George David Cummins

{{Short description|American Anglican Bishop}} {{Use American English|date=June 2015}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = George David Cummins | image = George David Cummins.jpg | alt = | caption = Bishop G. D. Cummins | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth date|1822|12|11}} | birth_place = Delaware, United States | death_date = {{death date and age|1876|6|26|1822|12|11}} | death_place = Lutherville, Maryland, United States | alma_mater = Dickinson College | occupation = Religious leader | organization = Reformed Episcopal Church (after c. 1873) | spouse = Alexandrine "Ella" Balch Cummins | known_for = Founder of the Reformed Episcopal Church | signature = Signature of George David Cummins (1822–1876).png }} '''George David Cummins''' (December 11, 1822 – June 26, 1876) was an American Anglican bishop and founder of the Reformed Episcopal Church.

==Life and career== He was born in Delaware on December 11, 1822. Cummins graduated from Dickinson College, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1841,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archives.dickinson.edu/people/george-david-cummins-1822-1876|title=George David Cummins (1822-1876) | Dickinson College|website=archives.dickinson.edu}}</ref> and entered the Methodist ministry.

In 1845, he took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church. After serving as rector of Episcopal parishes in Virginia, Washington, and Chicago, Cummins was appointed Assistant Bishop of Kentucky in 1866.<ref name="nie"/>

A staunch Evangelical of Reformed doctrine, Cummins opposed the influences of Ritualism and the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement.<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Price|author-first1=Annie Darling|year=1902|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BucTAAAAYAAJ|title=A History of the Formation and Growth of the Reformed Episcopal Church|location=Philadelphia|publisher=J.M. Armstrong|via=Google Books|page=27ff}}</ref> In 1873, he was criticized for receiving communion with ministers outside of the Protestant Episcopal Church and resigned his position. He then founded the Reformed Episcopal Church, of which he was the first presiding bishop, in New York City and where he founded the First Reformed Episcopal Church.<ref name="nie">"George David Cummins", in the ''New International Encyclopedia'', 1928, Vol. 6.</ref> A tremendous reference that gets no visibility or discussion and that details the Bishop's life, attitudes, beliefs, and career are given by his wife, Alexandrine, in the Memoirs. <ref>{{Cite web| title=Memoir George David Cummins, D.D. - first bishop of The Reformed Episcopal Church | url=https://trecus.net/downloads/Memoir_of_George_David_Cummins_D._D..pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124084329/http://www.trecus.net/downloads/Memoir_of_George_David_Cummins_D._D..pdf | archive-date=2020-11-24}}</ref>

==Doctrine== Cummins' Evangelical theological persuasions led him to separate from the Episcopal Church, which had, in his mind, been poisoned by the ritualism of the Anglo-Catholic party. Before he left the Episcopal Church, Cummins as bishop engaged in a highly provocative Church service in which he presided alongside a Presbyterian clergyman, Dr. John Hall, over Holy Communion at Hall's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guelzo |first=Allen |title=For the Union of Evangelical Christendom |publisher=Penn State Press |location=University Park, PA |isbn=9780271042022 |page=127 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3IrvLWp71vUC&pg=PA127 |date=November 1, 2010 |access-date=February 4, 2021 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Cummins believed that if the pure Evangelical principles of the Reformation were to survive the sacramental and ecclesial theological complications and gaudy ornamentation of the Anglo-Catholic movement, Evangelicals of all denominations must unite. He sought "Evangelical Catholicity" based on the ideas of the "Muhlenberg Memorial," authored by the prestigious Evangelical Episcopalian, William Augustus Muhlenberg. "Strength to the Protestant cause," declared Muhlenberg, "is one of the objects of this movement [i.e., the Muhlenberg Memorial]." Those, "who are true to the Reformation standards" needed to present "a united phalanx against Rome," Muhlenberg explained.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guelzo |first=Allen |title=For the Union of Evangelical Christendom |publisher=Penn State Press |location=University Park, PA |isbn=9780271042022 |page=123 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3IrvLWp71vUC&pg=PA123 |date=November 1, 2010 |access-date=February 4, 2021 |via=Google Books}}</ref> Cummins embodied this charge. And when he could no longer in good conscience serve the Diocese of Kentucky due to Ritualistic advances, he left the Episcopal Church.

Bishop Cummins left the Episcopal Church due to conflict with Anglo-Catholic theology, one facet of which is the insistence on Apostolical Succession for valid ordinations. Cummins felt that such a high view of Episcopacy injured the objectives of the new Re-formed Episcopal Church, which, now formed, sought to provide a unified Evangelical haven for all Reformational Christians in the spirit of "Evangelical catholicity". Ironically, Cummins, who preached against a high view of Apostolic Succession, was unwilling to part with it. When he left the Episcopal Church, and before he was deposed, he rushed to consecrate another bishop, the somewhat controversial Charles E. Cheney of Christ Church, Chicago, as the second bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guelzo |first=Allen |title=For the Union of Evangelical Christendom |publisher=Penn State Press |location=University Park, PA |isbn=9780271042022 |page=201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3IrvLWp71vUC&pg=PA201 |date=November 1, 2010 |access-date=February 4, 2021 |via=Google Books}}</ref> Thereafter, the Reformed Episcopal Church's orders retained as episcopacy as "ancient and desirable," although other forms of church governments were not unchurched or belittled.

==Death== thumb|Gravesite

Cummins died in Lutherville, Maryland, on June 26, 1876.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=LS0EAAAAYAAJ&dq=george+david+cummins&pg=PA31 "George David Cummins"]. ''Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography'' (via Google Books).</ref> ==See also== {{portal|Biography|Christianity}} {{div col|colwidth=30em}} * Bishop Cummins Reformed Episcopal Church * List of Dickinson College alumni * List of founders of religious traditions * List of people from Chicago * List of people from Delaware * List of people from Kentucky * List of people from New York City * List of people from Virginia * List of people from Washington, D.C. {{div col end}} {{clear}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== * Alexandrine Macomb Cummins (Mrs. G.D. Cummins). [https://archive.org/details/memoirofgeorgeda00cummuoft ''Memoir of George David Cummins''] (New York, 1878). * [http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/rec/cummins/ Historical material by and about Cummins] from Project Canterbury * {{New International Encyclopedia}} * Allen C. Guelzo, ''For the Union of Evangelical Christendom: The Irony of the Reformed Episcopalians'' (Penn State Press, 2010)

{{S-start}} {{S-rel}} {{S-bef|before=New creation}} {{S-ttl|title=Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church|years=1873–1876}} {{S-aft|after=Charles Edward Cheney}} {{S-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cummins, George David}} Category:1822 births Category:1876 deaths Category:19th-century Anglican bishops in the United States Category:19th-century American Methodist ministers Category:American founders Category:Clergy from New York City Category:Dickinson College alumni Category:Founders of Christian new religious movements Category:Clergy from Chicago Category:Bishops in Delaware Category:People from Lutherville, Maryland Category:Religious leaders from Virginia Category:Religious leaders from Washington, D.C. Category:Presiding Bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church Category:Religious leaders from Kentucky Category:19th-century Anglican theologians