Camp meeting

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A service of worship at the tabernacle of a camp meeting of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, held at Wesleyan Methodist Camp in Stoneboro, Pennsylvania. Camp Meeting at Wesleyan Methodist Campground.jpg
A service of worship at the tabernacle of a camp meeting of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, held at Wesleyan Methodist Camp in Stoneboro, Pennsylvania.

The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in England and Scotland as an evangelical event in association with the communion season. It was held for worship, preaching and communion on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Revivals and camp meetings continued to be held by various denominations, and in some areas of the mid-Atlantic, led to the development of seasonal cottages for meetings.

Contents

Originally camp meetings were held in frontier areas, where people without regular preachers would travel on occasion from a large region to a particular site to camp, pray, sing hymns, and listen to itinerant preachers at the tabernacle. Camp meetings offered community, often singing and other music, sometimes dancing, and diversion from work. The practice was a major component of the Second Great Awakening, an evangelical movement promoted by Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and other preachers in the early 19th century. Certain denominations took the lead in different geographic areas.

As with brush arbor revivals and tent revivals, camp meetings today are often held annually at campgrounds owned by a Christian denomination. [1] [2]

Background

The camp meeting is a phenomenon of American frontier Christianity, as well as British Christianity, but with strong roots in traditional practices of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and the United States. Scots and Scots-Irish predominated in many parts of the frontier at this time, and had brought their familiar Presbyterian communion season practices with them. Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell, two leading ministers of the later Restoration Movement of the 1830s, had each been ordained as Presbyterian ministers and served for several years in that role, leading preaching at numerous meetings.

The movement of thousands of settlers to new territories without permanent villages of the types they knew meant they were without religious communities. Not only were there few authorized houses of worship, there were fewer ordained ministers to fill the pulpits. The "camp meeting" led by itinerant preachers was an innovative response to this situation.[ citation needed ] Word of mouth told there was to be a religious meeting at a certain location. Due to the primitive means of transportation, if the meeting was to be more than a few miles' distance from the homes of those attending, they would need to stay at the revival for its entire duration, or as long as they desired to remain. People generally camped out at or near the revival site, as on the frontier there were usually neither adequate accommodations nor the funds for frontier families to use them. People were attracted to large camp meetings from a wide area. Some came out of sincere religious devotion or interest, others out of curiosity and a desire for a break from the arduous frontier routine; the structure of the situation often resulted in new converts.[ citation needed ]

An engraving of a Methodist camp meeting in 1819 (Library of Congress). Camp meeting of the Methodists in N. America J. Milbert del M. Dubourg sculp (cropped).jpg
An engraving of a Methodist camp meeting in 1819 (Library of Congress).

Freed from daily routines for the duration of the meeting, participants could take part in almost continuous services, which resulted in high emotions; once one speaker was finished (often after several hours), another would often rise to take his place.

Several ministers, sometimes from different denominations, provided virtually nonstop preaching and hymn singing during the day, in the evening, and late into the night. Attenders anticipated and had emotional conversion experiences, with crying, trances, and exaltation. [3]

Lee Sandlin gave an overview of the typical camp meeting in frontier America:

A typical meeting began in a low-key, almost solemn way. A preacher gave a sermon of welcome and led a prayer for peace and community. This was followed by the singing of several hymns. Then there would be more sermons. …

The next day, and the day following, the sermons grew increasingly sensational and impassioned, and the excited response of the crowd grew more prolonged. By the second or third day, people were crying out during the sermons, and shouting prayers, and bursting into loud lamentations; they began grabbing at their neighbors and desperately pleading with them to repent; they sobbed uncontrollably and ran in terror through the crowd, shoving aside everybody in their path. …

As the preachers ranted without letup, the crowd was driven into a kind of collective ecstasy. In the night, as the torches and bonfires flared around the meeting ground and the darkness of the trackless forests closed in, people behaved as if possessed by something new and unfathomable. As Finley wrote: "A strange supernatural power seemed to pervade the entire mass of mind there collected." [4]

Sandlin's commentary is a provocative opinion piece compared to the less sensationalist descriptions by those better qualified to write about the event, such as Colonel Robert Patterson, who had been involved in the settlement of Kentucky practically from the beginning. He had described with amazement the religious phenomena taking place during the sequence of meetings. His description of the Cane Ridge Revival, taken from a letter to the Rev. Doctor John King on September 25, 1801, is memorable:

On the first Sabbath of August, was the Sacrament of Kainridge, the congregation of Mr. Stone. – This was the largest meeting of any that I have ever seen: It continued from Friday till Wednesday. About 12,000 persons, 125 waggons, 8 carriages, 900 communicants, 300 were struck.

