Old and New Light

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The terms Old Lights and New Lights (among others) are used in Christian circles to distinguish between two groups who were initially the same, but have come to a disagreement. These terms have been applied in a wide variety of ways, and the meaning must be determined from context. Typically, if a denomination is changing, and some refuse to change, and the denomination splits, those who did not change are referred to as the "Old Lights", and the ones who changed are referred to as the "New Lights".

The terms were first used during the first Great Awakening, which spread through the British North American colonies in the middle of the 18th century. The concept of "new light" refers to receiving grace as described by Jonathan Edwards in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737).^{[citation needed]} Old Lights and New Lights generally referred to Congregationalists in New England who took different positions on the Awakening. New Lights embraced the revivals that spread through the colonies, while Old Lights, suspicious of the revivals (and their seeming threat to authority), wanted to suppress them. Historian Richard Bushman credits the division between Old Lights and New Lights for the creation of political factionalism in Connecticut in the mid-eighteenth century. ^[1] The Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania would experience a similar division during the Great Awakening, with those with those elements of the denomination embracing the revivals called "New Sides" and those opposed to the revivals called "Old Sides." ^[2]

The terms were also used during the Second Great Awakening in America, especially during the debates in New Jersey at Cape May. A series of debates were held in places like Cape May during the early 1700s between the "Old Lights" and the "New Lights" such as Samuel Finley. New Lights were distinctive from the Old Lights in that they were more evangelical and, as historian Patricia Bonomi describes, carried "ferocity peculiar to zealots...with extravagant doctinal and moral enormities."^[3]

The terms were also used in 1833, with "Old Lights" referring to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, when the "New Lights" were the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (now part of the Presbyterian Church in America)

[edit] References

1. ^ Bushman, Richard L. (1967). From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 182-95 & 235-66. 
2. ^ Bonomi, Patricia U. (1986). Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America. New York: Oxford University Press, 139-52. 
3. ^ Bonomi, Patricia U. (1986). Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America. New York: Oxford University Press, 139.