The Genevan Réveil in International Perspective

By Tim Grass, Kenneth J. Stewart, André Encrevé and Mark Noll

The nineteenth-century international religious movement known as the Reveil had a major impact on Protestantism, and particularly on Evangelicalism. That impact is still evident today. Yet as a multi-faceted phenomenon, this movement has not received its due share of scholarly attention. This book offers a collection of essays exploring the international dimensions of the Genevan strand of the Reveil, providing an overview of events and trends, outlining the careers of some of its key figures, and highlighting some of the areas in which it made a contribution to contemporary society. As the first such collection to focus on this movement, it brings together scholars from several countries, with expertise in its various aspects.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781725256569

Book preview

I

Introduction to the Genevan Réveil

Its Origins, Characteristics, and Legacy

Jean D. Decorvet

Introduction

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Geneva experienced a vast movement of religious renewal which contributed to a transformation of the French-speaking Protestant ecclesial landscape. This movement, commonly known as the Genevan Réveil, emerged in two phases between 1816 and 1832, spreading rapidly throughout French-speaking Europe and even beyond. Its scope went beyond the narrow confines of post-Napoleonic Restoration Geneva. By leaving its mark on the main avenues of expression of French-speaking Protestantism in the nineteenth century in fields as diverse as hymnology, catechesis, theological education, missionary endeavor, and philanthropic action, it served as an incubator for the modern French-speaking Evangelical movement and changed the appearance of the Reformed churches, which were forced to rethink their foundations and their mission in the face of this proliferation of strong religious aspirations.

Léon Maury sums up this influence with a formula that has remained famous: An incontestable and undeniably happy influence.¹ Closer to our day, André Encrevé affirms: "If the Réveil has succeeded in transforming the spirituality of French Protestantism in depth, it is because it has been accepted by intelligent and cultured, balanced and realistic men."² And Alice Wemyss recognizes, despite her reservations about the movement, that the Réveil is the spiritual source from which many Protestants still drink. She continues: Its breath was so powerful, that even circles that were resistant were impregnated with it.³

In short, the Réveil movement left its mark on the history of French-speaking Protestantism in the nineteenth century and initiated a redeployment of Protestant forces in France⁴ whose fruits are still being felt in the twenty-first century. Starting in Geneva, it quickly surmounted the geopolitical, linguistic, and even theological barriers of the former Calvinist fortress, first touching France, then other Swiss cantons and the Anglo-Saxon world, passing through German, Dutch, and even Piedmontese territories.

Neither an artificial recreation of the Pietistic and Anglo-Saxon revivals nor the result of the simple voluntarism of its agents, the Réveil was rooted in an environment that offered it the resources and the means to prosper. The international perspectives of this volume will bring to light the motives and mechanisms of a Protestantism on which our era is undoubtedly as dependent as on that of the sixteenth century.⁵

This introduction connects the revival movements then in full flow⁶ with the role of Geneva, so important in the reconfiguration of the French-speaking Protestant landscape. A brief outline of the state of research on the Genevan Réveil is followed by a clarification of terminology and periodization. We then summarize the key events of this spiritual renewal and draw out its general characteristics.

The aim is to place events in a perspective that takes into account the religious, institutional, cultural, and philosophical characteristics of an era marked at one and the same time by the development of science and Romanticism, the psychology of the individual,⁷ and the emergence of secularization.⁸ Despite the inevitable limitations of the present work, we anticipate that it will serve as a useful introduction for those interested in the Genevan Réveil. Thanks are due to the translators of certain chapters, notably Maurits Potappel, who translated Balke’s chapter from Dutch into English, and Jean-Claude Thienpont, who translated that by Heinrichs from German into French and also annotated it.

The State of Historical Research

How the Genevan Réveil is viewed varies according to time, theological standpoint, linguistic region, and sociopolitical context.

Critics and supporters of the Réveil have sometimes made binary generalizations: the former by minimizing the contributions of the latter as purely apologetic in intent; the latter by considering the writings of the former as driven by hostility to ideological or confessional motifs. The historian Ernest Rochat takes this shortcut when he states: Either Protestantism had to remain bogged down in the tradition of the sixteenth century, in this case in Calvinist dogma, or else, under the pressure of its own internal vital principle and following the example of the wider culture, it had to march with the times and move towards an ever higher spirituality.⁹

Rochat applies to this pivotal period in French Protestantism a preconceived theological scheme that delineates between conservatives and progressives. In doing so, he misses the common thread running through the apologetic of francophone Protestantism, for which the Restoration allowed a rethinking of its links to Calvin’s heritage. In France, progressing from a period of reorganization and consolidation under the Empire to a period of reconstruction during the two phases of the Restoration, Protestantism sought to reconsider the framework of its institutions and beliefs in order to respond to the new demands of the time. In Geneva, the former Protestant citadel gave way to a plural and bi-confessional canton, after the accession of Catholic communes; these changes established a territorial continuity with Switzerland, with which the canton of Geneva, newly formed in 1815, was now politically united. The first part of the nineteenth century was thus marked by a certain secularization of society and a laicization of structures and institutions, both political and religious. Geneva Protestantism was therefore confronted with the unavoidable effort of rethinking itself in order to respond to the new demands of the time. The emergence of the Réveil movement would accentuate the breakup of the old mono-confessional paradigm and the privatization of religion.

