The current generation of evangelical Christians has been to a great extent deceived by a strange quirk of history —"The Great Reversal" described by David Moberg in his book by that name. The last half century or so of evangelical apathy on social issues is assumed to be characteristic of the whole history of evangelicalism. The calls to Christian discipleship, social involvement, and political engagement found in such quarters as the Post-American, The Other Side, and Inside are assumed to be a new emphasis. Advocates of evangelical social concern argue that social involvement must be added to traditional values of piety, evangelism, orthodox theology, and biblical orientation.
This perspective is false to history and obscures a heritage that needs to be recovered. Many "founding fathers" of evangelical traditions prove this generalization to be false. ' In their age they were the radicals protesting against a flaccid, weak, and nominal church whose identification with cultural values had obscured the gospel and blunted its social outreach. In his History of Christian Thought, Paul Tillich suggests that it was pietism that first awakened the social conscience of the modern church. The social impact of the related Wesleyan revival is well known, but we have forgotten how threatening and subversive the activities of Wesley and his disciples first appeared.
These tendencies were intensified in pre-Civil War America during the great period of evangelical social reform. Some scholars have suggested that the impact of abolitionism was largely the result of the revivalism of Charles G. Finney. One of the most important early abolitionists, Theodore Weld, was a convert of Finney and for a while his assistant. Oberlin College, especially in its earlier years under the presidencies of Asa Mahan arid Finney, was equally hated for its revivalism, its theology, its abolitionism, its coeducation, and its many other reforms that threatened both church and society as it was then known. At least one denomination, The Wesleyan Methodists, was founded over a social issue. And it should be noticed that their abolitionism was not mere philanthropy or social service, but a call for a radical restructuring of society.
And in the late 19th century one should notice the Salvation Army, whose modern day image has obscured some radical features of its early days. Catherine Booth, co-founder with her husband William, was a committed feminist described by a contemporary journalist W.T, Stead as a "socialist" more completely in revolt against the status quo than anyone he knew. One gains a new understanding of the Army from the mere mention of the fact that Lee Weiner of the "Chicago 7" entitled, his doctoral dissertation "Revolutionary Cadre Development, Based on China, Vietnam, and the Salvation Army."
But one of the most striking examples of this largely ignored history lies very close to the heart of establishment evangelicalism. Wheaton College, considered by some to be the most distinguished of the evangelical "Christian Colleges," was born in the throes of social reform and abolitionism. This college traces its origins to "Illinois Institute" founded about 1848 by the Wesleyan Methodists who had split half a dozen years earlier from the Methodist Episcopal Church over the latter’s condoning of slavery and outlawing of abolitionist discussion and activity. The founder of Wesleyan Methodism, Orange Scott, left his pastorate for a couple of years to serve as an agent (some would have said "agitator") for the American Anti-Slavery Society. And the tenor of this denomination's early years is indicated in the title of a popular hymnal, Miriam's Timbrel: Sacred Songs, Suited to Revival Occasions; and also for Anti-Slavery, Peace, Temperance and Reform Meetings.
A few years later the Congregationalists joined the Wesleyans in the support of the Illinois Institute, and in 1860 the college was rechartered under Congregationalist control as Wheaton College. But this change was made only after a covenant that Wheaton would continue Wesleyan Reform principles. In the words of an 1859 advertisement for the college: The testimony of God's word against slave-holding, secret societies and their spurious worships, against intemperance, human inventions in church government, war, and whatever else shall clearly appear to contravene the kingdom and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be kept good.
The first president of Wheaton College was Jonathan Blanchard, also pastor of the Wheaton Wesleyan Church and an ardent abolitionist and reformer. Born in Vermont in 1811 and a graduate of Middlebury College, Blanchard studied theology at Andover Theological Seminary. While there he came under the influence of Theodore Weld and became a “violent abolitionist” (to use the words of the Dictionary of American Biography). When the administration of the school tried to stop his abolitionist activities, Blanchard withdrew from Andover and served as an agent (to travel as lecturer and organizer of local chapters) for the American Anti-Slavery Society for a year in Pennsylvania. As was often the case for such agents, Blanchard endured mob violence, threats on his life, and other forms of abuse in this work. He then finished his theological education at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati where he continued his abolitionist activity. Upon graduation he was called to be the pastor of Cincinnati’s Sixth Presbyterian Church, a congregation widely known as the "nigger church" for its abolitionist stance. But in spite of Blanchard's reformist orientation the church added during his seven year pastorate some four hundred members to the original one hundred and twenty.
Long fascinated by Oberlin College, Blanchard had originally wished to teach there, but turned down the offer when it finally came. But he did give there a lecture on the "perfect state of society" in which he expressed his hopes for reform. In this lecture he endorsed Evangelist Finney's position that every-minister is called to be a reformer. Though he did not expect that a perfect society could be achieved, Blanchard insisted that every reformer needed a Utopian vision toward which to work. Blanchard also believed that Christians should cooperate with all sorts of men, including the unregenerate, in achieving reforms and good government.
