Claim. Between 1800 and 1850, “upstart” American denominations (Methodist, Baptist, Christian, African-American churches) grew explosively while the established state churches (Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Catholic) stagnated — by 1850 the new denominations constituted 2/3 of Protestant ministers and members, and Methodist preachers alone outnumbered Congregationalists by more than ten to one.
Elaboration. From historical-background:
- Methodist membership: 250,000 in 1820, doubled in the next decade.
- Baptist churches: grew from 500 (1783) to 2,500 (1813) — a tenfold multiplication of churches in 30 years.
- Total American ministers: 1,800 in 1775 → ~40,000 in 1845.
- Freewill Baptists (a new body) had as many ministers as the Episcopalians in the early 19th century.
- Antimission Baptists outnumbered Roman Catholic priests and Lutheran ministers combined.
- Congregationalists (Puritan tradition, set up as state church in CT and MA) — by 1845 outnumbered by Methodist preachers 10:1.
The causal hypothesis Hendricks foregrounds (citing Hatch): the state churches’ “doctrinal rigor, institutional formalism, and insistence on having a thoroughly educated clergy” stifled creativity and responsiveness to a changing environment. The upstart denominations — staffed by self-taught Baptists, Methodists, “New Light” Presbyterians and Independent Congregationalists — developed new methods (revivalism’s “new measures,” the altar call, the “anxious bench,” camp meetings, popular music styles, plain messages) that delivered direct experience of God’s authority.
For Hendricks’s argument: the same dynamic operates today. Mega-churches are nearly all independents, not affiliated with mainstream denominations. The lesson for UC: institutional formalism is the path of decline; lay-empowered populist forms are the path of growth.
See also. populist-church, hatch-democratization-of-american-christianity