Recent francophone historiography has reemphasized the eminently religious aspect of this first part of the nineteenth century in Geneva,¹⁰ but this is hardly the result of systematic effort.¹¹ It depends more on the opportunities offered by the documentation, and on the tastes and interests of the teachers and researchers,¹² with the risk of reproducing the binary oppositions or, on the contrary, a partisan reading of the revival movements. If it takes a generally positive view of the fervor and the spiritual as well as social richness of the movement, the same cannot be said of its view of the movement’s theological orientation. Doctrinally, it is most often portrayed as a return to the past,¹³ a reactionary movement,¹⁴ a sort of dark Middle Ages of Protestant piety,¹⁵ or a dogmatically ‘fundamentalist’ pressure group.¹⁶ For his part, Encrevé affirms that "the Réveil is the legitimate, albeit unconscious, child of eighteenth-century thought and of the current flowing from Schleiermacher."¹⁷ Whether or not one agrees, this statement has the great merit of taking into account the intertwining of intellectual, cultural, and social currents within the Protestant world.

The contributions here offer a supranational view that transcends linguistic and confessional barriers that are often too reductive. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Sébastien Fath wrote: "The definition of the ‘Réveil’ . . . has hardly been visited in depth by French historians. . . . Will there be works in the near future that will engage principally in reflection on the theme of the ‘Réveil’? One must hope so."¹⁸ This volume seeks to make up for this deficit by offering a global reflection on the relationships, characteristics, and inheritance of the Genevan Reveil.

A Need for Definitions

¹⁹

The international and multilingual dimension of this study also presents challenges in defining terms. The following paragraphs seek to clarify key terms that will recur throughout the book and that do not necessarily have the same meaning in English or French.

Revivalism and Evangelicalism

In his book Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray notes how the term revivalism has been interpreted in various ways throughout several phases of American Protestantism.²⁰ He sees the first phase as lasting from the early seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth. During it, emphasis was placed on the eruption of intense periods of religious fervor, regarded as a surprising work of God, to use Jonathan Edwards’s own words.²¹ If it simultaneously stressed the necessity of personal conversions, the fulfilment of the conditions of conversion was not secured by mere human action but by divine effusion, baptism, and outpouring of the Spirit, all expressions that are synonymous with revival of religion.²²

The idea for the need for a deliberate personal response to God’s provision of salvation was born early and constitutes one of the most important long-standing legacies of the Puritan and Pietistic emphasis on the experiential character of Protestantism.²³ Even the more activist version of these Protestant renewal movements seen in Wesley’s works is not at odds with Edwards’s Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. The center of gravity for Christian work is that God is sovereignly pleased to bless human instrumentality in such a way that success can be attributed to him alone. Briefly, divine providence uses preachers appointed by the Holy Spirit for the advancement of the gospel, preeminently through the teaching of the word of God. Murray shrewdly summarizes what constitutes a revival for its promoters as the extraordinary degree of blessing attending the normal means of grace.²⁴

A shift in vocabulary occurred during the last forty years of the nineteenth century: while the ethos of the older revivals was one of concern for, and praise of, the glory of God, the newer form emphasized the attempt to perpetuate, by human activity, the spontaneous development of revival. This new system . . . was in fact national religion in the United States.²⁵ Labeled by Murray as revivalism, it came to govern the evangelical thought²⁶ in the first part of the twentieth century and still permeates whole sections of the modern Evangelical movement.²⁷

Thus, by the late nineteenth century, the term revival tended to refer to organized special meetings whose goal was soul-winning. Revivals could thus be planned, promoted, and scheduled. Should the term revivalism therefore be limited to the specific meaning given by Murray? Given the lack of conclusive agreement among historians, we currently find ourselves in a quandary. Some are eager to champion pre-1860 conceptions of revival, while repudiating everything since the new system was introduced.²⁸ As revivalism is a nineteenth- and twentieth-century term, the terminology is not used in reference to the ethos of older revivals. Others, while acknowledging the shift in meaning of the word, still see a legitimate continuity of the revival movements from their early phase into the twentieth century.²⁹ Another group denies the value of such movements, whether before or after the mid-nineteenth century.³⁰

As this volume explores the global implications of the francophone Réveil, there must inevitably be a level of fluidity in definition, while stresssing that its conversionist dimension is rooted in contemplative theocentricism rather than in activistic anthropocentricism. An emblematic example of this theological belief is found in Émile Guers’s Premier Réveil: The work that had to be accomplished was infinitely beyond the powers of man; it was, in fact, nothing less than to rebuild a spiritual temple in Geneva; it was necessary to restore there what the unbelief of the preceding days had abolished: the Doctrine of Christ and the Church of Christ.³¹

At a time when revivals in the United States emphasized more explicitly human ability to generate signs of conversion, Guers’s phraseology highlights that:

•The work of the Holy Spirit at the time of the Réveil was not isolated from the reality of his normal and regular work in the church.

•Revivals are not separate from, or added to, the main Christian beliefs; rather, they are a necessary consequence of them.

•The sovereign outpouring of God’s Spirit cannot be obtained by human means.

•Geneva’s Réveil understood itself as rooted in the impulse of Calvin’s Reformation.

