NURTURE VS.

REVIVAL:
HORACE BUSHNELL ON
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
John H. Krahn
Assistant Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church,
Hicksville, New York

Bushneil speaks to this age in many

ways, keeping emotion at the center
without revivalism

I
It is difficult to isolate exactly the birth of revivalism in Ameri-
ca. We look to the ministry of several men and find a composite
beginning. There was Theodoras Jacobus Freylinghuysen and
his pietism in 1720. About the same time the "radical" ministry
of William Tennent was being felt by the institutional church.
During their ministry both men traveled extensively encourag-
ing listeners to receive the life-changing gift of Jesus Christ.
Revivalism came into full bloom during George White field's
seven itinerations through America between 1738 and 1770. It
was also blessed with the dynamic ministry of Jonathan Edwards.
Although there have been periods of greater and lesser revival-
istic expression, revivalism continues as part of the fabric of
American Christianity even into the present. The Charismatic
Renewal making inroads into mainline Christianity today consti-
tutes the current expression of the revivalistic mentality.
Horace Bushnell lived during a period which many call the
Second Awakening. Although he was deeply involved on sever-
al occasions at revival meetings in his early years, he later be-
came a strong spokesman for an alternative system of religious
education. Born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in 1802, he
grew up on the family farm in the village of New Preston. He
enjoyed a normal childhood according to the biography written
Religions Education Vol LXX No 4 July-August 1975

375
376 NURTURE VS. REVIVAL: BUSHNELL

by his daughter, Mary Bushnell Cheney.1 A religious experi-

ence at the age of nineteen helped him decide to attend Yale
College two years later.
Bushnell's experience at Yale was normal and uneventful
from all that we can tell. He graduated and taught for awhile in
a school in Norwich; he then became assistant editor of the New
York Journal of Commerce. In 1829, having returned to Yale as
a tutor in law, he was affected by a revival that swept the cam-
pus. He subsequently decided to study theology. Upon gradu-
ating he entered the Congregational ministry sometime later.
The early part of Bushnell's ministry was pervaded with reli-
gious anxiety and personal insecurity. He yearned to be at
peace with himself and his God. Yet the traditional Calvinist
doctrine did not help him. Although he appreciated aspects of
the revival system, this too failed to be a cure-all for him. He
was a man searching for a clearer understanding of the life of
faith. Having more questions than answers, he had a difficult
time ministering to a congregation who was seeking only an-
swers.
Many of Bushnell's contemporaries looked upon religious
truth as being capable of intellectual demonstration. They ap-
pealed to rational understanding. Bushnell did not find Chris-
tianity completely rational. Having been influenced by Samuel
Coleridge's Aids to Reflection while studying at Yale, Bushnell felt
comfortable with Coleridge's thinking that Christianity was pri-
marily graspable by intuition. Bushnell was more interested in
Christianity's appeal to the ethical and spiritual nature of man
than to his intellectual consciousness. The heart was more cen-
tral to the religious experience than the brain. In his thinking it
was doubtful whether religious truths could ever be demonstrat-
ed to the complete logical satisfaction of the mind.
In 1847 Bushnell published a small book called Discourses on
Christian Nurture. Earlier he had written an essay on "Spiritual
Economy of Revivals of Religion," and "Growth, Not
Conquest, The True Method of Christian Progress." Discourses
On Christian Nurture created the first major controversy in his
theological career. He read it before the Massachusetts Sabbath
School Society, and they requested its publication. The argu-
ments of this volume were later incorporated into Christian Nur-
ture, Bushnell's most noted work. These will be discussed later.
1
Mary Bushnell Cheney, Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1860), Pp. 3-24.
JOHN H. KRAHN 377

