Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost

by Paul K. Conkin

Book by Conkin, Paul Keith

186 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 1990

About the author

Paul K. Conkin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Vanderbilt University.

Reviews

[Steve Irby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished "Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost," by Paul K. Conkin.

Before Azusa...
A lot going on in just the intro. He works from Paul to post magisterial reformation Scotland. The denomination in focus here are the Presbyterians (which got my interest because it is from a setting like this that the Campbells--and the restoration movement--came).They had folks slain in the Spirit out in the back 40 of Edinboro with some legit revivals going on. The key here is that all the "enthusiasm" centered around communion. Only so many could be served because they had real bread and wine, not modern lunchables. So to get a seat at the table you had to get a token. A revival of 30,000 would have communion for 3,000. It's like Woodstock with a pound of weed to go around. This is fascinating.

So he works through the stateside OG revivals (mainly Presbyterian) in origin and still centered around communion in the Scottish format. It seems NC, TN, VA and KY were a hotbed of ecumenical revivals. You could find a Calvie and a Wesleyan passed our from "enthusiasm" beside each other in some cow field. He just got to Barton Stone circa 1796. We are close.

Interesting that it rained the whole time. Also that most of our religious and even secular "retreat" concepts can be traced back to this one wet event.

It seems that people were put off by the concept that Satan may be doing God's will (as per Calvinism) because God is Love and wouldn't be involved in evil (agreed) so they, via folk theology, applied a metaphysical dualism. So close but they missed it.

This seems to be the first modern expression of glossolalia, and.maybe the first expression of holy laughter.

He spends some time on post Cane Ridge Barton Stone and his doctrine. Remember, Stone was raised Presbyterian. He denied the trinity for a more Aryan Christological concept, and he denied penal substitution for a more subjective view which was also unlimited (I'm open to correction here if I misinterpreted Stone on atonement). At the same time he was throwing off theological determinism for a more Arminian concept of freewill and a more semi pelagenian view of the fall.

My walk-away is that the OG Azusa were Shakers.

This was a really fun and revelatory read.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much has been written about the “objectivity question” in history. That is, can a historian put aside his biases aside and write an objective account of a historical event? Conkin’s Cane Ridge demonstrates the power with which a gifted historian can treat a religious movement to which he has little spiritual or emotional attachment. Conkin has here written a first-rate intellectual history that includes the best delineation of orthodox Christianity by a non-believer that I’ve ever read.

Conkin’s thesis is that the religious movement that began with 1801 Kentucky revival had roots deep in devout, but staid, Presbyterianism. Conkin rejects the notion that the revival was simply an example of frontier backwardness and downplays the swooning and “barking” emphasized in college survey courses.

[Jeff Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better book than I had anticipated. The intro made it seem like a scholarly research paper but it turned out to be pretty well written. The one downside is it doesn't really spend a lot of time on the Cane Ridge revival itself. There is a lot about the history leading up to it and a few pages on the effects but it is mostly documented as a spiritual phenomena and not the study of the revival I was looking for. Because the event took place in Kentucky in 1801 it is not likely that there was a lot of documentation about attendees, speakers, texts, etc; and so the author does an apt job of telling us what he was able to uncover. I learned quite a bit...
-It began as a Presbyterian movement based around communion
p. 16-(as opposed to Catholic and high church sacraments) "They therefore served the wine and bread on long tables set up in the aisles of the church and covered with white linen tablecloths and communion napkins. Communicants came forward to take seats for the supper (they were most horrified at kneeling). If the assemblage was large the table might fill ten times, and a communion service, of logistic necessity, would take most of a Sunday. The ministers gave the institution (a survey of the origins and purpose of the sacrament) and blessed the elements, but then took a seat with the elders at the head of the table. The ministers, elders, and lay people next passed around and partook of the platters of bread and the flagons or cups of wine, and after a prayer returned to their pews. The quantities of wine and bread were not mere tokens, but approximations of those consumed in an actual meal...this was exactly the same type of communion that took place at Cane Ridge on August 8, 1801.

p. 21 (Referring to a predecessor movement in Scotland-Cambuslang) In the winter of 1741-1742 the Cambuslang congregation almost exploded with religious fervor. Prayer circles met continually. M"Cullock soon had to preach everyday, Sunday services were overcrowded, and almost all local sinners were deeply affected if not converted before the summer.

