Two hundred years ago today the Rev. Finis Ewing and the Rev. Samuel King met with the Rev. Samuel McAdow at Mr. McAdow’s cabin in Dixon County, Tennessee, and held the first meeting of the Cumberland Presbytery, the predecessor of the Cumberland Synod, the predecessor of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

(Update: Thanks to Mr. Knight for his comments below and correcting me on my original text of the formation of the presbytery.  I stopped reading the history too soon and in a less-complete source.  I have rewritten the next paragraph to (hopefully) provide a more accurate account of the formation.  I regret the error and gladly accept the correction.)

The Cumberland Presbytery was established by the PCUSA in 1802 along with the Synod of Kentucky but within four years disputes developed over confessional and educational requirements for ordination.  The Synod was petitioned to investigate ordination standards in the Cumberland Presbytery with the result that an investigating commission was formed, ministers were summoned to be examined at the next Synod meeting, and when the ministers declined the Kentucky Synod disbanded the presbytery.  In 1807 the complaint against the synod for requiring unconstitutional synod examinations and dissolving the presbytery was heard by the General Assembly which ruled that the synod had over-stepped its authority in controlling ordinations clearing the way for the Cumberland Presbytery to be reinstated.  However, the Synod did not act to reinstate the presbytery and additional requests to the GA for this remedy were unsuccessful, so these three pastors took the initiative to reestablish it.

While the Old Side/New Side split had been mended administratively in 1758 many of the tensions over education and confessional standards remained in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  (That would be the PCUSA, not to be confused with the PC(USA) ).  At this time the Second Great Awakening was causing tensions on the bonds of the church and not just the Cumberland Presbytery formed but Restoration Movement churches split off including the Cain Ridge/Stone-Campbell groups that included the Springfield Presbytery.  While the Cumberland Presbyterians had issues with Calvinism, as you can see in the document below, they were really the one group that remained in the Presbyterian stream, as evidenced by the partial reunion in 1906 and continued close relations with mainline American Presbyterians today.

The partial reunion of 1906 is an interesting study in church history itself because it comes during the “church union” or ecumenical movement of the early 20th century that saw other forms of interdenominational cooperation including the formation of the United Church of Canada from the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches.  It also comes at the beginning of the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy of the early 1900’s.  One catalyst to the reunion, and a step in the theological controversy that was developing, was the 1903 revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith.  As Hart and Muether describe the theological leanings of some in the northern church at that time

[Charles A. ] Briggs was tapping into a growing consensus in the church, which had begun to form no later than the reunion of 1869, that the harder Calvinistic edges of the Confession needed to be softened. In the words of Benjamin J. Lake, “Some of the time-honored rigidity in the Westminster Confession seemed obsolete to many Presbyterians.” Typically, Presbyterian rigidity was spelled p-r-e-d-e-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-o-n.

Asked to be on the committee to make the revision B. B. Warfield declined.  Hart and Muether record:

“It is an inexpressible grief,” [Warfield] wrote, to see the church “spending its energies in a vain attempt to lower its testimony to suit the ever changing sentiment of the world around it.” Warfield’s lament would persuade few. In an era when change was a sign of health, his dissent sounded, in the words of an opponent, as a call for the “harmony of standing still.”

In 1903 the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. approved the changes to the Westminster Confession that did indeed soften the edges enough that a majority of the Cumberland churches were comfortable reuniting with the mainstream church.

An interesting piece of information I once heard about the reunion (and I don’t remember the source so this might be urban legend) is that all Cumberland churches had the initials “CPC” on their communion ware.  Following joining with the UPCUSA many churches changed their names to Central Presbyterian Church, Christ Presbyterian Church, or another similar name so the “CPC” still applied.

But like the Presbyterians in the formation of the United Church in Canada, there was a sizable minority of those in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church who chose to continue as they were and that is the body that today celebrates its bicentennial.  (What is it about these Presbyterians?)

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church will celebrate this coming Sunday on Denomination Day 2010.  They have produced a resource to help with worship and their 2010 GA will hold a full-day event at Mr. McAdow’s reconstructed home in Tennessee.

So happy birthday to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Thanks to their wonderful on-line collection of historical resources, here is the circular letter that started it all:

February 4, 1810[Information Contained in A Circular Letter, no actual minutes recorded]

   In Dixon county Tennessee State, at the Rev. Samuel M’adow’s this 4th day of February 1810.

   We Samuel M’adow, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King, regularly ordained ministers, in the presbyterian church against whom, no charge, either of imorality, or Heresey has ever been exhibited, before any of the church Judicatures. Having waited in vain more than four years, in the mean time, petitioning the general assembly for a redress of grievances, and a restoration of our violated rights, have, and do hereby agree, and determine, to constitute into a presbytery, known by the name of the Cumberland presbytery. On the following conditions (to wit) all candidates for the ministry, who may hereafter be licensed by this presbytery; and all the licentiates, or probationers who may hereafter be ordained by this presbytery; shall be required before such licensure, and ordination, to receive, and adopt the confession and discipline of the presbyterian church, except the idea of fatality, that seems to be taught under the misterious doctrine of predes
tination. It is to be understood, however, that such as can clearly receive the confession, without an exception,shall not be required to make any. Moreover, all licentiates,before they are set apart to the whole work of the ministry (or ordained) shall be required to undergo an examination, on English Grammer, Geography, Astronomy, natural, & moral philosophy, and church history. The presbytery may also require an examination on all, or any part, of the above branches of literature, before licensure if they deem it expedient.”