Part I - American 19th Century Revival of Prophetic Interpretation Among Men of All Faiths, 1800-1844

CHAPTER ONE: The Background of the American Denominations

I. Setting the Stage for Coming Events

The unique developments that took place in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century ^{1In this initial background chapter, heavy draft is made upon such recognized authorities as Sidney E. Mead, of the University of Chicago; William W. Sweet, formerly of the University of Chicago, and now of the Southern Methodist University; Ernest Sutherland constitute the basic sources, as in the previous volumes of Prophetic Faith.} and the movements that arose out of those throbbing decades represent the culmination of the incipient but insistent influences of the past. They would have been unthinkable, if not entirely impossible, back in the first two centuries of American history, or at any time in an Old World setting. And the distinctive currents and cross currents of nineteenth-century American prophetic interpretation can be understood only in the light of the American situation in its historical background.PFF4 15.1

Tracing with sweeping strokes the over-all picture of certain basic trends in North America from the days of the landing of our Colonial forefathers—with a glance back to antecedent Old World conditions—we shall then go on to the crucial decades of the first half of the nineteenth century*—the period of our special quest in tracing the progressive development of prophetic interpretation at that time.PFF4 15.2