p. 42 (Speaking of the Scottish Presbyterians first competition in the south) This situation changed, at first with the rapid growth of the Separate Baptist movement and then with the prerevolutionary beginnings of Methodism. Overtly Calvinist in doctrine, the Baptists utilized trained clergymen and featured a fervent style that contrasted sharply with the intellectuality of the Presbyterians. The Baptists, who emphasized adult baptism by immersion and held closed communion services, competed for converts openly and flagrantly and refused most forms of cooperation.
*I found the above quite very humorous since as I former Baptist I found my experience to be much the same both during and after the time I left.

p. 46 (Trying to define "revival") In almost any year, among Baptists, Methodists, or Presbyterians, some local ministers could boast of an exciting period of renewal-more piety, more fervor, numerous conversions, and vastly improved morals. Individual congregations experienced their own cycles, with peaks and valleys in both membership and fervor. Some of these cycles correlated with generational changes, some with ministerial leadership, some with major population shifts, some with local economic or social conditions. Imitation was often crucial as waves of such renewal swept counties or regions. Excitement in one congregation created an almost immediate expectancy, or demand in neighboring ones. But none of these factors were clearly necessary for revivals, and no set of such factors was clearly sufficient. Causes are hard to come by, and patterns do not fit all cases.

p. 47 At war's end most Presbyterian ministers in Virginia and North Carolina reported a period of deadness. They blamed it, correctly or not, either on the disruptions of the late war or on the appeal of religious rationalism or deism. As so often, the concern focused on the youth, primarily teenagers but also young adults, or those who had no memory of the stirring revivals of twenty and thirty years earlier. Ministerial laments, or specially organized prayer meetings in hopes of a new revival, reflected parental concerns about "our young people" and reveal the primary generational factor in cyclical revivals.

p. 48 In most Presbyterian communities, the largest body of potential communicants, sometimes up to half the people normally in a congregation, were such unconverted youth, joined by a handful of overtly sinful adults. But almost always in direct proportion to a growing pool of uncoverted youth was a high level of coldness or dullness (their words) among most church members, and wht the more evangelical ministers saw as a lack of zeal, of spirituality, and of appropriate conduct.This last usually did not mean an gross immorality. Good, well-reared Presbyterian adults even felt guilty when they gave in to temptation and attended dances. The problems were gossip, jealousies, local quarrels, and too much absorption in worldly diversions, including work or business. Given such trends away from a vital Pauline Christianity [the author has defined this earlier], one can ask why revivals always, as if inevitably, ensued. Why not a pattern of continued decline? The psychological answer lies in the people who experienced such declension. They remained fully within the older belief system. They accepted both Semitic theism and the Pauline scheme of salvation. They had grown up with this worldview, absorbed it from weekly sermons and catechism, and internalized the hopes and dreams that went with it.

p. 64 (The starting of the second of three chapters--the first being the "American Origins", the second--"The Cane Ridge Communion" and the third--"Aftershocks") As at Cambuslang in 1742, the great communion at Cane Ridge in central Kentucky in August 1801 did not begin but climaxed an intense religious revival. No one can explain this revival, in the sense of citing a set of sufficient conditions for it.

p. 65 Despite the widespread but imprecise descriptions of rationalists and deists by frustrated ministers, most Kentucky settlers retained at least a modicum of Christian belief. However busy or distracted, most still understood, and when challenged still responded to, the Pauline scheme of salvation. They knew the meaning of sinfulness, feared damnation however they understood it, and suffered intense guilt if they departed from what they believed to be Christian moral standards. Above all, many yearned for the heightened religious experience, for the warmth of communal support and the exhilaration of communion services, that they remembered from their youth or from earlier waves of revival. Finally, a solid nucleus of faithful Christians, often parents, suffered all the generational anxieties that had fueled the revivals of 1787-90. They sorrowed for their young people, most of whom seemed indifferent to religion.

p. 66-67 It is true that a few Presbyterian apologists in the East tried to make good their private hopes that their revivals were not quite as wild as those in the caricatured West. They first launched the myth of frontier exceptionalism, a myth that contained, in almost all subsequent literature, the false hypothesis that the families that moved west somehow reverted, or regressed, to a more primitive or ignorant or superstitious stage of civilization. This then joined with other established, and almost completely false, assertions that either the revivals themselves, or at least the more extreme physical exercises, attracted only an especially ignorant and backward subclass of society.