Patterson tried, "as well as I am able", to describe the emotion.

Of all ages, from 8 years and upwards; male and female; rich and poor; the blacks; and of every denomination; those in favour of it, as well as those, at the instant in opposition to it, and railing against it, have instantaneously laid motionless on the ground. Some feel the approaching symptoms by being under deep convictions; their heart swells, their nerves relax, and in an instant they become motionless and speechless, but generally retain their senses.

Patterson went on to describe other manifestations which lasted from "one hour to 24", and continued:

In order to give you a more just conception of it, suppose so large a congregation assembled in the woods, ministers preaching day and night; the camp illuminated with candles, on trees, at wagons, and at the tent; persons falling down, and carried out of the crowd, by those next to them, and taken to some convenient place, where prayer is made for them, some Psalm or Hymn, suitable to the occasion, sung. If they speak, what they say is attended to, being very solemn and affecting – many are struck under such exhortations… Now suppose 20 of those groups around; some rejoicing, and great solemnity on every countenance, and you will form some imperfect idea of the extraordinary work! Indeed it is a miracle, that a wicked unthoughtful sinner, who never could, or did address himself, to an audience before, should, rise out of one of those fits and continue for the space of two hours recommending religion and Jesus Christ to sinners, as a lovely Savior, free willing, and all sufficient, and calling to sinners and inviting them to come to Christ and close in with the offer of salvation, in the most pressing an engaging manner. [5]

Revivalism had been a significant force in religion since the 1740s and the First Great Awakening, but in the days of the camp meeting, "revivalism became the dominant religious culture." [3] These sorts of meetings contributed greatly to what became known as the Second Great Awakening. A particularly large and successful revival was held at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801, led by some ministers later active in what became the Restoration Movement. Some scholars suggest that this was the pioneering event in the history of frontier camp meetings in America. [3] What made camp meetings successful and multiply quite rapidly "were their emphases upon revivalism and morality, de-emphasis upon formal theology, clergy sharing the worldview of the frontier dwellers, and respect for common people. [3]

Frost summarizes: "Camp-meeting religion reinforced older themes of revivalism, including a sense of cooperation among the denominations, all of which confronted individual sinners with the necessity of making a decision to be converted." [3]

In the early 1800s in what is now Toronto, Ohio, members of the Sugar Grove Methodist Episcopal Church with the assistance of circuit preachers began a series of camp meetings in the surrounding area. One such meeting, first being held out of the home of a local family, has met annually in Hollow Rock Run since it was formally organized as a Methodist camp in 1818 while continuing to use the family's farm land. [6] [7] In 1875 at the urging of prominent clergy and members, the camp meeting became interdenominational through the formation of the Hollow Rock Holiness Camp Meeting Association and its leasing and eventual purchase of the land. The association, which still operates the camp, notes that it is the oldest Christian camp meeting in continual existence in the United States, being supported by various denominations in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. [7]

A watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum). Religious Camp Meeting (Burbank 1839).jpg
A watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum).

Another camp gathering area, known now as the Campgrounds, was located in present-day Merrick, New York. Parishioners arrived by wagon, parking them in two concentric circles. Eventually some started building small seasonal cottages, which offered more comfort than the wagons for repeated use. A chapel and a house for the minister were also built. In the 1920s, with new areas open to those with cars, people stopped using the campground. The cottages and church buildings were adapted as local, permanent residences, and most survive today. The two roads, Wesley and Fletcher avenues, encompass the area of the original paths which the wagons would encircle. The area is also known as Tiny Town because of the small size of the original cottages.

