The Old School–New School controversy was a schism of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America that took place in 1837 and lasted for over 20 years.
The New School derived from the reinterpretation of Calvinism by New England Congregationalist theologians Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy, and wholly embraced revivalism.
Though there was much diversity among them, the Edwardsian Calvinists commonly rejected what they called "Old Calvinism" in light of their understandings of God, the human person, and the Bible.
It also resulted in a difference in doctrinal commitment and views among churches in close fellowship, leading to suspicion and controversy.
[citation needed] Collectively, the growth of Unitarianism, the revival movement, and abolitionism introduced tensions among Presbyterian leaders.
[4]: 1–4 When the Harvard Divinity School Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, acting president Eliphalet Pearson and overseer of the college Jedidiah Morse demanded that orthodox men be elected.
His revival meetings created anxiety in a penitent's mind that one could only save his or her soul by submission to the will of God, as illustrated by Finney's quotations from the Bible.
Taylor developed Edwardsian Calvinism further, interpreting regeneration in ways he thought consistent with Edwards and his New England followers and appropriate for the work of revivalism, and used his influence to publicly support the revivalist movement and defend its beliefs and practices against opponents.
The controversy reached a climax at a meeting of the general assembly in Philadelphia in 1836 when the Old School party found themselves in the majority and voted to annul the Plan of Union as unconstitutionally adopted.
They then voted to expel the synods of Western Reserve (which included Oberlin as a part of Lorain County, Ohio), Utica, Geneva, and Genesee, because they were formed on the basis of the Plan of Union.
[8] The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided that the Old School Assembly was the true representative of the Presbyterian church and their decisions would govern.
[11] Theologically, The New School derived from the reconstructions of Calvinism by New England Puritans Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy and wholly embraced revivalism.
Though there was much diversity among them, the Edwardsian Calvinists commonly rejected what they called "Old Calvinism" in light of their understandings of God, the human person and the Bible.
While Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin made the case against slavery, her husband continued to teach at Andover Theological Seminary.
In order to attempt to alleviate the situation, the Assembly added language which clarified that the term "Federal Government" referred to "not any particular administration, or the peculiar opinions of any particular party," but to "the central administration....appointed and inaugurated according to the forms prescribed in the Constitution of the United States..." Inevitably, though, the Southern Old School Presbyterians still departed, and on December 4, 1861, the first General Assembly of the new Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America was held in Augusta, Georgia.
Some old schoolers such as James Henley Thornwell opposed the merger, but Thornwell's death in 1862 removed a significant amount of opposition to merger, and at the 1863 General Assembly of the PCCS, a committee, headed by Robert Lewis Dabney, was formed to confer with a committee formed by the United Synod.
At the same time, the PC-USA also became increasingly lax in doctrinal subscription, and New School attempts to modify Calvinism would become embodied in the 1903 revision of the Westminster Standards.
In time, the PC-USA would eventually welcome the Arminian Cumberland Presbyterians into their fold (1906), and incidents such as the Charles A. Briggs trial of 1893 would become simply a precursor of the fundamentalist–modernist controversy of the 1920s.