Introduction

Evangelicalism was a fact of life growing up. I grew up in a Baptist Church in my hometown of Smithland, Kentucky. Everyone I knew was a member of some form of the Evangelical faith. Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian: all Evangelicals. And we were far from different. Smithland boarders the Jackson Purchase region and has always had deep ties to it. The norm for the region was some from of Evangelical Christianity with the occasional Catholic. Though we had our differences, we all got along fine and had no doubt we would see our neighbors of a different denomination on the other side with us. When I went to college, I entered a new culture. Most of my friends and classmates came from St. Louis or Louisville. But what I found shocking was many of them did not understand the Evangelical faith. I see much the same elsewhere. In media, culture, politics, the news, Evangelicals were talked about, but little understood. I hope here to help show more of what Evangelicalism is. The best way I can do this is by telling where it came from, and how it came to dominate the Jackson Purchase region. Both “where did it come from?” and “how did it get here?” is what I hope to cover. The basic argument is Evangelicalism developed during the First Great Awakening as a way of capturing the spirit of the revivals and then spread into the Jackson Purchase region through migration, missionary work, and revivals during the Second Great Awakening.

Evangelicalism is also a tricky thing to pin down as well. For a definition I will use a loose definition used by the church historian Mark Noll. Churches that adhere to the idea of conversion, use the Bible as spiritual truth, emphasis on missionary work, and the centralism of the crucifixion for salvation will be the criteria.[1] More or less a theology that harnesses the spirit of revivals and conversions. As a central part of this area’s culture, it is important to both know and understand its religion to better understand the area.

Westward: Movement into Western Kentucky

Around 1800, only around 10 percent of the white population of the South were members of a church.[1] Nevertheless, The Baptists were present in Kentucky by 1776. The first Methodist Church in Kentucky was present on the records by 1786.[2] But the status quo of a few lights in a religion free area was soon to change. The major event that changed all this was the Great Cain Ridge Revival. It was part of a series of camp meetings. These camp meetings were more or less frontier revivals. People would gather together to have a high energy revival. The Cain Ridge revival would have lasting effects, essentially causing a Great Awakening across the South.[3] This period of frontier revival had died down by 1805, but it had made Evangelical religion a fixture of Kentucky.[4] Exactly how this theology came to the Jackson Purchase was from three main methods: migration, missionary work, and more revivals.

The first method to be analyzed is migration. The oldest churches, and by extension the ones established via migration, come to us from Livingston County. In 1805, Salem Church (today Old Salem Missionary Baptist Church) was established on June 22, in the home of Matthew Sellers. The area did not yet have a Baptist church, and many from the surrounds area agreed to found one in the town of Salem. According to the County’s history the “People brought their letters from their old homes in Virginia, the Carolinas, and other places.”[5] This church was the mother church for most the area’s other early Baptist churches.[6] As more Baptist settled in the area more churches were needed for them.

Another example of Evangelical theology spreading into the Jackson Purchase via migration is from family histories. In a letter written in December of 1895, a man by the name of John Leonidas Vick recounted the history of his family up to that date. He recounts that his grandfather was a “a local Methodist Preacher and a good man.”[7] At this point his grandfather was residing in Virginia, but later his parents immigrated to Western Kentucky and members of the family were recorded as members of the Baptist Church and others as members of the Methodist Church, implying that they were already of the Evangelical faith when they arrived.[8]

The second way that Evangelicalism established itself in Western Kentucky was via missionary work. The Circuit Riders, with their traditions going back to Wesley, established and spread their religion in this way. The Circuit Riders now ministered to several churches and became the stewards of these congregations.[9] The example of a church being founded in such manner is Smithland United Methodist Church. The members of the Church recount that the church was founded in 1842 by a Methodist Circuit Rider.[10] It occurred in the home of B.O. Thrift and the Circuit Rider was J.N. Temple.[11] This was an example of missionary work establishing a new church where there had not been a Methodist one.

The final and more emblematic of the ways that Evangelicalism spread into Western Kentucky was via the revivals themselves. The Methodist would formalize the Camp Meetings from the Cain Ridge Revival. The Baptist would institute a similar form of revival, but to a lesser extent.[12] Perhaps the most fascinating example of the revivals was an organization by the name of Old Hampton Camp Meeting Grounds. This was an open-air church in Hampton, KY organized in 1896 and held around 3,000 in attendance. It was more or less a revival church formed due to an increase in religious interest. The text describing it seems to imply that it was a revival atmosphere. Today the church is gone, and the land is presently pasture grounds.[13] Though it is no longer there it was an Evangelical organization that took revival seriously and it helped in the foundations of other churches in the area.[14]

Conclusions

Evangelicalism did not become a central part of the American or global experience over-night. Coming out of the discontentment of the eighteenth-century Protestant world, and organized by the leaders of the revivals, it sought to capture and harness the energy of the great revivals and transform them into a theology that crossed many denominations and boarders. Then later on the example of the Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky serves as a show case for how it spread. Through migration, missionary work, and the continuation of the revivals Evangelicalism found a home. In many way the energy that sprang into action in the 1730’s and 1740’s never went away. It simply became more organized and directed all leading up to one of the most influential and fascinating stories in the history of the world and touching the lives of people even in small towns in Western Kentucky.

Additional Reading

A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God , Jonathan Edwards

The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys, Mark A. Noll

History and Families: Livingston County, Kentucky Volume I (Most counties of Western Kentucky have published books like this for each county, including history of individual churches)

The American South: A History Volume I, Fourth Edition, William J. Cooper Jr. & Thomas E. Terrill

A New History of Kentucky, Lowell H. Harrison & James C. Klotter