Beyond their inevitable diversity and points of disagreement, protagonists of Geneva’s Réveil endorsed these broad outlines drawn by Guers. Like their forerunners from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they were distinguished by their zeal for the promotion of the gospel, which they identified with the faith of the Reformers.³² These emphases echo the standard definition of revival movements provided by historian W. R. Ward, for whom they combine theological conservatism and practical innovation.³³

The exact contours of this conservatism may vary: there are significant differences with regard to church-state relations, models of church government, interpretation of biblical prophecy, predestination, and hermeneutics, to mention only a few. The specific theological point of reference remains nonetheless Calvin’s Reformation, which corresponds to a specific historical setting that will be assessed in several contributions.³⁴ Similarly, the practical innovations, in all their diversity, embrace areas as varied as hymnology, catechesis, theological education, missions, and philanthropy.

Evangelicalism has roots in both the orthodox comprehension of the Reformation and the practical innovations brought by later revival movements. Its definition is notoriously difficult to establish as it is too heterogenous, theologically diverse, and institutionally pluriform. David Bebbington has provided a helpful summary, identifying four characteristics of Evangelical faith: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism.³⁵ While many historians have employed this definition to good effect, others have pointed out difficulties and highlighted that there is evidence of stronger continuity among orthodox Christians prior to the eighteenth-century revivals. In fact, some of the Evangelical characteristics pinpointed by Bebbington were as foundational to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century orthodoxy as they were to eighteenth-century revival preachers. Whitefield’s preaching on the nature and necessity of our new birth³⁶ reflected Calvin’s view of regeneration by faith;³⁷ and Wesley’s insistence that prospective new Methodist members must desire to flee from the wrath to come and be saved from their sins³⁸ was reminiscent of traditional Protestant thinking about the necessity for the atonement. Evangelicals thus consider themselves primarily informed by traditional, orthodox Protestant faith.

In short, Bebbington’s definition, as helpful as it can be, falls short in its treatment of historical continuities with preceding Protestant stories and locating Evangelicalism’s reputed origin in the era of the Enlightenment. The plasticity of Bebbington’s abstract terms does not work well for historical research or historical narratives³⁹ as it does not pay enough attention to the groups manifesting the traits that in the aggregate he called ‘Evangelicalism.’⁴⁰ Historical context should be added to the designation of abstractly presented traits: Evangelicals are a subset within historic, orthodox Christianity.⁴¹

As Bebbington’s thesis has gained international acceptance, notably in the French-speaking world, the term Evangelicalism used in this volume often refers to his quadrilateral. However, when necessary, specific attention is given to the historical continuities with previous traditions and the philosophical influences that shaped the thought and actions of the Réveil leaders. With all these remarks in mind, John Coffey offers a definition that best encompasses the term Evangelicalism:

For some, evangelical denotes soundness: evangelicals are the orthodox party within Protestantism (not the liberals) who hold to Reformation teachings about biblical authority and salvation by grace through faith. For others, evangelical denotes fervour: evangelicals are the pietist party within Protestantism (not the formalists), who promote experiential heart religion and long for revival. Both definitions make some historical sense, though they make better sense when put together.⁴²

This combination better accounts for the specifics of the Genevan Réveil. As the theological debates in nineteenth-century francophone Protestant Europe became progressively polarized between conservatives and liberals, the terms evangelical and orthodox were used indiscriminately to describe the conservative pole of the theological spectrum. Geneva’s Réveil, as the cradle of subsequent revival movements, marks the rise and development of modern Evangelicalism in francophone Europe.

Awakening and Réveil

The French term réveil simply refers to the ceasing of the state of sleep and the reactivation of what was once asleep. When used in reference to the Christian faith, it indicates the vigorous restoration of an earlier form of religion or piety which had faded dramatically over preceding years or centuries. According to Louis Gaussen, religious revivals occur when God visits his redeemed with blessings through his Holy Spirit. After calling them, convicting them of sin and stirring them up by his Word, he then opens their hearts as he did to Lydia; ‘He gives them repentance that they may have life,’ and with repentance comes peace and joy.⁴³

This definition echoes the Wesleys, Whitefield, and Edwards. It falls clearly within the broader context of revival movements and relates to the form of Christianity that came to be known as Evangelicalism. To this day, Protestant historians often use the term le Réveil to refer to the great wave of worldwide Protestant awakening that eventually impacted Geneva at the beginning of the nineteenth century.⁴⁴ This common designation, however, should not ignore two important elements of the definition:

1.By contrast with its English equivalent, revival, the French term réveil does not necessarily entail a specific type of faith or creed. One may as easily speak of a Catholic réveil, such as the vast movement of conversion and militancy initiated by figures like Chateaubriand (1768–1848), Lacordaire (1802–61), and the Curé d’Ars, Jean-Baptiste Vianney (1786–1859),⁴⁵ as of a Protestant réveil, like that in Geneva.⁴⁶ Most non-confessional studies use réveil in that broader sense.

2.Although the French term réveil is now included in standard manuals of religious history and prominent monographs, one would hardly find the expression réveil religieux outside Evangelical circles and literature. The religious use of réveil originates in the Anglo-Saxon context. By successfully borrowing a nomenclature that was well established in English, advocates of réveil helped to shape and to spread a notion that proved to be foundational to a considerable proportion of the francophone Protestant churches. When réveil is used more specifically to describe the religious awakening that set francophone Protestant churches ablaze in the nineteenth century, French historians capitalize it.