But first we must consider what happened early one February

morning in 1848.
On that morning while waking up Bushnell had the inspira-
tion that changed his theological outlook.
On an early morning in February, his wife awoke to hear that the
light they'had waited for, more than they that watch for the morn-
ing, had risen indeed. She asked, "What have you seen?" He re-
plied, "The Gospel." It came to him at last, after all his thought
and study, not as something reasoned out, but as an inspiration — a
revelation from the mind of God himself.
The full meaning of his answer he embodied at once in a sermon
on "Christ the Form of The Soul," from the text, "Until Christ be
formed in you." The very title of this sermon expresses his spiritu-
ally illuminated conception of Christ, as the indwelling, formative
life of the soul — the new-creating power of righteousness for hu-
manity. And this conception was, soon after, more adequately set
forth in his book, "God in Christ."2

Bushnell now concentrated his efforts on reinterpreting Calvin-

istic doctrines in Christocentric rather than theocentric catego-
ries.
In his book, God In Christ, Bushnell wrote of three discoveries
he made along with a preliminary dissertation on language. The
book is too detailed theologically to be considered in this paper.
It is basically a dogmatical study of Christology, yet it is inter-
esting to note some of his comments on current efforts to revive
revivalism. Bushnell thought the efforts somewhat foolish.
Too much hope was put into the desire to restore the fervor of
former years. "God never restores an old thing, or an old state.
If he produces something that has resemblence to an old state, it
will yet be different."3 Even if the past could be restored, Bush-
nell expressed doubt whether it was worth the effort. "Let us
not expect, then, that God will restore revival just as we have
seen them. It is a dull patient that expects always to be cured by
the same medicine. "4 Compared with the true state of Christian
living, Bushnell felt that revivals were of lesser consequence, and
one might even be better off not having them.
When revivalistic meetings came to Hartford, Bushnell sup-
ported them with faint praise and little effort. He therefore be-
came increasingly less popular with his colleagues. His critics
even sought to bring him to trial for heresy. No less a light than
2
Ibid., p. 192.
3
Horace Bushnell, God In Christ (Hartford: Brown and Parsons, 1849), p. 295.
4
Ibid., p. 295.
378 NURTURE VS. REVIVAL: BUSHNELL

the revivalist Charles G. Finney tried to reconcile Bushnell with

his critics. He had little success.

II
During his lifetime the Sunday School Movement came into its
own and the revivalism system caught its second breath. Ac-
cording to Robert Lynn, these two movements were so powerful
that comparatively little attention was given to Bushnell's em-
phasis on the home as the primary agency of Christian Educa-
tion.5 Even though his popularity was limited during his life-
time, Bushnell's book, Christian Nurture, has become somewhat of
a classic. Christian Nurture has exerted more influence on the
modern theory of Christian education than perhaps any other
single work. But Bushnell's ideas had to wait until the twen-
tieth century to get their full play. During his life only Luther-
an, Anglican and some Reformed groups preferred Bushnellian
type nurture over Finneyian revivalism. Today Bushnell is con-
sidered by many as the father of religious education.
Christian education for Bushnell was a process that began at
birth. It took place in the context of the child's total environ-
ment. So complete was Bushnell's proposed educational system
"that the child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself
as being otherwise."6 In his system Bushnell found revivalism
useful only for those who had not received Christian nurture.
The expectation should not be that the child grow up in sin to
be converted after he comes to a mature age. He should rather
be open to a world that is "spiritually renewed." He need not
remember the time he went through a "technical experience" of
conversion. Rather a child, according to Bushnell, should be
trained from birth to be a Christian and to love what is good
from his earliest years.
In a spiritually emotional age, Bushnell called the churches to
their duties in domestic life. He saw great power in the seem-
ingly insignificant events of daily life. According to him a con-
stant nurturing of love as the family went about its daily living
was the most significant influence in a child's life.
In his day the emphasis of Christian education was to teach
children the lessons of Scripture history and the doctrines of the
5
Robert W. Lynn, Protestant Strategies in Education (New York: Association Press,
1964), Pp. 22-24.
6
Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947), p.
4.
JOHN H. KRAHN 379

