The Cumberland Presbyterian Church
"Presbyterians have their roots in the scriptures of the Old and New covenant people of God and trace their history to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. Our heritage, and much of what we believe, began with the French lawyer John Calvin (1509-1564), whose writings crystallized much of the Reformed thinking that came before him.
Calvin did
much of his writing from Geneva, Switzerland. From there, the Reformed movement spread to other parts of
Europe and the British Isles. Many of the early Presbyterians in America came from England, Scotland and
Ireland. The first American Presbytery was organized at Philadelphia in 1706. The first General Assembly
was held in the same city in 1789. The first Assembly was convened by the Rev. John Witherspoon, the
only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence." (pcusa.com) 1740 The First Great Awakening
1800 Cane Ridge Revival
1716 First American Synod formed and William Tennet joined the synod in 1718
1721 George Gillespie introduced a measure that opened the doors for subscription
1729 Jonathan Dickinson proposed the Adopting Act which protested subscription to
Westminster Confession of
Faith
1736 A committee of conservatives tried to prohibit members of one presbytery from preaching in another
Strict subscription required by Old Side Presbyterians
1740 Gilbert Tennent preached his sermon "The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry"
1741 Schism of Old Side Party and New Side Party (revivalistic)
A new presbytery formed after synod wanted to review qualifications of ministers
1745 A new synod was formed of New Side branch -- the Synod of New York
1758 Church came back together and ended schism with a majority of New Siders
1783 David Rice was first Presbyterian minister in Kentucky. He persuaded presbytery to ordain
exhorters.
1786 Transylvania Presbytery formed
1796
1797 Revival of religion/awakening
1799 Red River Meeting/McGready aided by Hodge, Rankin and McGee preached to about 500
1802 Alexander Anderson was received by a one vote majority in April, Transylvania Presbytery.
1802
1802 Synod divided Transylvania adding Cumberland Presbytery.
1804 Thomas Craighead submitted a common fame charge against Cumberland Presbytery to the Synod of
Kentucky
1805 Kentucky Synod reviewed Cumberland Presbytery's records and formed a commission to investigate
1806 Council of Revival Ministers formed (including McAdow, Hodge, Rankin, McGee)
1806 KY Synod reviewed Hodge & Rankin and dissolved Cumberland Presbytery and annexed its members to
Transylvania Presbytery
1810 McAdoo,
Ewing &
King constituted Cumberland Presbytery on February 4.
On
February 4,
1810 in the log cabin home (near what
later became the town of
Burns,
Dickson County, Tennessee) of the Rev.
Samuel
McAdow, he,
together with the Rev.
Finis Ewing and the
Rev.
Samuel
King
reorganized
Cumberland Presbytery, which had been dissolved by the
PC
(USA).
(Replica of Rev. Samuel McAadow's home)
Ephraim McLean was the first to be ordained by the newly formed presbytery.
1813 Logan, Cumberland & Elk Presbyteries constituted the first synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church
1814 Cumberland Presbyterians revised the
Westminster Confession of Faith eliminating
objectionable language
1814 Buck's Theological Dictionary published with an entry about the Cumberland Presbyterians
1820 Charity Hall school organized by
Robert Bell among the Choctaw Nation, Mississippi
1825 Presbyterians recognized Cumberland Presbyterians as a a separate denomination
1826 Cumberland College chartered, Princeton, KY with President Cossitt
1829 First General Assembly of the CP Church held on May 19 at Princeton, KY
1829 Nashville, Lebanon, Knoxville, and Hopewell Presbyteries constituted Franklin Synod.
1831 General Assembly named five highly regard preachers as missionaries to PA and NY: Robert Donnell,
Chapman,
Reuben Burrow,
Morgan, and Alfred McGready Bryan
1838 Pennsylvania Synod constituted
1842 Cumberland College relocated to Lebanon, TN and the Princeton (KY) school remained
1850s Unsuccessful move to further revise Confession of Faith toward Arminianism
1851 Six memorials on the subject of slavery were received by General Assembly
1852 Edmund Weir, a freed slave, became the first foreign missionary of the C.P.C. when he was sent to
Liberia.
1852 General Assembly forbade attending parties, theatres, circuses, etc.
1853
Antoinette Brown, a congregationalist, became the first woman ordained in
the USA
1859 Cumberland Presbyterian Church contained 105 presbyteries.
"The divisions which led to the formation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church can be traced back to the First Great Awakening. At that time, Presbyterians split between the Old Side (mainly congregations of Scottish and Scots-Irish extraction), who favored a doctrinally-oriented church with a highly-educated ministry; and a New Side (mainly of English extraction) who put greater emphasis on the revivalistic techniques championed by the Great Awakening. The formal split between Old Side and New Side only lasted from 1741 to 1758, but the two orientations remained present in the reunified church and would come to the fore again during the Second Great Awakening."
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Presbyterians on the frontier suffered from a shortage of educated clergy willing to move to the frontier beyond the Appalachian Mountains. At the same time, Methodists and Baptists were sending preachers with little or no formal training into frontier regions, and were very successful in organizing Methodist and Baptist congregations. In this situation, Cumberland Presbytery in Kentucky began ordaining men without the educational background required by Kentucky Synod, drawing on New Side precedents. This was bad enough for supporters of the Old Side, but what was even worse was that Cumberland Presbytery allowed ministers to offer a qualified assent to the Westminster Confession and only required them to swear assent to the Confession of Faith "so far as they deemed it agreeable to the Word of God." Old Siders in Kentucky Synod (which had oversight over Cumberland Presbytery) sought to discipline Cumberland Presbytery. Presbytery and synod were involved in a protracted dispute, which touched upon the nature of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Ultimately, Kentucky Synod decided to dissolve Cumberland Presbytery and expel a number of its ministers.
The Cumberland Presbyterian denomination was made up of the expelled members of the Presbyterian Church and others in the area when Kentucky Synod dissolved the original Cumberland Presbytery.[6]
There is historical evidence in the writings of several of the founders that indicate they did not intend the split to be permanent, and certainly did not anticipate a long-standing separate denomination.
In 1826, Cumberland Presbyterians established Cumberland College in Princeton, Kentucky, in order to better train their candidates for the ministry. Although very much a frontier institution, under the presidency of Franceway Ranna Cossitt, Cumberland College was one of the first colleges in the United States to accept women as students. Ann Harpending and Melinda Barnett, for example, enrolled in the very first class.[7]
After rapid growth, Cumberland Presbytery became Cumberland Synod in 1813 and the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination in 1829 when the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was established.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, primarily (but not entirely) white, is a theologically moderate Presbyterian body spawned by the Great Revival of 1800 (also known as the Second Great Awakening).[3] As with any church holding to a Presbyterian polity, individual congregations are represented by elders (who form a session to govern the local church) at presbyteries. Presbyteries, in turn, send delegates to synods. Finally, the entire structure is governed by the General Assembly.
Profiles of Cumberland Presbyterians