p. 73 [Describing Barton Stone, the pastor at Cane Ridge] Barton Stone, in the midst of his travels, did a great job of advance publicity. He also established close working relationships with the Methodists, involving them in the planning. Stone's forte was organization and ecumenical cooperation. He had few of McGready's pulpit skills. In many ways he seemed an inappropriate host for such a historic event. He was far from the most effective preacher among his colleagues in central Kentucky. Although he preached at least twice, and exhorted frequently at the Cane Ridge sacrament, he was in no way a dominating figure. At the time he was a young and not very confident minister, only two years past ordination, and in many respects a lukewarm Presbyterian. His background in no wise prepared him for Cane Ridge or gave any hint that he would occupy a strategic position in the great revival, a position that involved circumstances more than talent.

p 94-95 (The effects of the revival) But most impressive of all to many spectators were the exhortations. Here and there almost anyone, including those who rose from the ground [after "falling" or being slain in the spirit] as well as child converts, might burst out with an exhortation. Women, small children, slaves, shy people, illiterate people, all exhorted with great effect. Observers marveled at their eloquence, their deep feeling, and often their seeming preternatural understanding of Scripture. Some believed the newly converted enjoyed the gift of prophecy, while critics often believed them possessed by demons.
One perceptive observer, who arrived at Cane Ridge on Saturday, when the "work" was already in full swing, estimated that 300 people exhorted, many at the same time. He was particularly taken by a seven-year-old girl who mounted a man's shoulders (typical for children) and spoke wondrous word until she was completely fatigued. When she lay her head on his as if to sleep, a person in the audience suggested that the poor thing had better be laid down, presumably to sleep. The girl roused at this suggestion and said, "Don't call me poor, for Christ is my brother, God my father, and I have a kingdom to inherit, and therefore do not call me poor, for I am rich in the blood of the Lamb." The theological images are confused, the words quite compatible with those of a child who had learned religious language from her parents, but nonetheless such words from the mouth of a babe seemed almost unbelievable to those who crowded around.
*This is likely the most detailed and lengthy description of events included in the book.

p. 108 Skeptics, particularly those at a distance, had profound doubts. They easily attributed the exercises to a type of popular delusion, perhaps triggered by the overly affectionate or frightening preaching of irresponsible ministers. Locally, the cantankerous old Adam Rankin wrote a book to prove that the situation was much worse, that those most exercised were literally possessed by evil spirits, and that the so-called revival, among those who had departed from scriptural worship by the introduction of human-created hymns, was a work of Satan, who above all used sensuous hymns and wild singing to capture the unwary.

p. 166 The role of communion raises much more complicated problems. Until Cane Ridge, the great Scottish communions remained for Presbyterians not only the highlight of the church year but the main institutional vehicle for conviction and conversion. The sacramental season and revival were almost synonymous. Clearly, the communion service was not as central, and not so tied to conversion, among Methodists and Baptists, although their conferences and association meetings usually climaxed in a communion service. But it seems reasonably clear that, by the time of Cane Ridge, the sacrament was already losing significance for almost all evangelicals, and that new revival techniques, some already in evidence at Cane Ridge, hastened this erosion. That is why I said, at the beginning, that Cane Ridge was not only the greatest Scottish communion in America but in a symbolic sense also one of the last.

p. 166-167 Among both English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians, this highly sacramental emphasis [of Martin Luther and John Calvin) clearly declined by the eighteenth century. One way of stating this is that Reformed Christians had moved ever further away from the Church of Rome, or from a Christianity tied closely to church and sacraments.

p 168 These revival techniques involved new rituals--new hymns and new modes of singing them, lay exhortation and personal pleading with identified sinners, and special locations at the front of the church or before the tent where those under conviction came for special prayers and focused attention (these places were called mourner's benches in the Cumberland revivals, and later made famous as the "anxious bench" by Charles Finney.) It is ironic that, much later, American evangelicals would identify these rituals as part of the "old-time religion" when in fact almost every technique involved innovations rooted neither in church tradition nor in scripture.

p. 169 The formal aspects of worship do not correlate, in any one-to-one-way, with the emotional tenor of church life. The most ecstatic or charismatic religion is consistent with a highly formal or ritualized setting, even as a cold and lifeless religion is consistent with a plain meetinghouse and worship services largely keyed to the sermon. It all depends on the meaning the forms have for participants.

