The Genesis of Central Yearly Meeting

The Genesis of Central Yearly Meeting David E. W. Holden* Of all the yearly meetings in North America probably the least well known is Central Yearly Meeting. This small yearly meeting, composed mainly of rural, small town and laboring people, came into existence in reaction to the insecurity and rapid changes which took place following World War I. Earlier, post Civil War changes resulting from the evangelical and the holiness movements produced major changes in forms of worship and belief.1 The new patterns of worship included prayer meetings, revivals, the use of the mourner's bench and music. As an integral part of the change was a renewal of belief in the importance of the Bible after what came to be regarded as a tragic loss of its importance.2 * David Holden is associate professor of sociology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. ** Acknowledgment is made hereby to the contribution to this paper by Joyce Mardock Holden without whose help it could not have been written. Recognition should also be given to The Lilly Library of Earlham College and to Western Yearly Meeting for allowing the use of their archives, as well as to the people at Union Bible Seminary for the time they gave to provide the author with their views. 1.For an account of the development of evangelicalism and revivalism see: Smith, Timothy L., Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War. Smith distinguishes between what he referred to as "Evangelical Arminianism" and "Evangelical Calvinism". The difference between the two seems to him to be " . . .more a matter of custom than of creed. . . (p. 33)" He includes Friends among the former. He finds "The cutting edge of American Christianity after 1850" to be the revival (p. 45). This movement began among the Methodists, became typical of the West and then moved East in the years between 1840 and 1857. Before the Civil War Presbyterians became affected by it, even though there was some strong anti-revival feeling in some rural sections of the church (see p. 62). Dieter, Melvin E., The Holiness Revival ofthe Nineteenth Century: Studies in Evangelicalism, No. 1 (Metuchen, N.J. & London: The Scarecrow Press, 1980). The Friends to whom he gives prominence in this movement after the Civil War were Robert Pearsall and Hannah Whitall Smith for having ". . .ignited the holiness revival movement in England. . ." (p. 159), and Dougan Clark and Seth and Huida Rees who were ". . .founders of the International Apostolic Holiness Union which later became the Pilgrim Holiness Church. . ." (p. 191). 2.Russell, Elbert, The History of Quakerism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942), 281; and Thomas, Prof. Allan C. and Richard H. Thomas, A History ofFriends in America (Philadelphia: John C. Weston, 1895), 121. A circular issued by the Bible Association of Friends in 1832 found that four hundred families in the Orthodox body . . . were without a complete copy of Scriptures, while one hundred and thirty-eight had not even a New Testament . . . ." See "The Friend" (Philadelphia), vol. II, 413 ff.; and, vol. V., 268-270. 42 The Genesis of Central Yearly Meeting43 The changes produced divisions in Iowa and Western yearly meetings in 1877, Kansas in 1879, and Canada beginning in 1879 and ending in 1881.3 These divisions were complex, coming for reasons which included a feeling held by conservative Friends that they were in danger of betraying their original identity, and violating their concept of Friends' distinctiveness. After the divisions, many orthodox Friends felt the need for action to promote a renewal of unity in the Society of Friends. The idea appeared as early as 1860, and finally led to Indiana Yearly Meeting's call for a general conference of Friends to be held in 1887.4 The invitation to attend the conference was accepted by representatives from Indiana, London, Dublin, New England, Baltimore, North Carolina, Ohio, New York, Western, Iowa, Canada, and Kansas Yearly Meetings.5 The most important result of this conference was the production of the Richmond Declaration of Faith, a compilation of several previous statements. The work of writing it took a committee, headed by the English Friend J. Bevan Braithwaite, only a few days during the...