church for later use at maturity. This seemed neither right nor
logical to Bushnell. Looking only to future faith suggests to the
child that he be no different than the child who receives no in-
struction. Bushnell stated, "It does not accord with the known
character of God to suppose that he appoints a scheme of educa-
tion which trains children in sin. "7 He thought it more desirable
that a child show his Christian character throughout his child-
hood as well as in maturity. In his early years a child is pliable,
and Bushnell felt his Christian character could be more easily
formed at that time.
Bushnell took issue with those who perceived childhood as
being a time of diminutive adulthood. The revivalists consid-
ered children to be as responsible as adults for their moral and
spiritual actions. They expected children to understand the
ideas of their parent's theological discourses. Overlooking the
developmental sequence of the child, they expected the child to
respond with the faith potential of an adult. In the process they
also overlooked the parent's authority in shaping the attitudes,
commitments, and actions of the child.
Bushnell also argued against the prevailing idea that the act
of becoming a Christian must be the product of a separate and
absolutely independent choice. He could not see how one be-
comes a complete moral agent at one moment when a moment
before he was not. Children for Bushnell are always in the pro-
cess of becoming and need to be nurtured and cultivated along
the way. Parents are most important to the process. The
Christian life and spirit are to flow into the child from the par-
ents adding to whatever spiritual strength was already in him.
Not only does the child receive his virtue, "the act of becoming
a Christian," from his parents but also from the rest of his fami-
ly, church, state, school and society in general. But the family
remain central to the process.
According to Bushnell the best way to teach a child Christian
values was for the parents to practice them. He felt there was
too much preaching and not enough acting. To say one thing
and then do the opposite only confuses the child. Even modern
psychologists say that 75% of the values a child learns are taught
by what a parent does rather than what he says. For Bushnell
the mother's teaching is not as much by words as by "the atmo-
sphere of love and patience she breathes." The first problem for

7
Ibid., p. 25.
380 NURTURE VS. REVIVAL: BUSHNELL

parents is not how to teach their children how to be Christians

but to be Christians themselves . . . there lies both the diffi-
culty and the point of departure.
When does Christian nurture begin? At the beginning, ac-
cording to Bushnell. As the infant is lifted to its mother's breast
for his first meal, he also receives his first taste of Christian nur-
ture. Bushnell sounds very Piagetian in his description of the
child's early learning. Bushnell distinguishes between the "age
of impressions" and the "age of tuitional influences." In anoth-
er place he speaks of these as the "age of existence in the will of
the parent," and the "age of will and personal choice in the
child." A further distinction is made between the age prior to
language and the age of language. There was a common as-
sumption in his day that during the age of impressions nothing
much could be done for one's religious character. How radical
Bushnell sounded when he responded,
Just contrary to this, I suspect, and I think it can also be shown by
sufficient evidence, that more is done to effect, or fix, the moral and
religious character of children, before the age of language than af-
ter; that the age of impressions, when parents are commonly wait-
ing, in idle security, or trifling away their time in mischievous in-
discretions, or giving up their children to the chance of such
keeping as nurses and attendants may exercise, is in fact their gold-
en opportunity; when more is likely to be done for their advantage
or damage than in all the instruction and discipline of their minority
afterward.8

For Bushnell more could be done for a child's immortality in the

first three years of his life than in all his years of discipline after-
wards.
Scripture was the formal curriculum for Bushnell's system of
Christian teaching of children. He saw no end to the subjects of
interest which could be raised by parents and children as they
studied Scripture lessons. He saw no need to go outside of
Scripture for material although he did not go so far as to say that
nothing should be taught apart from Scripture.
Bushnell was strongly against catechetical memorization.
He felt that this method fastened or anchored a child into some
fixed faith. He felt this deplorable, for many times it encased
the child's soul into a particular shell of opinion rather than fas-
tening him to the Lord. He felt the child should first become a
Christian before he becomes a Presbyterian or something else.
8
Ibid., p. 201.
JOHN H. KRAHN 381