Geneva’s Particularism: Background and Relationships

Several circumstances and individuals created the conditions in which the Réveil would spring up and flower. These, however, did not come together to form a recognizable force as they did on English and American soil. There was no organized and flourishing movement of revival in Geneva until at least 1810. Its antecedents should rather be seen as unconnected events and ideas which turned over the spiritual ground of a city whose former identity as a Calvinist fortress was fading away. While Geneva became an important center for the Evangelical internationale by the mid-nineteenth century, the vast renewal of piety and doctrine that became known as the Réveil de Genève took shape under the influence of two earlier movements: Pietism and Reformed orthodoxy.

We need first to distinguish the origins of these relationships and the possible links that unite them. The resulting picture highlights two aspects of Geneva’s particularism:

1.Endogenous and exogenous relationships. The Geneva Réveil is not simply the product of external influences, nor is it purely the fruit of internal developments. There was an interweaving of endogenous and exogenous influences.

2.Theological mix of these relationships. The precise boundary between the endogenous and exogenous dimensions cannot be cut with a scalpel. Thus Pietism, a Moravian import, developed in Geneva in the eighteenth century, enriched by exogenous and endogenous influences. The same was true for the reappropriation of Calvinist orthodoxy. In short, the links intermingled and influenced each other to the point of creating a Geneva Réveil with its own religious particularism.

Pietism

Pietism designates a spiritual tendency within Protestantism that was born in the seventeenth century and emphasized the practicalities of Christian living over the routinization of the highly articulated theology of late orthodoxy and the formalism of its leaders.⁴⁷ It originated in German-speaking lands.⁴⁸ More specifically, Pietism became a recognizable movement after Spener’s Pia desideria was published in 1675, which called for a renewal of faith and church, forms and practices. This inspired other forms of Pietism, such as that of Count Nicolas von Zinzendorf, who would eventually preach in Geneva in March 1741.

Zinzendorf, with forty to fifty brothers and sisters of Herrnhut, was engaged in the renewal of inward spiritual life within Calvin’s church. Confronted with growing opposition within the church, he eventually left the city in May, but his group of evangelists succeeded in putting down roots within the Reformed Church. A community of six or seven hundred people was formed,⁴⁹ and the core of this flock remained in existence until the beginning of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the Réveil.⁵⁰

Determined to prioritize the conversionist message of their illustrious forerunner, the early promoters of the Genevan Réveil embodied this Pietist and Moravian tradition: "The Geneva Réveil was less, in principle, a new Réveil than the consequence of the one that had taken place during the visit of the Count. . . . The Geneva Réveil, in its initial phase, was essentially Moravian."⁵¹

Reformed Orthodox Preaching

Along with Moravian Pietism, Geneva’s Réveil was also indebted to the ministry and teaching of Reformed orthodox preachers from the city itself. Four pastors in particular played a key role in the genesis of the Réveil and helped it to assert itself in the period preceding its upsurge: Jean-Isaac-Samuel Cellérier (1753–1844), Charles-Etienne-François Moulinié (1757–1836), Jacques-François-Louis Peschier (1759–1831), and Antoine-Paul-Pierre Demellayer (1765–1839).

Demellayer and Moulinié essentially played the role of mentors. The former left a profound imprint on Henri-Louis Empaytaz (1790–1861) and Pierre-Théodore L’Huillier (1792–1871), who claimed that Demellayer paved the way for their conversion and proved to be their faithful friend.⁵² The latter chiefly influenced Empeytaz, Bost, and Guers.⁵³ Uncomfortable with the rationalist theology of the clergy, Moulinié had joined one of Geneva’s Masonic lodges, L’union des cœurs, where he found freedom of thought and encouragement for his religious ideas which were both mystical and orthodox.⁵⁴ His writings were more apologetic than confrontational, more systematic than circumstantial. Guers remembered: Moulinié rendered . . . to the Church a real service by bringing together at his house students desirous of learning about biblical theology.⁵⁵

Professor Peschier first started his career as a pastor before being called to a professorship at the Geneva Académie, where he was eventually appointed by Napoleonic France to the powerful position of inspector of the Imperial Academy of Geneva. He supported and defended students when the Compagnie des pasteurs questioned their orthodox profession of faith, perceived as a new doctrine.⁵⁶ Along with Gaussen, Moulinié, and other members of Genevan high society, Peschier founded in 1820 the Société des missions, inspired by the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, later the Church Missionary Society, and aiming to support the Basel Mission.⁵⁷ For Gaussen, clearly, the venerable M. Peschier was a man of God who firmly supported the new clarities of the Réveil.⁵⁸

Cellérier père became one of the most celebrated preachers of the age, with an influence which reached beyond the theological quarrels in which some of his hearers were engaged. As summarized by one of his biographers: "His convictions were in accord with those proclaimed by the supporters of the [Réveil] movement. He had never concealed them. But in his practical and moderate manner of expounding them, he had always had them viewed as food for the soul, never as texts of controversy and argument for discussion."⁵⁹ This combination of doctrinal firmness and pastoral gentleness established him as spiritual mentor for most of the revivalists.

Sympathetic to Christian orthodoxy, Cellérier and his colleagues helped to provide the theological framework of the Réveil. But the Réveil was not simply a matter of doctrinal faithfulness to the Reformed heritage. The key reason for its vigor was the effective cross-fertilization of two traditions: Pietistic conversionism and orthodox preaching.