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, such evangelical camp meetings gained wide recognition and a substantial increase in popularity as a result of a holiness movement camp meeting in Vineland, New Jersey in 1867. In the mid-Atlantic states, the Methodist Church led many of these camp meetings and established semi-permanent sites for summer seasons. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, founded in 1869, has been called the "Queen of the Victorian Methodist Camp Meetings." Similar areas include Cape May Point, New Jersey, with others in Maryland and New York. At the end of the nineteenth century, believers in Spiritualism also established camp meetings throughout the United States.

Camp meetings in the United States continued to be conducted on a wide scale for many years . Some are still held in the 21st century, primarily by Methodist (including churches affiliated with the holiness movement) and Pentecostal groups, as well as other Protestants, such as Baptists and Presbyterians. Some scholars[ who? ] consider the revival meeting a form that arose to recreate the spirit of the frontier camp meeting.

The Balls Creek Campground camp meeting was established in 1853 and is believed to be one of the largest religious campgrounds in the southern United States. [8] Other sites of Methodist camp meetings in North Carolina are the Chapel Hill Church Tabernacle, Center Arbor, and Pleasant Grove Camp Meeting Ground (1830). [9] [10] [11]

Music and hymn singing

The camp meeting tradition fostered a tradition of music and hymn singing with strong oral, improvisatory, and spontaneous elements.

Hymns were taught and learned by rote, and a spontaneous and improvisatory element was prized. Both tunes and words were created, changed, and adapted in true folk music fashion: [12]

Specialists in nineteenth-century American religious history describe camp meeting music as the creative product of participants who, when seized by the spirit of a particular sermon or prayer, would take lines from a preacher's text as a point of departure for a short, simple melody. The melody was either borrowed from a preexisting tune or made up on the spot. The line would be sung repeatedly, changing slightly each time, and shaped gradually into a stanza that could be learned easily by others and memorized quickly. [13]

Spontaneous song became a marked characteristic of the camp meetings. Rough and irregular couplets or stanzas were concocted out of Scripture phrases and every-day speech, with liberal interspersing of Hallelujahs and refrains. Such ejaculatory hymns were frequently started by an excited auditor during the preaching, and taken up by the throng, until the meeting dissolved into a "singing-ecstasy" culminating in general hand-shaking. Sometimes they were given forth by a preacher, who had a sense of rhythm, under the excitement of his preaching and the agitation of his audience. Hymns were also composed more deliberately out of meeting, and taught to the people or lined out from the pulpit. [14]

Collections of camp meeting hymns were published, which served both to propagate tunes and texts that were commonly used, and to document the most commonly sung tunes and texts. [14] Example hymnals include The Pilgrams' songster; or, A choice collection of spiritual songs (1828), [15] The Camp-meeting Chorister (1830) [16] and The Golden Harp (1857) [17]

Many of these songs were republished in shape note songbooks such as A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony (1820), [18] the Sacred Harp (1844), and dozens of other publications; they can typically be distinguished by the reuse and re-arrangement of certain lines of lyrics from other songs, re-set to a new melody and sometimes containing new lyrics. Many of these camp songs are also set in a "call and response" format, typically, every line of lyric is followed by the words "Glory Hallelujah !" (although this varies, and other phrases or combinations can be used as well), which allows for easy audience participation in their original format, as the audience can call back the response even if they do not know the lyrics of the song itself. For example, the tune "Antioch 277" from the Sacred Harp reads:

I know that my Redeemer lives, Glory, Hallelujah!
What comfort this sweet sentence gives, Glory Hallelujah!
Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground, Glory Hallelujah!
The dead's alive and the lost is found, Glory Hallelujah!
(F.C. Wood, 1850)

The 20th-century American composer Charles Ives used the camp meeting phenomenon as a metaphysical basis for his Symphony No. 3 (Ives). He incorporated hymn tunes and American Civil War-era popular songs (which are closely related to camp meeting songs) as part of the symphony's musical material. The piece was not premiered until 1946, almost 40 years after its composition, and the symphony was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1947.

