The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

by Roger Finke

But who would come? Few were willing, and so these denominations always were short of clergy-a fact that hindered the churching of the colonies. Worse yet, in light of the constant complaints from their parishioners, we must suspect that many if not most who did come seemed lacking in energy, morals, or even authentic credentials. Edwin S. Gaustad (1987, p. 15) has reported frequent grumbling by Anglican vestrymen "about clergy that left England to escape debts or wives or onerous duties, seeing Virginia as a place of retirement or refuge." In 1724 Giles Rainsford, an Anglican clergyman in Maryland, sent this dispatch concerning three of his colleagues to the Bishop of London: "Mr. Williamson is grown notorious and consumate in villainy. He really is an original for drinking and swearing. Mr. Donaldson is so vile that the other day, being sent for to a dying person, came drunk, and the poor expiring soul, seeing his hopeful parson in that condition, refused the Sacrament at his hands and died without it. Mr. Maconchie is a mere nuisance, and makes ye church stink. He fights, and drinks on all occasions, and as I am told alienas permolet uxores [forces his attentions on the wives of others]" (in Ritchie, 1976, p. 145). Later in the century George Whitefield ([17561 1969) noted in his journal that the Church of England might "flourish" in the colonies "were her ministers found faithful" (p. 386). Having heard of plans by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Forei...