Periodization

Can we divide the history of the Geneva Réveil into periods? If the chronological limits of the movement will probably always be the subject of debate, its subdivision into two distinct periods has already been effected by contemporaries themselves.⁶⁰ The first period crystallized around the ministry of Robert Haldane in 1817 and the emergence of the first independent churches in 1818. This was the Premier Réveil. The second took shape with the creation of the SEG in 1831 and its school of theology at the Oratoire, opened in 1832 to counter the latitudinarianism of the Académie. This was the Second Réveil.

The (always approximate) boundary dates we have set refer, as far as the terminus a quo is concerned, to the structured origins of the movement, which can be discerned in the establishment of a Société des amis in 1810. As for the terminus ad quem, it can be identified with the middle of the 1870s, when the shaping influence of this double revivalist breath on the intellectual and ecclesiastical climate came to an end.

The Events

The Premier Réveil (1810–18)

On the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, French Protestantism was in a very different situation from that of the Anglo-Saxon world. Protestants were emerging from more than a century of underground existence and had known nothing other than the desert church. The Protestant home of Switzerland had certainly allowed the training of desert ministers, thanks to the seminary of Lausanne (1726–1812), but Protestantism in the cantons of Vaud and Neuchâtel became increasingly provincial in outlook. Only the Republic of Geneva managed to attract and train European elites. Its faculty of theology opened up to the ideas of the emerging Enlightenment by gradually adopting a supranaturalist theological position, a sort of middle-of-the-road theology between liberalism and orthodoxy.

From 1725 onwards, ministers had no longer been obliged to subscribe to the great Reformation confessions of faith and the main effort in theological enterprise had focused on morality. Protestantism in Geneva thus became a natural religion. This path, however, was not followed unanimously. At the dawn of the Réveil, several students at the Académie aspired to a spiritual life nourished by communal prayer. Among them were Ami Bost, Émile Guers, Henri-Louis Empaytaz, Henri Pyt, and Jean-Guillaume Gonthier. They joined the Moravian meetings led by Jean-Pierre Bost, Ami’s father. This thirst for Christian authenticity led them to create the Société des amis, whose aims were mutual edification and diaconal work. The Moravian tone of the group and the militancy of some of them led the Venerable Company to dissolve it in 1813. That same year, the very mystical Baroness de Krüdener arrived in Geneva and created a community of Pietistic inspiration which she entrusted to Empaytaz as president. Empaytaz, pressured by the company to leave this community on pain of expulsion, preferred to renounce the prospect of ordination and joined the baroness in her itinerant ministry.

Alongside this Pietistic component, the theological influence of Calvinist orthodoxy came progressively into play. Hardly had he completed his studies when Gaussen claimed this allegiance and preached it with confidence in the city center public prayers, which were entrusted to him in 1814. His oratorical talent helped him attract a large crowd to these meetings. His fellow student Ami Bost saw this as a premise for future revival.⁶¹ However, the decisive impulse came from elsewhere: three British men—Richard Wilcox, Robert Haldane, and Henry Drummond—visited Calvin’s city in succession. The most important of these was undoubtedly the Scot Robert Haldane, a former officer in the British Royal Navy, whose brief stay in Geneva in 1817 was to mark the dawn of the Réveil.

Haldane was a notable figure in Anglo-Saxon Evangelicalism. An itinerant preacher, he visited Geneva on one of his missionary journeys. Dismayed by what he found there—people ignorant of the doctrines of the Gospel⁶² and a church plunged into spiritual darkness⁶³—he quickly gathered round him young pastors and many theological students to explain the Epistle to the Romans. Former members of the Société des amis such as Guers, Pyt, and Gonthier were present. Also present were Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné, future pastor in Hamburg and later Brussels, where he was chaplain to the king of the Netherlands; César Malan, regent at the college; Louis Gaussen, a pastor in Satigny; and Frédéric Monod, who would found the Union of Free Evangelical Churches in France. Haldane became their informal professor of dogmatics and managed to unite in his teaching the two roots of this nascent revival: Pietistic conversionism and Calvinist orthodoxy. From then on, doctrine and life were indissolubly linked and this would shape the identity of the Geneva revivals.

Malan hastened to bring this teaching to the pulpits of Geneva. On March 15, 1817, at the Temple de la Madeleine, he affirmed the corruption of man and the absolute freeness of salvation, but his preaching disturbed and displeased people. In an attempt to put an end to the controversy, the Company of Pastors published a regulation on May 3 that forbade students and future preachers to preach on the union of the two natures of Jesus Christ, original sin, the manner in which grace works, and predestination.⁶⁴ Far from calming spirits, this regulation only stirred up confrontation. Forced to keep silent about what they considered to be right, many of the awakened felt driven to separation, not without conflicts of loyalty. Guers says: Everything came together to push us further and further away from the national church and to throw us on the path of dissent.⁶⁵ Thus, on May 18, a small group close to the old Société des amis formed the nucleus of a dissident community. Haldane did not take part, and left Geneva on June 20 for Montauban.

Another British man, Henry Drummond, settled in Calvin’s city. On August 25, he gathered the leaders of this nascent community at his home, encouraging them in their dissent and pledging to support them financially. This nucleus would be the origin of the church at Bourg-de-Four. Malan, removed from his position as regent, founded the Chapelle du Témoignage in 1820 and attached it to a dissenting Scottish Presbyterian denomination, the United Associate Synod of the Secession Church.⁶⁶ As for Gaussen, he remained as pastor in Satigny for a time, but his discomfort with the theological position of the majority of the members of the Venerable Company grew until the rupture.

