Pastors in the 1730s

In an effort to better understand the community I am living in, I have been reading a few books about “Greater Appalachia” and the “Scots-Irish”. It might be surprising, but even though I grew up 20 minutes from where I currently live, the thought patterns and sub-culture of my current town are significantly different.

I first noticed this when I read American Nations by Colin Woodard. I don’t agree with everything he wrote, but he pretty accurately explained the sub-culture I grew up in (Midlands) and the differences I saw in the town I live in (which is part of Greater Appalachia.) I’d recommend American Nations for anyone wanting to better understand the nuances of the American melting pot. And specifically for someone wanting to better understand their city or town.

That led me to read a couple of other books on this people group: Born Fighting by Jim Webb and The Scotch Irish by James Leyburn. While there were some fascinating insights that I won’t bore you with, this quote from The Scotch Irish, however, was worth posting. Ironically it had very little to do with my city’s subculture, but I think it carries enough of its own weight to let speak for itself:

In all major denominations of the 1730s it seemed as if clergymen had lost sight of the meaning of such words as “pastor” and “minister” and had come to feel that formal discourse in the pulpit, together with a proper direction of church services and sacraments, comprised their whole duty.

Benjamin Franklin remarked of a Presbyterian divine [cleric] in Philadelphia that he spent most of his time in polemical [controversial] preaching against other churches or in defense of his own.

It may be suggested that the very monopoly of Establishment conduces to inertia, unadaptability, and contentment with the formal proprieties of things as they are.