The Protest of Religious Feeling Against Church Fragmentation (Revivals). – Consciousness of the Insufficiency of Protestant Principles and the Search for Firmer Foundations of Church-Religious Life. – The Striving for Church Unification and the Renewal of This Movement at the Present Time. – The Maturation of the Catholic Element in the Theology and Practice of the Episcopal Church. – The ‘Congress of Churches’ and Its Significance. – Conclusion

Protestantism, as a confessional principle introducing the personal determining element into religious-moral life, naturally must promote the quickening of religious-moral self-consciousness more than any other confessional system. Taking from the individual every support point in the church’s authority and leaving him solely to answer for himself the question: ‘what is my faith?’ and to compose his own personal creed, it obviously constantly maintains the reason and conscience of each individual in a state of excitation, which is all the stronger since it concerns the greatest questions that can occupy human thought. As a result we must acknowledge as certain the fact that in Protestant countries religious-moral self-consciousness always necessarily stands higher than in countries with strong church authority. But this advantage is not unconditional. It would be a greatest blessing if Protestantism, introducing this stimulating element of personal self-determination into religious-moral life, had not lost sight of the other side of the matter—namely that man, as an individual, is a limited being, that completely depriving him of a support point in the church’s authority means casting him onto a frail boat without oars, rudder, and sail onto a boundless sea and forcing him to exhaust himself working with his own hands to reach some peaceful harbor. It is clear that this position, for all its compulsive force to work, cannot be considered favorable or saving. Man on a frail boat may, through happy chance circumstances, reach harbor, but that will be mere chance, nothing more. In most cases he will exhaust himself from exhaustion and despair at the sight of the impossibility of reaching the desired shore, powerlessly drop his hands and become the victim of the first squall, which will either swamp his frail vessel or cast it upon the rocks and smash it to pieces. In precisely such a position stands each individual in Protestantism. Outwardly we see here strong animation, we marvel at the energy of religious feeling and the thirst for religious truth, but we do not see how much oppressive despair and helplessness lie at the foundation of this outward animation. We do not see how these separate individuals, entirely left to themselves, powerlessly struggle with the doubts oppressing them and with what desperation they look about them, vainly seeking an authority that could inspire them with some confidence and allow them to breathe calmly in the bliss of immutable faith. It is not surprising that under such a terrible condition, constant excitation of theological thought and religious feeling often leads to complete exhaustion. And therefore in Protestant countries we often see alongside extraordinary excitation of religious-moral self-consciousness extreme decline and darkening of it. Religion here can be compared to a sea which now rages and storms, now seems to die in motionless calm. The same can be observed in America. Despite all the force and height of religious-moral self-consciousness, the religious feeling of the American people is visibly tired from fruitless ferment, and religious life takes forms in which external ceremonial often obtains more legal obligation than in countries with strong church authority, because in periods of exhaustion of religious feeling for the Protestant Christian nothing remains but to hold soullessly to the dead letter of the Bible and that wretched ceremonialism which obtains some recognition from what one might call customary law. At the same time naturally the religious-moral self-consciousness of the people itself becomes diminished, and this diminishment is undoubtedly manifested in that caste-like or cliquish division in which church-religious life in America is expressed. But this condition is obviously not natural. It stands in direct contradiction with the fundamental idea of Christianity, constantly recalling the indivisible brotherhood of men, redeemed by the one and same Savior and God. And so despite all the artificial barriers dividing people into various confessional and church classes, in the American people from time to time there manifest themselves strong impulses in which irresistible religious feeling strives to destroy all these artificial partitions and at least for a time unite all in a single brotherhood under the headship of one Savior of all. Such impulses are known in America by the name of ‘revivals of religion’ (Revivals of Religion) and constitute a most remarkable and distinctive phenomenon in the religious life of this country. They express the highest degree of religious excitation and at the same time an evident protest against the church-fragmenting principle operative in Protestantism.