From this history of the Premier Réveil, which has been rapidly traced, a few salient features should be noted. First, the main reason for this dissent was doctrinal. It took on the force of a protest against error. Faced with a teaching held to be pure deism,⁶⁷ the awakened sought doctrinal truth united to a profound spiritual life. Second, the avowed aim of this Premier Réveil (as of the second) was the conversion of the soul and the proclamation of biblical truth. The means to this end were preaching, evangelism, and the establishment of missionary and charitable works. Action was at the heart of the revivalist effort. Third, the revivalists addressed themselves primarily to the individual and not to society as Calvin did. It was the conversion of the masses that would change society: an ideological anchoring in the psychology of the individual proper to modernity.

These points of commonality should not hide the plurality intrinsic to the revival movement, a plurality that would persist throughout its development in Switzerland, France, and beyond. These internal differences essentially concerned ecclesiology, the link to the state, and the relationship to society. They are revealed within the three examples below from the Premier Réveil.

1.The Bourg-de-Four church was clearly dissident in the sense that it understood itself as a community of children of God, born again and separated from ecclesial institutions that had failed to maintain doctrinal faithfulness. Its structure was congregationalist.

2.Malan’s Chapelle du Témoignage saw its separation from the historic church of Geneva as temporary. There was therefore no need to rethink the way the church functioned on a congregational basis.

3.Finally, Gaussen, Monod, and Merle d’Aubigné remained in established churches to work for the renewal of Protestant churches from within, convinced that the prevailing supranaturalism was reversible. The first would do so in Geneva, the second in Paris, and the third in Belgium.

This dissemination would also contribute to the influence of the Genevan Réveil, which would spread well beyond the limits of the small Republic of Geneva.

The Second Réveil (1830–32)

Like the first revivalist breath, the second also took on the force of a protest against doctrinal error. The situation crystallized around a deep disagreement between Gaussen and the Venerable Company over the content and scope of Calvin’s catechism. As the titular pastor, Gaussen was in charge of teaching Calvin’s catechism throughout his parish. However, successive eighteenth-century editions of the catechism fundamentally transformed the theological content of the 1537 original. On the question of original sin, for example, the Genevan catechism of 1788 reversed the Reformation paradigm and professed that good works were the only means of pleasing God & obtaining salvation.⁶⁸

In 1827, Gaussen decided to abandon the prescribed catechism in his compulsory sessions for communicants, and in 1829 in the religious instruction for children. He preferred to structure his teachings around the Scriptures alone. The ecclesiastical authorities were upset by this and demanded that he use the official catechism again. While the Company of Pastors saw this as a disciplinary problem, he saw it as a doctrinal problem. He was censured.⁶⁹ But the issue returned. During this same period, on January 19, 1831, he and a few friends from the Geneva aristocracy founded the SEG. Its creation marked the first step of the Second Réveil.

The SEG shared with other associations of the Evangelical internationale a burden for missions and the distribution of Bibles and Christian literature. As it became clear to the founders that the question of doctrinal standards lay at the heart of Gaussen’s quarrel with the Venerable Company, they decided to create a center of theological training that would be guided by the faith of the Reformers and the Apostles, which is now converting the nations of the earth to the true God, and that is alone in relation to the new needs of our century, as well as to the immutable needs of man.⁷⁰ Whereas leaders of the Premier Réveil were mostly students and young graduates with loose connections to the political and religious establishment of Geneva, the founders of the SEG were all members of patrician society and could count on privileged connections among the Evangelical internationale and beyond. The society posed a serious threat to the official teaching at the Académie, and the seminary’s creation inevitably prompted a clash with the Company of Pastors. Gaussen was expelled from his parish for administrative incompatibility⁷¹ and banned, along with Galland and Merle d’Aubigné, from every state pulpit.⁷²

In the period to 1831, the impact of Geneva’s Premier Réveil on the life of the mind was peripheral. It did create, however, new congregations outside the established church and also reinforced the zeal and theological convictions of ministers within it. Its influence spread outside Geneva, helping to create a large network of churches, associations, literature, and groups of Christians; it inspired a wide range of social and philanthropic activities;⁷³ it was a breeding ground for missionaries, pastors, and Christian colporteurs. But the movement was never able to fully convince its intellectual detractors. The first agents of the Premier Réveil were looking for a breath of fresh air they considered absent from the academic teaching, but they argued, almost uncritically, for an orthodox Calvinistic grounding. Their theological position, therefore, was more defensive than constructive, more authoritative than argumentative. In short, their reactions to the rise of modern rationalism were dominated primarily by the urgency of the call to personal faith and a return to the old orthodoxy. Apologetics amounted, as it were, to conversionism. In such a context, the creation of the School of Theology was a call for an intellectual mobilization of the Evangelical awakening and represents an interesting example of positive development of revival spirituality into a theological system based on Reformed orthodoxy.