Practice by denomination

Anabaptism

The Dunkard Brethren Church, a denomination of Conservative Anabaptist Christianity, holds its annual camp meeting at Roxbury Holiness Camp. [19] [20]

Methodism

The tabernacle of Pleasant Grove Camp Meeting Ground, owned by the United Methodist Church. PLEASANT GROVE CAMP MEETING GROUND, UNION COUNTY, NC.jpg
The tabernacle of Pleasant Grove Camp Meeting Ground, owned by the United Methodist Church.

Francis Asbury, the first bishop of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, was a staunch supporter of camp meetings. [21] At Methodist camp meetings, which continue to occur today: [22]

... both the Eucharist and Love Feast were celebrated. But the focus of the camp meeting was on preaching of the "way of salvation," and the physical layout of the camp meeting assembly area came to be a sacred space representing the stages on the way of salvation. The altar rail, originated the point for receiving Holy Communion, came to represent the surrender of oneself in conversion and entire sanctification. The "mourner's bench" (or "anxious bench," as it was decried by the theologians of the Mercersburg movement) was placed in front of the altar rail and represented the experience of spiritual "awakening" that typically preceded conversion in understanding of the "way of salvation." In a weekend format, one might expect a sermon on sin, awakening and repentance on Friday, sermons on conversion and assurance on Saturday, and preaching on sanctification (including entire sanctification) on Sunday. [22]

Throughout the United States, several camp meeting facilities were founded, many of which remain operational to this day. [21] For example, the Balls Creek Campground is a popular Methodist camp meeting that was formed in 1853. [23] In 1869, the Ocean Grove Camp-Meeting Association was founded, running a popular Methodist camp meeting at Ocean Grove, New Jersey. [24] Methodists flocked to the area, especially around major feasts of the Church, such as during Christmastide. [24] Sunday Sabbatarian principles were practiced, with swimming being forbidden on the Lord's Day, as well as the gates to the city being locked on that day. Ocean Grove "prohibited other activities deemed not consonant with Christian living--dancing, cardplaying, and the sale of liquor." [24]

On Sunday, 31 May 1807, the first Camp Meeting was held in England at Mow Cop. At the time, Wesleyan Methodists disapproved and subsequently expelled Hugh Bourne "because you have a tendency to set up other than the ordinary worship.". [25] He eventually formed the Primitive Methodist Church. The Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Primitive Methodist Church in Great Britain later reunited to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain).

During his visits to England, Lorenzo Dow brought reports of North American camp meetings. Hugh Bourne, William Clowes and Daniel Shoebotham saw this as an answer to complaints from members of the Harriseahead Methodists that their weeknight prayer meeting was too short. Bourne also saw these as an antidote to the general debauchery of the Wakes week in that part of the Staffordshire Potteries, one of the reasons why he continued organising camp meetings in spite of the opposition from the Wesleyan authorities. [26]

The pattern of the Primitive Methodist camp meeting was as a time of prayer and preaching from the Bible. In the first camp meeting, four separate "preaching stations" had been set up by the afternoon, each with an audience, while in between others spent the time praying.

From May 1807 to the establishing of Primitive Methodism as a denomination in 1811, a series of 17 camp meetings was held. There were a number of different venues beyond Mow Cop, including Norton-in-the-Moors during the Wakes in 1807 (Bourne's target venue), and Ramsor in 1808.

After Bourne and a significant number of his colleagues, including the Standley Methodist Society, had been put out of membership of the Burslem Wesleyan Circuit, they formed a group known as the Camp Meeting Methodists until 1811. That year they joined with the followers of William Clowes, known as the "Clowesites".

Camp meetings were a regular feature of Primitive Methodist life throughout the 19th century, [27] and still survive today. The annual late May Bank Holiday weekend meetings at Cliff College are one example. [28] A number of tents are set up around the site, each featuring a different preacher.

The Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection holds its camp meetings annually at Methodist Camp in Stoneboro, Pennsylvania. Each conference of the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches owns land on which its camp meetings are held each year. The Primitive Methodist Church also has camp meetings in its districts. Many United Methodist churches also hold yearly camp meetings, such as the Shiloh United Methodist Church Camp Meeting, Northport Indian United Methodist Church and Trinity United Methodist Camp Meeting, for example. [29] [30] [31] Many Free Methodist churches hold camp meetings every year, such as those that take place at the Tri-State Free Methodist Campground. [1]

Presbyterianism

In 1825, the Presbytery of Hopewell established a network of camp meetings. [32]

The Smyrna Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to hold an annual camp meeting at its Camp Smyrna. [32] The Red River Meeting House, belonging to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, also has a yearly camp meeting.

Disuse and Adaptation

A number of camp meeting grounds have fallen into disuse or diverged from their original use and ownership. These include Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, founded as a Methodist camp meeting in 1873 and now a beach resort town. Its temperance fountain remains. [33] Old Orchard Beach, Maine, similarly became a seaside resort. [34]

See also

Related Research Articles

Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christian tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley were also significant early leaders in the movement. They were named Methodists for "the methodical way in which they carried out their Christian faith". Methodism originated as a revival movement within Anglicanism originating out of the Church of England in the 18th century and became a separate denomination after Wesley's death. The movement spread throughout the British Empire, the United States and beyond because of vigorous missionary work, and today has about 80 million adherents worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Great Awakening</span> Protestant religious revival in the early 19th-century United States

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

The Third Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century. It influenced pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire Earth. It was affiliated with the Social Gospel movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene and Pentecostal movements, and also Jehovah's Witnesses, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Thelema, and Christian Science. The era saw the adoption of a number of moral causes, such as the abolition of slavery and prohibition.

Holy Roller or Holy Jumper are terms originating in the 19th century and used to refer to some Protestant Christian churchgoers in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, such as Free Methodists and Wesleyan Methodists. The term describes dancing, shaking or other boisterous movements by church attendees who perceive themselves as being under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself nationally. In 1939, the MEC reunited with two breakaway Methodist denominations to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.

The Holiness movement is a Christian movement that emerged chiefly within 19th-century Methodism, and to a lesser extent influenced other traditions such as Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism. The movement is historically distinguished by its emphasis on the doctrine of a second work of grace, which is called entire sanctification or Christian perfection. Churches aligned with the holiness movement additionally teach that the Christian life should be free of sin. For the Holiness movement, "the term 'perfection' signifies completeness of Christian character; its freedom from all sin, and possession of all the graces of the Spirit, complete in kind." A number of evangelical Christian denominations, parachurch organizations, and movements emphasize those beliefs as central doctrine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Great Awakening</span> Christian revivals in Britain and the Thirteen Colonies in the 1730s and 1740s

The First Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom, the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.

The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination within the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Primitive Methodism in the United Kingdom</span>

Primitive Methodism was a major movement in English and Welsh Methodism from about 1810 until the Methodist Union in 1932. It emerged from a revival at Mow Cop in Staffordshire. Primitive meant "simple" or "relating to an original stage"; the Primitive Methodists saw themselves as practising a purer form of Christianity, closer to the earliest Methodists. Although the denomination did not bear the name "Wesleyan", Primitive Methodism was Wesleyan in theology, in contrast to the Calvinistic Methodists.

The Free Methodist Church is a denomination of Methodism, which is a branch of Protestantism. It was founded in 1860 in New York by a group, led by B. T. Roberts, who was defrocked in the Methodist Episcopal Church for criticisms of the spiritual laxness of the church hierarchy. The Free Methodists are so named because they believed it was improper to charge for better seats in pews closer to the pulpit. They also opposed slavery and supported freedom for all slaves in the United States, while many Methodists in the South at that time did not actively oppose slavery. Beyond that, they advocated "freedom" from secret societies, which had allegedly undermined parts of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion of Black Americans</span> Religious and spiritual practices of African Americans

Religion of black Americans refers to the religious and spiritual practices of African Americans. Historians generally agree that the religious life of black Americans "forms the foundation of their community life". Before 1775 there was scattered evidence of organized religion among black people in the Thirteen Colonies. The Methodist and Baptist churches became much more active in the 1780s. Their growth was quite rapid for the next 150 years, until their membership included the majority of black Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cane Ridge Revival</span> Camp meeting

