The Reformation

Movements to "purify" the institutional church have existed since the very beginning.  It is possible to see all of the ecumenical councils as responses to disagreements about what the church should be or how it should act.  In the 16th Century, however, these disagreements with the church leaders in Rome merged with a growing sense of nationalism to create what we now call the Protestant Reformation.

In 1517, Martin Luther posted a list of 95 theses or debating points on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany.  These debating points related to his disagreements on the church's sale of indulgences (documents stating that the Pope would forgive a specific sin for the bearer of the certificate).  At first the response had been like any other internal disagreement.  But it escalated dramatically.

During this time several theologians and distinct ways of understanding the Church emerged.  Most significant for our branch of the Church were John Calvin, a Frenchman working in Geneva, Switzerland; Ulrich Zwingli, in Zurich, Switzerland; and John Knox a Scotsman who studied with Calvin and returned to preach in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Eventually the Reformation movement coalesced into two main theological streams with followers of the Luther's teaching in Scandinavia and Germany and followers of Calvin's teaching in Scotland, England, Holland, and France.

In time the hierarchy in Rome reformed the worst of the abuses in what is known as the Counter-Reformation or the Catholic Reformation, but by then the rupture was complete.

We now see the Reformation as a success for the theological  inquiry it spawned and the public interest in spiritual things it encouraged; however, it was a terrible blow to the larger mission of the church and a source of much division, hatred, and violence.  The Thirty Years War and the greatest abuses of the Inquisition have their roots in this division.

As Presbyterians we now see our differences with other denominations not as superiorities but as gifts we give to the larger church.  Our distinctive theology and form of government are examples we can provide the larger church of a way of being the church that is more inclusive and less hierarchical.  Additionally, we gladly receive the gifts of other denominations' distinctives in theology, liturgy, aesthetics, forms of ministry and such.  These denominational distinctives are valuable.  They are sometimes complementary and sometimes corrective but hopefully the conversation among them makes us better able "to glorify God and enjoy God forever." (Westminster Catechism)

Presbyterians in the United States
 

Here's a diagram (from the Presbyterian Historical Society) of the different relationships that are part of our American Presbyterian history.  The red highlight indicates the denominational history of St. James Presbyterian Church.  You may click on the diagram to see a larger image of it.

Presbyterians in Illinois

Rev. John E. Finley, a Presbyterian minister from Chester County, Penn., to Mason County, Ky., coveted the privilege of being the first to plant the Church of Christ upon the territory of the future great State of Illinois. . . .  In 1797, Mr. Finley descended the Ohio River in a keel-boat, with several of his neighbors, members of the Presbyterian Church, and ascended the Mississippi, and landed at Kaskaskia. . . . Mr. Finley probably had ultimate reference to a mission among the Indians. He preached the Gospel, catechised and baptised several of the "red men." But, in short time, he was led to abandon the enterprise....

During the years 1810, 1811, and also in 1814 and 1816, Rev. James McGrady spent a considerable time in the southern counties of Indian[a] and in Illinois, and in 1816, or some accounts say, in 1814, Mr. McGrady organized Sharon Church in White County. This was the first Presbyterian Church in Illinois.

From the History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois, 1879

Presbyterians in Chicago

In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit priest, and Louis Jolliet, a Canadian explorer and mapmaker, were the first Europeans to visit the site we now know as Chicago.  In 1696 Father Francois Pinet, a Jesuit missionary, founded the Mission of the Guardian Angel at the mouth of the Chicago River. The mission was abandoned in 1700.  There is a gap in our knowledge of what was happening in Chicago until 1779 when Jean Baptiste Point du Sable established the first permanent settlement at what is now Chicago.  He settled at the mouth of the Chicago River just east of the present Michigan Avenue Bridge on the north bank.

The first Protestant services in what is now Chicago were held October 9, 1825 by the Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist minister.  The first Presbyterian services were held when Philo Carpenter, a Presbyterian druggist, who was treating the troops at Fort Dearborn for cholera, would gather his friends together on Sundays and read a sermon.   He began this practice soon after he arrived in July of 1832.  His log cabin drugstore was near the east end of the present Lake Street Bridge.

The first Presbyterian Church in what is now Chicago was established in 1833, four years before the city was incorporated.  The Rev. Jeremiah Porter, preached the church's inaugural sermon to a congregation mostly of soldiers gathered in the carpenter's shop of Fort Dearborn.  They later erected a small wooden building at the corner of Clark and Lake and held their first service there on January 1, 1834.  The entire building (26x40 feet) would fit inside the sanctuary of St. James Presbyterian Church.  Rev. Porter later became known for his powerful sermons against slavery.

By the 1840s, slavery was a source of much controversy across America.  In that decade, the little congregation that had been founded in the carpenter's shop split into three (First, Second, and Third) Presbyterian Churches over slavery.  They were all opposed to the practice of owning human beings but differed in how they proposed to see it end. The members of Third Church were the most militant willing even to go to war to abolish slavery.

Philo Carpenter, one of the founding members of the original congregation, helped found Third Presbyterian Church.  Carpenter, it is now known, was a very active member of the underground railroad helping about 200 slaves escape to freedom in Canada.  It is important to remember that opposition to slavery was a religious issue before it became a political one.  Many Christians were willing to go to prison to oppose slavery.

In early 1851, Philo Carpenter and the majority of Third Presbyterian voted to abstain from participating in the meetings of the presbytery because of the church's "failure to discipline those guilty of holding their fellow-men in bondage."  When the Presbytery of Chicago removed them they founded the First Congregational Church of Chicago.

In 1859 through the efforts of Cyrus McCormick, the faculty of the Hanover College Theological School was enticed to relocate from New Albany, Indiana to Chicago where it eventually renamed itself McCormick Theological Seminary.  In 1876, after several failed attempts, Chicago Presbyterians opened Lake Forest College.

On Sunday evening October 8, 1871, a fire broke out at the intersection of DeKovan and Clinton Streets.  By Tuesday morning when the fire had burned itself out, a 3.5 square mile area from 22nd Street to Fullerton and from Halsted to Lake Michigan was in ruins.  At least 300 people died in the fire and 100,000 people were homeless.  The fire stopped just outside the property of McCormick Theological Seminary and for many days the lawn and all its buildings were used to house persons who were homeless because of the fire.

In 1883 prompted by the Rush Medical College Faculty, several wealthy Presbyterians organized the Presbyterian Hospital.  They built a 250 bed facility on the Rush Medical College's land.  Later the two institutions merged with St. Luke's Hospital (Episcopal) and founded what became the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center.

Adapted from Presbyterians in Chicago: 150 Years of Christ's People Making a Difference,
Presbytery of Chicago, 1983.

For Further Study

Presbyterian Historical Society