p 169 Because it is a doctrinal and salvationist religion, Christianity, in all its forms, has always demanded proper conduct. It has endorsed moral standards. In this sense, it is incurably political. To be a Christian, an individual has to accept certain communal restraints within the church and assume a proper stance toward the outside world. At times of revival or renewal, almost by definition, all Christian confessions move closer to total dedication, to more inclusive or rigorous moral standards, to tighter or even more totalitarian forms of communal life, and either to a greater separation from the surrounding and sinful world, or to a more prophetic effort to convert or reform that world. The main distinctions among Christians, respecting their relationship to the larger society, involve this "either/or"--the position a given Christian sect chooses on a continuum from quietism or separation or retreat, at one extreme, to a prophetic denunciation or radical reform at the other.

p. 173 What was more enduring was what predominated at Cane Ridge--a tearful yet joyful religion that supported self-transcending types of experience most often expressed in audible prayers, in personal testimonies, in moving exhortations, in audience responses to sermons, and perhaps above all in song.

p 177 [On southern evangelicals and slavery] In fact, if one attends to their language, they never really sanctioned slavery so much as, by verbal alacrity, they abolished it. That is, in order to make their peace with slavery, evangelicals tried to pull from it all its moral stigma by trying to convert and instruct slaves, by trying to convert and reform masters, and by trying to turn the plantation into a form of extended and supportive family. They turned slaves into beloved servants. This is a long, complex, and troubling story, but one as yet unanticipated at Cane Ridge, where for a brief moment even a glorious millennium seemed imminent.

p 178 The only justifying end of anything one does has to be, for someone, a good experience, something good in itself and not because it contributes to something else. All religions appeal to people because they promise just such self-justifying experience, proximate or remote. They all promise to enhance life, to give it meaning, to raise it to a new dimension. In their own distinctive ways, evangelical Christians tried to make good on this promise. They asked converts to probe the depths of despair and desolation, but only as the necessary down payment on inexpressible joy, both in the present and in the future. Such a warm religion enabled humble people, whose lives were so much more insecure and cruel than our own, to have fun. That was not a mean achievement.

[Nelson Banuchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good read on a very little known chapter in American history of Christian revivals. The author notes that this American revival has it's roots in the outdoor communions celebrated in Scotland and Ulster with particular reference to the Cambuslang revival, which the Cane Ridge revival seemed to have mimicked.

The author discussion the success in ministers during the revivals converting black, the controversies between ministers regarding how a revival ought to and ought not to be conducted; the excitements and reactions in consequence of the preaching and the perceived presence of God, disagreements regarding how a minister ought to conduct his preaching, disputes between the "New Light" and the more traditional orthodoxy of the Presbyterian Church on religious practice and doctrine; the subject of doctrine being the most interesting to me.

There is much in here to digest in only 177 pages but I think it is an important read for anyone interested in the subject of revivals.

[Bill Hooten · Rating 4 out of 5]

All through college and graduate school, I heard about Cane Ridge -- but I realized that I knew very little about it. Presently, I am slowly reading through Ahlstrom's "A Religious History of the American People," and read a few pages about Cane Ridge and the effects of it. I decided it was past time for me to learn more, so I purchased and read this book. This book does a good job of describing how the atmosphere and culture built to a fever pitch for the communion at Cane Ridge, what happened while it was going on, and the aftershocks of it. This is not a book that every one would be interested in; but if you have a restoration movement background, or just want to know more about the religious awakening at the turn of the 19th century -- this book is for you.

[Justin P · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the classic text on the history of the 2nd Great Awakening. It has flaws, but even the eminent theologian Noll has not come close Conkin's depth in telling us about the origins of Pentecostalism in America. It is a must read for anyone wanting to deeply understand the origins of the Pentecostal faith that has been spreading -- across the world.

First, about the book's failures. The structure of this book is poor. I had to force myself to read it. Conkin uses no subheadings to organize his key points, nor does he clearly connect previous points to subsequent ones. The reader is left with large chapters to digest. The challenge with digesting such large, unstructured text that has these concepts lays in deciphering key points from among a mass of minutia. The reader must remember details about who Stone was, where he preached, and when; so that a key point made later on is seen for its significance. Conkin could have structured the book in ways to scaffold his readers, especially those who are not versed in theology. In his defense, Conkin's foreward notes that the book originated from his research notes as the basis for a series of lectures. So the original note form may explain the poor structure. I found it easier to read the book outloud, as Conkin may have done.

Second, the content is an excellent historical chronology. As other reviewers noted, Conkin builds the historical context for Cane Ridge, Kentucky by going all the way back to details in Scotland during the 1600s. This gives the reader a unique view of continuity via change, a core historical perspective, via a single event. Conkin went back to the primary sources: diaries, letters, newspapers, of people actually at Cane Ridge -- to give us this unique telling that does not depend on yet-another-interpretation. It is Conkin's direct analysis of the evidence that warrants a good review.

