The Cane Ridge Revival

The Cane Ridge Revival

Some called it America’s Pentecost.

THE STATE of the American frontier in the late 1700s was one of growing religious indifference. Christianity was on the decline as settlers began to experience economic success.

Settlers went to the frontier to get land, not religion. Referring to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1795, Methodist James Smith feared that “the Universalists, joining with the Deists, had given Christianity a deadly stab hereabouts.”

James McGready arrived in Kentucky in 1798 to pastor three small frontier Presbyterian churches. His fiery preaching, with its vivid descriptions of heaven and hell, shook the apathy from his congregation. When the Red River church started to plan its annual Communion service in 1800, it decided to invite other local Presbyterian and Methodist churches to participate. The typically reverent, quiet Communion service of Presbyterianism turned surprisingly emotional and ecstatic. The ministers and parishioners alike were amazed at how God worked in their midst. Although somewhat wary of emotionalism, the Presbyterian and Methodist ministers began to plan a larger Communion service weekend for the following summer at Cane Ridge.

Word of the upcoming camp meeting spread throughout the frontier, and on August 6, 1801, the Cane Ridge Revival began. For seven days thousands of people descended on the Cane Ridge meetinghouse in Bourbon County, Kentucky, about 20 miles west of Lexington. They gathered together to worship, fellowship, and celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Friday and Saturday were solemnly observed, devoted to fasting and praying in preparation for Sunday’s Communion. But as thousands more than expected arrived, the crowds grew restless and sabotaged the traditional Presbyterian routine. Preachers began to take the stage one after the other, with the large crowd growing into a frenzy on occasion . Some ministers were encouraging ecstasy and emotionalism, while others were fighting to maintain control of their audience and to return the focus to the solemnity of the Lord’s Supper.

The excitement of the crowd won out. Large numbers of people were crying, shrieking, fainting, and convulsing in religious ecstasy. This went on for days. Although all of the ministers were pleased that so many had turned out and that apathy wasn’t an issue, there were heated disagreements over whether the preachers should be trying to stir up emotionalism with their preaching.

The Cane Ridge meeting was both a beginning and an end. It was the end of the long-preserved Scotch-Irish Presbyterian tradition of lengthy, highly ritualized large-group Communion services. This was the first of such services in the New World, and the emotional events of Cane Ridge served to force the end of that tradition. The Cane Ridge meeting was also the beginning of a new institution, organized camp meetings and revivals that turned the American frontier from apathy back to Christianity.

Estimates of attendance at Cane Ridge vary widely from ten thousand to twenty-five thousand with from one thousand to three thousand reported conversions. The banner year for camp meetings was 1811 when as many as one-third of all Americans attended at least one such meeting.

Reflection

How do you think you would have reacted to the Cane Ridge Revival if you had been there? Does the outward display of emotions in worship services make you feel ill at ease, or does it enhance your worship experience?

Shout with joy to the Lord, O earth!

Worship the Lord with gladness.

Come before him, singing with joy.

Acknowledge that the Lord is God!

He made us, and we are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving;

Go into his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and bless his name.

For the Lord is good.

His unfailing love continues forever,

And his faithfulness continues to each generation.

Psalm 100