A ‘revival’ ordinarily comes when religious life reaches the highest degree of exhaustion and weakening, when everywhere extreme deadness reigns and dead forms suppress the spirit. At this time in religious-moral and generally spiritual life everywhere a kind of oppressive heaviness is felt, like extreme weariness in a hot noon, and everyone seems to thirst for a refreshing breath of breeze. And it is during these heavy moments that a ‘revival’ begins. In its external form, it is properly speaking nothing else than a series of religious meetings calculated to excite those present to the degree of fullest religious exaltation. Having designated some locality requiring, in the opinion of religious leaders, a lifting of religious spirit in it, Methodist, Presbyterian, or other Protestant church representatives direct their preachers to that locality, who there gather all they can for their prayer meetings in a church, where the singing of hymns exciting spiritual zeal takes place and the pastor delivers sermons with vivid depiction of the torments of hell awaiting hardened sinners and the bliss prepared for the righteous. Following such a sermon, which profoundly shakes the nerves of the most sensitive among those present, the pastor invites all to engage in mental confession and quiet prayer: all bow their heads, cover their faces with their hands and spend some time in prayer during which the deep silence of the church is broken only by the slow tolling of a solitary church bell. But as the general self-reflection of each into his conscience continues, the nerves become increasingly tense, and here and there begin to sound deep sighs, suppressed sobs, groans; then from among the praying some one rises and, under the influence of irresistible religious enthusiasm, begins to confess aloud his sins, beating his breast, tearing his hair and begging his fellow citizens to pray to the Almighty for his deliverance from the torments of hell. The example is contagious, especially for nervous people. Not three or four days pass of this religious ‘revival,’ accompanied by abstinence from food, attendance at temples several times a day or equally frequent presence at religious meetings under the open sky, before the nervous excitation of the sinners being turned to the path of truth begins to take the form of an epidemic. Self-accusations of sin even pass into hysterical fits in some, while in others the striving to atone for transgressions takes practical form in the conversion of property to charitable works. Not infrequently such religious excitation reaches the point where entire villages begin to sell their property and liquidate their affairs in firm conviction of the imminent coming of the end of the world. The past winter in one rural locality of New England as a result of such a ‘revival’ a whole party of villagers formed, expecting the end of the world from hour to hour; they sold all their possessions, ceased sowing their fields, made themselves white linen garments in which they dressed, spending the nights in vigil and prayer, waiting for that hour when they would be taken alive to heaven in this raiment[1]. But this distinctive religious enthusiasm is not limited to rural people, and often manifests itself in even more amazing forms in such great cities as New York. One such ‘revival’ occurred in New York in 1857, when the religious enthusiasm of New Yorkers was excited to such a degree that merchants, bankers with their clerks and other businessmen locked their offices and shops in the middle of the day, flocking in crowds to prayer in churches; when local theaters were extemporaneously converted into halls for religious assemblies, where preachers addressed their sermons to the public, which packed the buildings. That period’s religious movement in the states was so intensive and universal that it attracted the attention of the entire civilized world. But the most remarkable side for us of these ‘revivals’ consists in the fact that with any more or less strong movement they go beyond the bounds of confessional forms and assume a universal, indifferently Christian character. A strong religious wave, so to speak, overflows those artificial and petty barriers which Protestantism sets up in the form of small, mutually hostile communities and sects, sweeps them away as the irresistible surge of tidal swell sweeps away the sand castles built by children on the shore, and members of all communities and sects indifferently gather at the same religious meetings, sing the same sacred hymns and all merge into one religious brotherhood, animated by the same feelings, by the same thoughts. Together with confessional divisions, all other intellectual, social, and economic divisions are smoothed away. Access to the religious meetings of ‘revivals’ is free for all, and here, one might say, is the only occasion when it is presented to the poor folk, without any admission fee, to participate in a public worship service together with all other classes endowed with higher intellectual and material blessings, which in ordinary times divide people in this democratic country even more firmly than in any other countries.

It is understandable that these revivals have only a temporary character. After a certain period of tension the excitement and enthusiasm weaken, and in church-religious life the former fragmentation is restored, enclosing people in separate, divided church circles and religious communities. But the inner meaning of these movements retains its full significance. This is in our view a spontaneous protest against that soulless petty sectarianism which corrodes the religious-moral life of the people, and at the same time it is a protest against Protestantism itself. Indeed, here in strong excitation religious feeling seeks satisfaction in practices denied by Protestantism. Granting each individual the freedom to build his own salvation by his own forces, Protestantism nevertheless deprives man of such powerful aids to religious-moral life as, for example, fasting and confession. But the soul obviously cannot do without these aids, and therefore during religious ‘revivals’ people surrender to terrible self-flagellation, exhausting fasting and abstinence, and all-public frenzied confession of their sins. Here evidently those saving institutions which in the Orthodox Church are recognized as beneficial aids in the work of faith and morality and are carried out in calm and confident consciousness of their saving character, people in Protestantism are compelled to win by force, which in turn leads to the extremes of frenzy.