On February 9, 1834, the Temple de l’Oratoire was inaugurated (it was given church status in 1849 with the creation of the Église libre). In the canton of Vaud and in France, similar denominations emerged, in 1847 and 1849 respectively. By the beginning of the 1850s, then, the Evangelical movement had become institutionalized. Two decades later, in Geneva, the Evangelical wing of the established church created the Union nationale évangélique in 1871; in France, from 1872 the liberals and the Evangelicals formed two different de facto churches with different synods within the existing Reformed churches; and in the canton of Neuchâtel, an Église Indépendante appeared in 1873. The 1870s thus clearly marked a new era and corresponded to the disappearance of almost all the actors of the Réveil.

Geneva as Cradle: A Provisional Assessment

Geneva: Cradle of the Réveil or Secondary Location?

The preceding pages have highlighted the importance of the Genevan context for understanding the origins of the francophone Réveil movement. The term cradle is often used for this purpose. Historically, Guers first applied it to the Moravian particularity of the first Réveil.⁷⁴ More recently, Timothy Stunt has adopted it.⁷⁵ Sébastien Fath has emphasized the preponderant character of Genevan revivalism in the French Protestant Réveil,⁷⁶ and Kenneth Stewart writes of Geneva’s position of precedence⁷⁷ in the development of the Réveil.

Louis Gaussen describes this Genevan precedence thus: "The Evangelical work at Geneva was the child (fille) of Haldane; the work of grace of Vaud the daughter of that at Geneva; and, still later, the work in France, to a great extent, the child of that of Geneva and of Vaud. To Robert Haldane was given the grace to accomplish a work, of which the revelation of the last day will only show the extent."⁷⁸ Gaussen reminds us of the relationships between geographical regions and the crucial role played by Haldane, and underlines the order of successive waves of revival. It was in Geneva that the phenomenon first crystallized so clearly and from where the personalities involved were able to propagate it in other lands: the Monod brothers for France, Merle d’Aubigné for the Netherlands and Belgium, Neff for the Hautes-Alpes, Pyt and Méjanel for Bayonne, the north and southwest of France (among other places), Bost for other areas of Switzerland, and so on. Each contribution in this book will add names and places to the list. Far from being an epiphenomenon of French-speaking Protestant revivals, the Genevan Réveil was a starting point.

That said, other regions of the French-speaking world were traversed by aspirations for renewal, notably in France: Jean-Frédéric Oberlin’s work at Ban de la Roche, which supplied a whole generation of pastors; Daniel Encontre’s ministry in Montauban, which aroused the admiration of Anglo-Saxon revivalists; the founding of Sunday Schools in France, whose precursor was Laurent Cadoret; Wesleyan Methodism, which took root in Normandy in 1791; the spread of Baptist work throughout France from the 1810s; and other small assemblies, specks of Protestant dust,⁷⁹ few in number and with a dissenting ecclesiology. Moreover, the Genevan Réveil did not determine all subsequent theological and social developments: its offshoots grew according to the dynamics of the regions involved. The expression Réveil de Genève simply indicates that the phenomenon of the Réveil as it was known in the French-speaking world during the first part of the nineteenth century took root in Geneva.

The plan of the present book follows a simple scheme, with three main parts: (1) the development of the Genevan Réveil in several different linguistic and geographical areas; (2) examination of leading figures of the movement, offering an overview of their relationships and the influence of their action and thought; (3) particular emphasis on the influence of the movement in France and Switzerland in areas such as social work, education, and ecumenical relations. The work concludes with an evaluation from a systematic theologian with a dual French and English-speaking background, whose reflections facilitate the contemporary appropriation of the theological issues present in the first part of the nineteenth century.

This book does not claim to be exhaustive: other geographical regions could have been included; certain figures could have been the subject of entire chapters, such as Ami Bost, Agénor and Valérie de Gasparin, and Henri Pyt. Rather than an outcome, this book represents a beginning. In seeking to understand how Geneva has played such an important role in the reconfiguration of the French-speaking Protestant landscape, the linguistic, geographical, and ecclesial diversity of the authors should help to highlight the flows and mechanisms that promote cross-fertilization within revival movements.

Provisional Assessment

The Réveil represents a vivid example of a combination between theological conservatism and practical innovation. It worked tirelessly for the religious quickening of Geneva by creating missionary and Bible societies, missionary and theological schools, hymns,⁸⁰ churches, catechisms, and a large number of books and tracts. As it benefited from extensive contact at most stages with Evangelical missionaries from Britain, North America, and Germany, the Réveil was part of the Evangelical internationale, which it helped to shape and influence through its own literary, missionary, and philanthropic activity.

Like its Pietist and revivalist forerunners, the Réveil labored for the spiritual and theological revitalization of the church, but the form of revival it manifested went beyond the Pietists’ experience of ecclesiolae in ecclesia. While the doctrinal unity of Genevan Protestantism had long been lost, the establishment of the first two new congregations made a permanent break in its institutional unity. For the first time in the history of the republic, Protestants broke away from the established church and emphasized personal spiritual experience over the preservation of a Christian society. If some proponents of the Réveil did not promote secession, they all desired to maximize mass conversions and focus their efforts at moral transformation on the aspect of individual holiness, but their conversionism was rooted in contemplative theocentrism rather than activistic anthropocentricism. Bost, for instance, exhorted the opponents of the newly founded Église du Bourg-de-Four to believe in the fall of man, in his natural corruption, in the merciful salvation proclaimed in the Gospel, and in the influences of the Holy Spirit,⁸¹ and the revival he promoted was meant to echo our holy reformation.⁸² Thus, the Genevan Réveil represents more than dissent fueled by experimental spirituality. It was primarily a movement of gospel propagation which considered personal experience of conversion as the condition of true religion and the core commitments of historic orthodoxy as its most appropriate expression. Its character can be summarized as follows:

1.It aimed to apply the truth of the gospel to the heart. Revival starts with the illumination and the transformation of the heart.⁸³

2.It believed that the efficacy of this transformation was bound up with theological convictions which remained the mainstream of Protestant orthodoxy.

