Vol. VI
No. 3 Feb. 18, 2007
Written By Christopher
Mentzer
In Jer. 6: 16 the prophet writes, “Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask
for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find
rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”
This is something we need here in the 21st Century. The mindset of society today, especially in regards to religion, is to excite all five senses in worship. They say, “One should experience religion and not just attend services.” Megachurches give one the opportunity to “experience” worship and utilize all five senses in the service.
However, in the 19th Century, there weren’t such things as Megachurches. Worship was a little more simplistic as well. I’m not saying the senses weren’t excited back then as they are today, but the Bible was more of a focus; a center point compared to today.
As an encouragement to seek for the old path as Jeremiah states, I’ll be working on a new article feature entitled, The Pioneer Path. Here, I’ll offer a look at religious life in the 19th Century and show similar problems that are still faced today. One of the main reasons for this is to prove that the Bible, though a two thousand year old book, is just as needful today as it was just two hundred years ago.
We’ll be following the life of Lester Parker, a fictional gospel preacher who lives in the fictional town of Bainbridge, Ohio. Lester will offer his views of life in the 1800s and the different influences in religion that existed back then. His views will be written in journal form and from articles from a “Christian Paper” called, The Bainbridge Beacon. We’ll also have articles by real preachers like Barton Stone, Alexander Campbell, and Ben Franklin. Snippets of the sermons they preached that have an impact on society today.
For an example of this, here are some quotes from these three preachers concerning the music question: “Is instrumental music allowed in the assembly?”
CAMPBELL "[Instrumental music in worship] was well adapted to churches
founded on the Jewish pattern of things and practicing infant sprinkling. That
all persons singing who have no spiritual discernment, taste or relish for
spiritual meditation, consolations and sympathies of renewed hearts should call
for such an aid is but natural. So to those who have no real devotion and
spirituality in them, and whose animal nature flags under the opposition or the
oppression of church service I think that instrumental music would... be an
essential prerequisite to fire up their souls to even animal devotion. But I
presume, that to all spiritually-minded Christians, such aid would be as a cow
bell in a concert." (Alexander Campbell, recorded in Robert Richardson's
biography, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, Vol. 2., p366)
STONE "We have just received an extraordinary account
of about 30,000 Methodists in England, withdrawing from that church and
connexion, because the Conference disapproved of the introduction of
instrumental music to the churches. The full account shall appear in our next.
To us, backwoods Americans, this conduct of those seceders appears be the
extreme of folly, and it argues that they have a greater taste for music, than
they have for religion.” Editor. (Barton Stone, Christian Messenger,
vol. 3, No. 2, Dec. 1828, p. 48 in bound volume)
FRANKLIN "Instrumental music is permissible for a church under the following conditions: 1. When a church never had or has lost the Spirit of Christ. 2. If a church has a preacher who never had or has lost the Spirit of Christ, who has become a dry, prosing and lifeless preacher. 3. If a church only intends being a fashionable society, a mere place of amusements and secular entertainment and abandoning the idea of religion and worship. 4. If a church has within it a large number of dishonest and corrupt men. 5. If a church has given up all idea of trying to convert the world." (Ben Franklin, editor of American Christian Review, 1860.)
It is the goal of this article series to share information of the history of the church and to show where we came from so that we might further know where we are going, how to get there, and to avoid the same problems from the past.