Thus ‘religious revivals’ in their essence are nothing other than a spontaneous protest of religious, one might say instinctive feeling against the abnormalities of Protestantism and serve as a vivid expression of the consciousness of its insufficiency as a confessional system or church. But this instinctive feeling naturally becomes clear consciousness where living religious feeling is joined with clear and strong theological thought. And in America there are not a few theologically educated persons who from careful study of the church-religious life of the American people come to the sad conclusion that Protestantism cannot satisfy all the demands of religious-moral life. This consciousness was expressed especially sharply soon after the fratricial war that began in the ‘60s. That very war was a consequence of the extreme spiritual division of individual states, and when this sad crisis occurred, all the best minds deeply pondered the fateful question: where to seek firm guarantee against the repetition of such a terrible catastrophe? And then the national consciousness answered this question with remarkable unanimity in the sense that guarantee could serve only religious unification. At that very time the idea of a single church arose, which ought to unite under its banner all the American people. An idea undoubtedly great, worthy of a great people, animated by strong and living religious-moral self-consciousness. But how to realize it? Religion had fragmented into a multitude of separate confessional forms, each of which recognizes itself as the sole truth, and therefore when the idea of church unification arose, each of the communities came forward with a claim that it was the one that should become that single, all-embracing church which the American people yearned for. But this naturally could only lead to new irritation and rivalry between communities, and thus could only contribute to that division from which the people yearns to be free. Then from the midst of theologically-minded people there emerged a man who was able to rise above all confessional prejudices and look into the very essence of that church-religious principle which lies at the foundation of the spiritual life of the American people, and came to the firm conviction that the cause of the disorders in religious-moral life lay in the very essence of Protestantism itself, that it cannot satisfy the highest demands of church life and cannot serve as the principle on which a single, strong church of the unified spiritual American people could be formed. This was the well-known American preacher of the Protestant Episcopal Church Dr. Whittingham, who died in 1882. He publicly expressed his thoughts in 1868 from the church pulpit in his famous sermons on the ‘insufficiency of Protestantism,’ which at the time made a tremendous impression on public opinion in America, as they were stenographically recorded and printed in all the best newspapers. In them, among other things, he expressed bitter reproaches against Protestantism which, in his opinion, having rejected firm church principles, stepped onto the slippery path of rationalism, as a result of which a general and terrible crisis was being prepared for all religious-Christian consciousness. Unbelief grows and develops in it, practical life frees itself from the influence of religious-Christian principles and the ‘communion of saints’ is destroyed. It is too one-sided in its narrow individualism and too cold for religious enthusiasm, so that in it there is no outlet for those naturally enthusiastic persons who could find their happiness only in complete renunciation of gray practical life to devote themselves to serving a higher divine ideal (monasticism). As a result of the one-sided abstractness of its principles, it proved inaccessible to the popular masses and therefore degenerated into aristocratism with brilliant preaching and high fees for church seats. But even among the most intelligent classes its wandering instability develops indifference, as a result of which many, tired of the changeability of forms, reject all forms of church life and live by ‘general’ Christianity alone, losing themselves in its nebulous indefiniteness. Thus Protestantism, in the opinion of Whittingham, by itself shows its wretched insufficiency to satisfy the religious demands of humanity. It constitutes a wholly unsuccessful and harmful movement and prepares a terrible crisis. Salvation must be sought from it. But where should it be sought? – And then with his healthy sense this famous preacher came to the theory that lay at the foundation of all subsequent church-religious development in America, especially in the Episcopal Church; this is namely the theory of the ‘Catholic’ church, which alone can satisfy the highest demands of church-religious life. According to this theory the existing ‘confessions’ in the church are only branches of one and the same Catholic or universal church, and these branches are the Orthodox-Eastern, Roman, and Anglican, while Protestantism with its sects is already a severed branch from the living trunk of the church. Therefore salvation must be sought precisely in this ‘Catholic’ church. Here obviously the preacher-theologian’s thought reached a high degree of church-religious contemplation; but perhaps thanks to this very height he did not complete his analysis, did not indicate more concrete embodiments of the Catholic church and limited himself to only its general abstract definition. But what the preacher’s thought did not fully express was soon supplied by the demands of the times and life, namely by the common consciousness of that Episcopal Church from whose midst this courageous voice had sounded.