Egypt Community Church celebrates extraordinary past
This weekend, the Rev. Dr. J. Bradley Roth will costume himself as a distant ancestor — the legendary Great Awakening preacher Jonathan Edwards — and lead a prayerful history lesson about Egypt Community Church, a congregation so old that the “new” organ has been pumping out hymns since 1870.
“I’m not a small individual, and Jonathan Edwards was skinny,” said Roth, who took over as senior pastor of the Whitehall Township church in 2016 and is clearly in his element as he runs through some of the highlights of its 285-year history. “I’m going to have to wear a corset to even resemble him.”
Not many American churches can claim a lineage as long as the 100-member Egypt congregation, housed since 1851 in a handsome brick building on Church Street. But history shows that the Rev. John Philip Boehm recorded the baptism of “David Traxel, son of Peter Traxel,” in 1734, and that is reckoned as the start of the Egypt Reformed Congregation.
Roth said the congregation met in homes, including the still-extant Troxell-Steckel House, until the construction of a log church in 1764.
It soon became a union church — two denominations sharing the same space — with a Lutheran congregation, an arrangement that lasted until the creation of nearby Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran church in 1976.
Membership grew and the log church gave way to a stillstanding stone building behind the current church.
The church was named Egypt Union Church and, later, Egypt United Church of Christ. After various mergers and splits in the reformed traditions, it became an unaffiliated, independent Bible church in 2015, the year before Roth arrived.
These days, the pastor said, members worship for about 90 minutes on Sunday with a blend of contemporary music and classic hymns framing prayer, preaching and Bible reading.
This Sunday, things will be a bit different. Apart from the pastor being dressed as Jonathan Edwards, five other congregants will dress in period costume to give a Colonial feel to the proceedings.
Edwards was the most prominent preacher of the Great Awakening, a mid-18th century wave of religious fervor in England and the American colonies.
Because none of founding pastor Boehm’s sermons survive, Roth will offer a condensed version of Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” a legendary oration on the urgency of salvation. It made many listeners swoon with the fear of Hell.
Roth’s family connection to the great minister is on his mother’s side.
“William Edwards, born in Middlesex, England, in 1618, was Jonathan Edwards’ great-grandfather and my ninth-generation great-grandfather,” he said. “So that’s exciting.”
The pastor will read some of Edwards’ other work, including a sermon on justification from 1734. He has also hired a bagpiper to play parts of the service and lead a procession from the current building to the site of the long-gone log church.
It should be moving, Roth said. And fun. Indeed, he expects some ribbing. “They can’t wait to see me in knickers,” he said.
The public is welcome to the free weekend events, which will begin Saturday with a historical prayer walk at 10 a.m.
On Sunday, the worship service will begin at 10:30 a.m. Roth will lead a historical tour at noon, followed by a potluck lunch at 12:30.
The church is at 4129 S. Church St. Whitehall. For more information, email Roth at revdr jbr@gmail.com.