The Cane Ridge Revival was a large camp meeting that was held in Cane Ridge, Kentucky, from August 6 to August 12 or 13, 1801. It was the "[l]argest and most famous camp meeting of the Second Great Awakening." This camp meeting launched a multitude of smaller camp meetings on the frontier. In turn they stimulated a deeply personalized religious experience of salvation in hundreds of thousands of men and women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesleyan Grove</span> United States historic place

Wesleyan Grove is a 34-acre (14 ha) National Historic Landmark District in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Named after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. Also known as the Martha's Vineyard Campmeeting Association (MVCMA) or the Campgrounds, it was the first summer religious camp established in the United States. It is famous for its approximately 300 colourful cottages in a style now described as Carpenter Gothic.

The Latter Rain Movement was a late nineteenth-century radical Holiness theology and Revivalist phenomenon which began in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Elements of the movement gave rise to and merged with what would become incipient modern Pentecostalism.

The Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection (AWMC), originally the Wesleyan Methodist Church (Allegheny Conference), and also known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church (WMC), is a Methodist denomination within the conservative holiness movement primarily based in the United States, with missions in Peru, Ghana, and Haiti. The connection is currently led by Rev. David Blowers (President) and Rev. Joseph Smith (Vice President).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Protestantism in the United States</span>

Christianity was introduced with the first European settlers beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Colonists from Northern Europe introduced Protestantism in its Anglican and Reformed forms to Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Netherland, Virginia Colony, and Carolina Colony. The first arrivals were adherents to Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, the Baptist Church, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Quakerism, Anabaptism and the Moravian Church from British, German, Dutch, and Nordic stock. America began as a significant Protestant majority nation. Significant minorities of Roman Catholics and Jews did not arise until the period between 1880 and 1910.

Christian revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a Christian church, congregation or society with a local, national or global effect. This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings. Proponents view revivals as the restoration of the church to a vital and fervent relationship with God after a period of moral decline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Methodism in the United States</span>

The history of Methodism in the United States dates back to the mid-18th century with the ministries of early Methodist preachers such as Laurence Coughlan and Robert Strawbridge. Following the American Revolution most of the Anglican clergy who had been in America came back to England. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, sent Thomas Coke to America where he and Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was to later establish itself as the largest denomination in America during the 19th century.

The Revival of 1800, also known as the Red River Revival, was a series of evangelical Christian meetings which began in Logan County, Kentucky. These ignited the subsequent events and influenced several of the leaders of the Second Great Awakening. The events represented a transition from British traditions to innovations arising from the unique needs and culture of Americans in the new century, especially on the frontier. The startling manifestations of revival fervor that first occurred in June 1800 at the Red River Meeting House, a small Presbyterian congregation led by James McGready, began as a Scottish sacrament service, but led to the important innovation of serial religious services later known as camp meetings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tabernacle (Methodist)</span> Center of a camp meeting In Methodism

In Methodism, a tabernacle is the center of a camp meeting, where revival services occur. Tabernacles may be constructed in a cruciform-shaped fashion and are most often made of wood. Like the interior of many Methodist churches, in the center of the tabernacle is an altar upon which the Eucharist is consecrated; a pulpit stands near it and is used by preachers to deliver sermons. The area of the tabernacle housing the altar and pulpit is delimited by the mourner's bench. Surrounding the tabernacle itself are usually several cabins and/or tents, where people stay while attending the camp meeting.