One side-point here: I disagree with critical reviews that say not enough attention was given to the happenings at Cane Ridge itself in 1801. The explanation for this is obvious when the whole book is read. Conkin referenced back to previous revivals, like the 1st Great Awakening in colonial America and the communions in Ulster, when explaining Cane Ridge, so he did not need to repeat himself about explaining Cane Ridge in isolation. Actually, the preceding communions and revivals was a key point of Conkin's thesis about continuity. In other words, a reader who only pays close attention to the chapter on Cane Ridge specifically (in chapter 2) to extract a brief understanding will be left wanting because the previous chapters are necessary dependencies.

Finally, my impression (and spoiler alert). It is clearer to me how Pentecostal faiths emerged from reading Conkin's book. Presbyterians in Ulster had begun a Reformed style of communion during the 1600s that laid the foundation for revivals in America. The 1st Revival in the colonies during the 1700s laid another foundation of ecumenical gatherings, including Methodists and Baptists, who gathered en-mass to hear charismatic sermons before and after the Pentecost communions. These large crowds grew to a scale of egalitarian festivities that mixed many people, both religious and unaffiliated, across socio-economic status, including women, segregated by race but inclusive of blacks. Still led by white men as ministers, the multi-day sermons inadvertently sparked a "mysterium tremendum" in listeners, as the scholar Otto described. Conkin's sources cannot fully explain what happened at Cane Ridge but the effects were clear: intense crying, passing out, convulsions, etc. physical experiences. The orthodox Presbyterian could not abide by these physical reactions to sermons, and a schism happened. The 2nd Great Awakening ministers updated Calvinist doctrines to recognize these new physical experiences as manifestation of the supernatural, the Holy Spirit, in ways that echoed from the 1st century Church. And these awakened doctrines established that Christ was a teacher to follow, and that the Christian God was a diety of mercy and love instead of the Puritan's God of wrath. The Disciples of Christ, the Christian Church, and Church of Christ each originated from ministers who attended 2nd Great Awakening revivals and supported these doctrinal changes. Even the Shakers, who had physical reactions to their faith before Cane Ridge, were subsumed into these new sects. This schism separated these awakened Christians from Reformed Protestantism because its converts wanted a Church that legitimized their physical effects as a supernatural Spirit emanating from a God of love. Ergo, Pentecostalism was born at Cane Ridge in America. Yet Conkin’s main point is simple: Cane Ridge was a handful of days, and despite the intensity of that event, by itself it cannot explain the long-term changes to American society.

So what? Conkin makes it clearer that early Pentecostals cannot be reduced to fundamentalist essentials from a single event. On the one hand the emergent, Pentecostal churches banned dancing, yet on the other they supported abolition. Social equality took on "a Christian imperative", as Conkin concludes. Blacks, women, poor -- all people could be born again as spiritual equals. Lay ministers, mixed race communions, women as prophetesses, etc. accelerated into a Christian reformation from Cane Ridge. And push back from establishment started as well. The demonization of Pentecostals is more easily understood from this perspective. Early evangelicals of the Cane Ridge generation had upset the social order in America.

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read on the amazing events at Cane Ridge, arguably the most important religious gathering in all of American history. Read how the spiritual exercise of sobbing, shouting, swooning and bodily convulsions or jerks occurred at a Presbyterian‚ yes I said Presbyterian‚ communion service in the summer of 1801. There was even barking: people would assume a dog-like posture and growl and bark for hours. The Cane Ridge communion "marked the climax, not the end, of the most exciting communion season in American Presbyterianism." More than 10,000 people were at the weekend service held at Cane Ridge. An eye witness account reported that: "ministers preached day and night; the camp illuminated with candles, on trees, at waggons, and at the tent; persons falling down, and carried out of the crowd, by those next to them, and taken to some convenient place, where prayer is made for them; some psalm or Hymn suitable to the occasion, sung. If they speak, what they say is attended to, being very solemn and affecting. . . many are struck under such exhortations." The "exercises" became the focus of attention at the communions and camp meetings that followed Cane Ridge. "They became the evidence of an authentic revival, the mark of ministerial success." As a consequence, "Cane Ridge was not only the greatest Scottish communion in America but in a symbolic sense one of the last." The controversy over its excesses eventually led to the end of Scottish communion seasons in America.

[Brenton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good history of the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801.