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Cumberland Presbyterian Church
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination spawned by the Second Great Awakening. In 2023, it had 33 223 active members and 646 congregations,. The word Cumberland comes from the Cumberland River valley where the church was founded.
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 in North America split between the Old Side (mainly congregations of Scottish and Scotch-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 experiential techniques championed by the Great Awakening. The formal split between Old Side and New Side lasted only 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. Drawing on New Side precedents, Cumberland Presbytery in Kentucky began ordaining men without the educational background required by the Kentucky Synod. This was bad enough for supporters of the Old Side, but what was even worse was that the presbytery allowed ministers to offer a qualified assent to the Westminster Confession, only requiring them to swear assent to the Confession "so far as they deemed it agreeable to the Word of God". Old Siders in the Kentucky Synod (which had oversight over Cumberland Presbytery) sought to discipline the presbytery. Presbytery and synod were involved in a protracted dispute which touched upon the nature of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Ultimately, the 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 in the United States of America (PCUSA) and others in the area when the Kentucky Synod dissolved the original Cumberland Presbytery. 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.
On February 4, 1810, near what later became Burns, Tennessee, in the log cabin home of the Rev. Samuel McAdow, he, the Rev. Finis Ewing and the Rev. Samuel King reorganized Cumberland Presbytery. 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.
A replica of the Rev. Samuel McAdow's cabin now stands where the three founded the church, and a sandstone chapel commemorating the event has been erected nearby. These two buildings are two of the main attractions in the surrounding Montgomery Bell State Park. An outgrowth of the Great Revival of 1800, also called the Second Great Awakening, the new denomination arose to minister to the spiritual needs of a pioneer people who turned from the doctrine of predestination as they interpreted it to embrace the so-called "Whosoever Will" gospel of the new church. The Red River Meeting House in Logan County, Kentucky, marks the location of the revival meeting thought by some to have given rise to the first organized Cumberland Presbyterian congregation.
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.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, a primarily African-American denomination, split from the primarily white Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874. Relations between the two groups have for the most part been very cordial, and many of the CPCA ministers have trained at Memphis Theological Seminary. A reunion attempt on the part of both denominations failed to win approval in the late 1980s. The African American church wanted equal representation on all boards and agencies, feeling that otherwise they would be swallowed up by the larger white church. The joint committee drafting the plan of union agreed and made such a stipulation in its reporting to the General Assembly. However, many in the white, rural, southern-based church were not willing to cede that much power and balked at the plan. No other plans for union have been attempted. However, the two denominations share a confession of faith and cooperate in many common ministries.
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Cumberland Presbyterian Church
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination spawned by the Second Great Awakening. In 2023, it had 33 223 active members and 646 congregations,. The word Cumberland comes from the Cumberland River valley where the church was founded.
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 in North America split between the Old Side (mainly congregations of Scottish and Scotch-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 experiential techniques championed by the Great Awakening. The formal split between Old Side and New Side lasted only 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. Drawing on New Side precedents, Cumberland Presbytery in Kentucky began ordaining men without the educational background required by the Kentucky Synod. This was bad enough for supporters of the Old Side, but what was even worse was that the presbytery allowed ministers to offer a qualified assent to the Westminster Confession, only requiring them to swear assent to the Confession "so far as they deemed it agreeable to the Word of God". Old Siders in the Kentucky Synod (which had oversight over Cumberland Presbytery) sought to discipline the presbytery. Presbytery and synod were involved in a protracted dispute which touched upon the nature of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Ultimately, the 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 in the United States of America (PCUSA) and others in the area when the Kentucky Synod dissolved the original Cumberland Presbytery. 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.
On February 4, 1810, near what later became Burns, Tennessee, in the log cabin home of the Rev. Samuel McAdow, he, the Rev. Finis Ewing and the Rev. Samuel King reorganized Cumberland Presbytery. 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.
A replica of the Rev. Samuel McAdow's cabin now stands where the three founded the church, and a sandstone chapel commemorating the event has been erected nearby. These two buildings are two of the main attractions in the surrounding Montgomery Bell State Park. An outgrowth of the Great Revival of 1800, also called the Second Great Awakening, the new denomination arose to minister to the spiritual needs of a pioneer people who turned from the doctrine of predestination as they interpreted it to embrace the so-called "Whosoever Will" gospel of the new church. The Red River Meeting House in Logan County, Kentucky, marks the location of the revival meeting thought by some to have given rise to the first organized Cumberland Presbyterian congregation.
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.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, a primarily African-American denomination, split from the primarily white Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874. Relations between the two groups have for the most part been very cordial, and many of the CPCA ministers have trained at Memphis Theological Seminary. A reunion attempt on the part of both denominations failed to win approval in the late 1980s. The African American church wanted equal representation on all boards and agencies, feeling that otherwise they would be swallowed up by the larger white church. The joint committee drafting the plan of union agreed and made such a stipulation in its reporting to the General Assembly. However, many in the white, rural, southern-based church were not willing to cede that much power and balked at the plan. No other plans for union have been attempted. However, the two denominations share a confession of faith and cooperate in many common ministries.