The child should be anchored into the Christian faith. In the

early stages of learning he could memorize such things as the
catholic creeds, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and
simple scriptural passages that he could understand. As the child
recites these, Bushnell saw in the recitation itself the perfor-
mance of a religious act or confession. Favoring a large empha-
sis upon the understanding of Scripture, Bushnell opposed every
form of indoctrination through catechetical memorization.
Another interesting facet of Bushnell's educational genius
was his advocacy of graded methods and materials of instruction
in Christian education. He recommended greater freedom in
conversation about religious beliefs. Children's questions were
to be answered and adolescent doubts pursued.
The effective teacher is characterized by Bushnell:
It is to be noted that the most genuine teaching, or only genuine
teaching, will be that which interprets the truth to the child's feel-
ing by living example, and makes him love the truth afterwards for
the teacher's sake. It is a great thing for a child, in all the after life,
to know of whom he learned these things, and to see a godly father,
or a faithful mother, in them. No truth is really taught by words,
or interpreted by intellectual and logical methods; truth must be
lived into meaning, before it can be truly known. Examples are the
only sufficient commentaries; living epistles the only fit expounders
of written epistles. When the truly Christian father and mother
teach as being taught of God, when their prayers go into their lives
and their lives into their doctrine, when their goodness melts into
the memory, and heaven, too, breathes into the associated thoughts
and sentiments to make a kind of blessed memory for all they teach,
then we see the beautiful office they are in, fulfilled.9

It was more important for Bushnell that "feeling" be taught than

doctrine. The teacher was to bathe the child in his or her own
feeling of love for God and dependence on him. Gradually the
teacher would open to the child the more difficult Christian doc-
trines.

Ill
Most aspects of Christian Nurture are as timely today as they were
when it was published over 100 years ago. Many of its insights
parallel those of modern psychology and sociology. With the
possible exception of some of Jonathan Edward's writings, no
American book has more right to be called a religious and educa-

9
Ibid., Pp. 318 & 319.
382 NURTURE VS. REVIVAL: BUSHNELL

tional classic. It sharply challenged the extreme individualism,

the reliance upon emotional revivals, and the arbitrary supernat-
uralism which had characterized the thought and practice of
most of the American churches from the middle of the eigh-
teenth century. But its message was positive more than critical,
and much of it will be tunelessly true.
Throughout his life Bushnell was involved in a variety of
problems and issues in education. These included Church-
related subjects such as the proper training of ministers. Al-
though it is not in the scope of this paper, it should be mentioned
that his interests were very broad. He wrote, for instance,
about the role of science in education. He developed the ration-
ale for a college in a frontier society and was instrumental in
founding the University of California. He participated actively
in the common school reform effort in Connecticut and person-
ally encouraged Henry Barnard in his work. Bushnell was a
frequent speaker on behalf of the improvement of schools
throughout Connecticut. A sermon published by Bushnell in
1853 sought an approach that would include both Protestant and
Roman Catholic children in the public school without forcing
either group to deny the uniqueness of its faith. Bushnell con-
tended that the processes of nurture shaped the life of the indi-
vidual through the educational configuration of family, school,
church, friends, and other institutions and relationships within
the larger community.
After the Civil War and until his death in 1876, Bushnell was
very popular as a speaker and guest lecturer. As one assesses his
contribution to religious education, one is impressed with the
middle twentieth century thinking of this nineteenth century ed-
ucator. He presented a reasonable alternative to the revivalistic
tide without being inundated by it. Because of Horace Bushnell
the concept of Christian nurture has taken its place alongside re-
vivalism in the fabric of American Christianity. Even more, it
has replaced revivalism as the dominant influence in religious ed-
ucation.

10
Horace Bushnell, "Common School," Building Eras In Religion (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1881), Pp. 71-105.
 ^ s
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