Blanchard's commitment to reform soon propelled him into major leadership, especially in the Abolitionist movement. He held office in the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. In 4843 he was elected to the American Vice-Presidency of the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Arid in 1845 he was called upon to represent the Cincinnati Abolition Society by arguing against N.L. Rice the affirmative of the proposition that "slaveholding is in itself sinful and the relationship between master and slave a sinful relationship." This debate, in Cincinnati's largest auditorium and lasting several days, was widely publicized and published in a 500-page book that went through several editions. This, work is very important for understanding the abolitionist movement and has been reprinted by several modern publishers as a major resource for "black studies."
After this debate Blanchard carried his reform ideas into education. For twelve years he served as president of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. After controversy forced his resignation, he was offered the presidency of half a dozen other colleges, but after a couple of years accepted the position at Wheaton. As Blanchard himself put it, "I came to Wheaton in 1860, Still seeking 'a perfect state of society' and a college 'for Christ and his Kingdom.''' And it was to Wheaton that he gave over two decades of service and the rest of his life.
Blanchard's position on reform is best understood from the Cincinnati abolitionist debates. He argued for the radical equality of the slaves. As he said, "I rest my opposition to slavery upon the one-bloodism of the New Testament. All men are equal, because they are of one equal blood." From this he argued that slavery was a sin and should be immediately abolished. Blanchard suggested that church discipline be brought to bear upon those who held slaves or supported the institution of slavery. But he did not view the question of slavery as an individual matter of personal purity. He argued that "slave-holding is not a solitary, but a social sin" and advocated attack on all fronts.
We must also .understand the position of his opponent, N.L. Rice. Though Blanchard attempted to brand him as "pro-slavery," Rice insisted that he too was an abolitionist, but that he was committed to gradual abolitionism and "colonization," (sending the slaves back to Africa). He feared that the radical abolitionists were pushing too hard and were "upturning the very foundations of society in order to abolish, slavery." He expressed concern for the "spiritual welfare" of slaves and slave holders. He argued that if southern ministers should become abolitionist," they would be expelled and all would be left without the "preaching of the gospel." From Rice's perspective the minister had to be careful not to move too far ahead of his congregation.
But Blanchard insisted that Rice's position made his "religion...the religion of a privileged class" by endorsing a corrupt status quo, and perpetuating an evil system. Blanchard identified with the op-pressed and wished after his death to be remembered only as "one who having humbly striven in all things to follow his Lord, like Him, also has, been faithful to His poor." (Blanchard's final words in the debate)
The role of the abolitionists in American history is still being discussed. Controversy still rages over whether they were misguided fanatics or clear-sighted reformers. But there can be no question but that Blanchard sided with them. He called the abolitionists "honest, simple-hearted, and clear sighted; but few of them dwellers in high places; who take up the truth and the cross with it, to bear boldly after Christ." Indeed, he went so fa as to identify the early Christians as "a poor despised set of abolitionist who were, everywhere accused of 'uprooting society' to get rid of it evils, and 'turning the whole world upside down' to correct its error and reform its abuses.
The debate between Blanchard and Rice was not between an abolitionist and a proslavery defender of the status quo, but between two alternate strategies for the elimination of slavery. Rice viewed Blanchard as an extremist who was upsetting the gradual process of the amelioration of slavery effected by the preaching of the gospel, while Blanchard viewed Rice as a compromising equivocator unwilling to act on the radical implications of the gospel. To use more modern terminology, it would appear that Jonathan Blanchard, the founding president of Wheaton College, was a radical rather than a liberal.
Donald W. Dayton was director of the Mellander Library at North Park Theological Seminary, a graduate student in theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, and a contributing editor to the Post-American when this article appeared.
For further reading:
Blanchard, Jonathan, and N.L. Rice, A Debate on Slavery (Cincinnati, Moore, 1846). This book has recently been reprinted by number of reprint publishers among them Arno Press of the New York Times, Negro History Press and Negro University Press.
Kilby, Clyde, Minority of One: The Biography of Jonathan Blanchard (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959).
Willard, W. Wyeth, Fire on the Prairie: The Story of Wheaton College (Wheaton: Van Kampe Press, 1950).
For the rest of the series, see below:
Recovering a Heritage, Part I: Wheaton College and Jonathan Blanchard, by Donald W. Dayton. June-July 1974.
Recovering a Heritage, Part II: Evangelical Feminism, by Donald W. Dayton and Lucille Sider Dayton. August-September 1974.
Recovering a Heritage, Part III: The Lane Rebellion and the Founding of Oberlin College, by Donald W. Dayton. October 1974.
Recovering a Heritage, Part IV: The "Christian Radicalism" of Oberlin College, by Donald W. Dayton. November 1974.
Recovering a Heritage, Part V: The Rescue Case, by Donald W. Dayton. December 1974.
Recovering a Heritage, Part VI: Orange Scott and the Wesleyan Methodist, by Donald W. Dayton. January 1975.
Recovering a Heritage, Part VII: The Sermons of Luther Lee, by Donald W. Dayton. February 1975.
Recovering a Heritage, Part VIII: Theodore Weld, evangelical reformer, by Donald W. Dayton. March 1975.
Recovering a Heritage, Part IX: The Tappan Brothers: businessmen and reform, by Donald W. Dayton. April 1975.
Recovering a Heritage, Part X, Anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, by Donald W. Dayton. May 1975.
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