3.Heart religion and orthodox preaching cannot be separated, but were linked in the experience of the main figures of the Réveil. It highlighted both doctrine and life: propositional Christianity and pious experience together form spiritual Christian faith.

4.The Réveil movement proved to be a major force for the renewal of nineteenth-century piety and theology.⁸⁴ Emerging in a context of spiritual and theological apathy, the Réveil called for a renewal of personal piety that would affect the entirety of one’s faith and all domains of church life. It stimulated reflection on the function of experience in the process of religious knowledge, the role of the old dogmatics, and the question of authority in religious matters.

In short, the Genevan Réveil was more than an individual and emotional reaction against spiritual apathy and latitudinarianism, as an adhesion to a core of doctrine tied to the Reformation creed.

Conclusion

"To what extent was the Réveil an innovative movement? The question has not yet been really addressed."⁸⁵ It is almost half a century old, but we believe that it is still relevant today because of the lack of studies on the specificities of the Genevan milieu, notably its relationships and its heritage.

If the return of Protestant evangelization in the nineteenth century bears the mark of the Geneva Réveil, a new dynamic is also observed in the fields of theological reflection, worship, and social action. The French-speaking Protestant landscape was gradually reshaped. In the first part of the nineteenth century, the Réveil made a profound contribution because it was able to combine enthusiasm with the ability to manifest a Christianity that was active and attentive to the culture of its time. It served as an incubator for the modern French-speaking Evangelical movement, whose visibility was ensured by the formation of the Evangelical Alliance in London in 1846. A pioneering ecumenical movement, this interdenominational alliance crystallized an identity around a twofold banner: that of the Reformation and that of the revivals. The study of the Geneva Réveil, then, is not only the history of a bygone past but that of a movement whose influence continues to be felt.

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1831

," in Fatio, Genève protestante,

155–71

(esp.

168

); Expérience et la foi,

69

; Réveil en France,

536

. Several studies in this volume discuss this reading: see Roney, Jean Henri Merle d’Aubigné; J. Decorvet, Louis Gaussen; Edgar, "Réveil and Education."

18

. Fath, Réveil et petites églises,

1105–7

.

19

. On the characteristics and scope of Protestant revivals, see esp. Blumhofer and Balmer, Modern Christian Revivals; Ward, Protestant Evangelical Awakening; Murray, Revival and Revivalism; Bebbington, Evangelicalism; Schmidt, Holy Fairs; Walker and Aune, On Revival; Caldwell, Theologies; Bebbington and Noll, History of Evangelicalism. The French-language historiography on this subject is quite poor. One of the most thorough studies on the phenomenon of revival and its impact on the French-speaking world dates back to the end of the nineteenth century: Appia, Réveils. On links between revivalist movements and Romanticism, see Baubérot, Histoire,

73–92

.

20

. Murray, Revival and Revivalism, xvii.

21

. The expression echoes Edwards’s Faithful Narrative (first published in

1737

).

22

. See Murray, Revival and Revivalism,

19–26

, esp.

20

.

23

. For Puritan and Pietistic influences, see in particular Ward, Protestant Evangelical Awakening,

296–352

. Regarding the Genevan situation, see Rivier, Étude sur le Réveil,

58–65

; Stéphan, Origines. Of particular interest for the French situation is Bundy, Pietist and Methodist Roots.

24

. Murray, Revival and Revivalism,

129

.

25

. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism,

66

, as quoted in Murray, Revival and Revivalism,

277

.

26

. Murray, Revival and Revivalism, xviii.

27

. Similar conclusions are reached by Stewart, Ten Myths,

99–120

.

28

. Notable representatives are Murray, Revival and Revivalism; Ronald Davies, I Will Pour Out.

29

. For example, Lovelace, Dynamics; Rosell, Surprising Work. Similar ideas are found in Noll, America’s God.

30

. Hart, Recovering; Hart, Seeking. Along the same lines are scholars of liturgy like Ross, Evangelical versus Liturgical?

31

. Guers, Premier Réveil, ix.

32

. L. G. Cramer et al., Communication respectueuse à Messieurs les syndics et Conseil d’Etat de la République de Genève, et aux citoyens protestans [sic] de ce canton, sur l’établissement d’une école de théologie évangélique dans l’église de Genève, in Gaussen, Mémoires,

116

.

33

. Ward, Protestant Evangelical Awakening,

355

.

34

. See in particular J. Decorvet, Louis Gaussen; Lovegrove, Influence of Robert Haldane; Edgar, "Réveil and Education; Scholl, Réveil and Catholicism."

35

. Bebbington, Evangelicalism,

1–17

. In French, Bebington’s quadrilateral is explained at length in Fath, Du ghetto au reseau,

23–69

.

36

. Whitefield, Nature and Necessity.

37

. See in particular Calvin, Institutes,

3.3

.

38

. John Wesley, "The Nature, Design, and General Rules