; he denounced leading prelates,such as the highly respected archbishop John Tillotson; and his Calvinist theologicalviews clashed with the Arminianism then popular in Anglican circles. 39As a result of the open hostility of many of his fellow Anglican clergy, Whitefieldbegan to preach in Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Reformed churchesas well as occasionally outdoors.On the whole, the response of colonial Anglicanism to the Great Awakeningwas negative. The vast majority of clergy rejected conversion-centered, experientialreligion and tended to see the Awakening not as a force for renewal but asan effort to destroy the Church of England. 40 In the late 1750s and early 1760s,however, a few of the younger Anglican clergy recognized the value in Whitefield’semphasis on spiritual rebirth and less formal worship. Among the clergywith such evangelical leanings were William McClenachan of St. Paul’s Church,Philadelphia (1761); Samuel Peters of the Anglican congregation in Hebron, Connecticut;Samuel Magaw of Dover, Delaware; and Robert McLaurine, ArchibaldMcRoberts, Charles Clay, and Devereux Jarratt, who all actively supported theAwakening in Virginia. 41Jarratt was by far the most significant Anglican evangelical of the prerevolutionaryperiod. He played a leading role in the Great Awakening in theSouth, itinerating through almost 30 counties in Virginia and North Carolina, andtraveling as many as six hundred miles in one trip. A forceful preacher who didnot delve into matters of theological or moral complexity, Jarratt implored hiscongregation to seek refuge in Christ, and having done so, to “hold on your way,rejoicing in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Enter more and more intothe Spirit of the gospel, and the depths of holiness.” 42 Since the “Methodist societies”were still part of the Church of England at this time, Jarratt became aclose friend of Wesleyan leader Francis Asbury and cooperated with Methodistitinerants in Virginia in the early 1770s. However, when the Methodists separatedfrom Anglicanism in 1784, Jarratt reacted bitterly and felt betrayed by his erstwhileassociates who placed greater emphasis on spiritual independence than onloyalty to tradition. 43Despite Anglicanism’s appeal to those who valued such qualities as theologicalliberality, social deference, and liturgical decorum, this denominational traditionwas unattractive to the vast majority of American Christians, who regarded itsreputed virtues simply as vices—moral laxity, doctrinal indifference, worldliness,and vain pomp. 44 Ordinary people in Virginia, for instance, started leaving theestablished church in the 1740s. The Baptists in particular, active and gainingstrength from 1765 on, rejected the style and vision of the Anglican planter’sworld. Disaffected, rebelling against cultured society, they created their own communities,in which an austere appearance and formal modes of address wereoutward ways of expressing an internal spiritual change. Such communities, madeup largely of the poor and unlearned, provided a close, supportive fellowship, a