References

  1. 1 2 "Pastor Dwyer is evangelist for Tri-State Free Methodist Campground". The Vindicator. 27 June 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  2. Marberry, Mark (2 May 2019). "Brush arbor revivals are still around". Daily Journal Online.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 J. William Frost, "Part V: Christianity and Culture in America, Christianity: A Social and Cultural History, 2nd Edition, (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998), 430
  4. Sandlin, Lee (2010). Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Ran Wild. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 92–96. ISBN   978-0-307-37951-1.
  5. Source: Extract of a Letter from Colonel Robert Patterson, of Lexington, Kentucky to the Reverend Doctor John King, September 25, 1801. From the Cane Ridge Meeting House website. Cane Ridge Meeting House
  6. Robert Shillings. Historical Notes of Knox Township, Jefferson County, Ohio.
  7. 1 2 Eleanor L. Smith (1988). Hollow Rock: A History (PDF). Hollow Rock Camp Meeting Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2011-08-01.
  8. Barbara Kooiman and Michael Hill (July 1989). "Balls Creek Campground" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  9. Laura A. W. Phillips (December 2011). "Chapel Hill Church Tabernacle" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  10. Laura A. W. Phillips (March 1991). "Center Arbor" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  11. Survey and Planning Unit Staff (October 1972). "Pleasant Grove Camp Meeting Ground" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  12. Annie J. Randall, "A Censorship of Forgetting: Origins and Origin Myths of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'", in Music, Power, and Politics, edited by Annie J. Randall (Routledge, 2004) (Google books)
  13. Annie J. Randall, "A Censorship of Forgetting: Origins and Origin Myths of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'", in Music, Power, and Politics, edited by Annie J. Randall (Routledge, 2004), page 16. (Google books)
  14. 1 2 Benson, Louis FitzGerald (1915). The English hymn: its development and use in worship. George H. Doran Company. p. 292. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
  15. Hinde, Thomas S. (1828). The Pilgrams' songster; or, A choice collection of spiritual songs. A. Wright & A. Wolliscroft
  16. The Camp-meeting Chorister, Or, A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs: For the Pious of All Denominations to be Sung at Camp Meetings, During Revivals of Religion and on Other Occasions. Clarke. 1830. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
  17. Henry, George W. (1857). The Golden Harp. Published by the author. camp meeting hymns.
  18. Some camp meetings songs from Davisson's Supplement have been republished in the Shenandoah Harmony (2013); for example, recordings of 319 Salutation are easily found on YouTube.
  19. Kurian, George Thomas; Lamport, Mark A. (10 November 2016). Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN   978-1-4422-4432-0.
  20. Heisey, Ray (2008). "From the Administrator's Desk" (PDF). Roxbury Riplings. 13 (2): 2. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  21. 1 2 Ingersoll, Julie (2009). Baptist and Methodist Faiths in America. Infobase Publishing. p. 25. ISBN   9781438102504.
  22. 1 2 Kimbrough, S. T. (2007). Orthodox and Wesleyan Ecclesiology. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. p. 221. ISBN   9780881412680 . Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  23. McMurry, Sally Ann; Adams, Annmarie (2000). People, Power, Places. University of Tennessee Press. p. 143. ISBN   9781572330757.
  24. 1 2 3 Aron, Cindy S. (13 May 1999). Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States. Oxford University Press. pp. 105–106. ISBN   9780195363630.
  25. Kendall, Holliday (1919). History of the Primitive Methodist Church. London: Joseph Johnson. p. 20. OCLC   606574049.
  26. "The Origin of the Primitive Methodist Connexion". The London Quarterly Review . No. 133. London: T Woolmer. October 1886. p. 30.
  27. Continued mention in Circuit Plans and the Minutes of Circuit Meetings
  28. Cliff College is a Methodist training college in Derbyshire. The meetings are an annual attraction for many Methodists.
  29. "2018 Summer Camp Meeting". Northport Indian United Methodist Church. 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  30. "Historic Campground". Shiloh United Methodist Church. 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  31. "Camp Meeting". Trinity United Methodist Church. 2018. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  32. 1 2 Ivy, Emma Plunkett (1968). As I Find it: A Partially Documented History of Some of the Butlers, Early 1700s to 1968, Including a Few Allied Or Related Families; a Partially Documented Record of Some Butler Families of Newberry, Edgefield, Saluda Counties, South Carolina, and of Newton and Rockdale Counties, Georgia. Peachtree Letter Service. p. 152.
  33. "Rehoboth Beach History"; accessed 2022.09.16.
  34. "6 Religious Revival Camps", New England Historical Society; accessed 2022.09.16.

Further reading