i guess this is mostly for forumosans from the southern united states: have you ever been to one of these? what was the most outlandish preacher you heard? some of these things got pretty big, others just got strange.
YOUR DAD WORKED FOR JIMMY?? I knew an old lady who was being harassed by his “God told me your husband was going to get better. Send me money!” letters. Her husband was dead.
Larry Lee. Did you ever see him. OH MY GOD!
He ended every sermon with people screaming to the south “give up”, to the north “give up” At all four corners. It was the stupidest thing ever. Actually kind of fun to have an excuse to scream. His church was one of the reasons I didn’t convert with my mother. SO much of the things he did and said (Like spending half the sermon begging for money) offended my Jewish sensibilities.
That and I felt that the people who went to the church were REALLLLLLY weird and acted somewhat like monkeys.
I went to one with a friend - as a person without a religious cell in my body, I found it a very odd experience. There were people who seemed to be in trances, there were grown, macho men who on the verge of tears, and the women seemed to have a penchant for the pompadour hairstyle. It was very conservaitve, which was strange becanse my friend is quite liberal. There was some condemnation of gays in the pastor’s sermon. There was condemnation of evolution too, and of Bill Clinton and liberals. None of the ranting made sense to me, and it was kind of frightening. I was kind of relieved when I left, though it was fascinating from an anthropological standpoint.
chris,
it’s that anthropological thing that intrigues me. for instance, what is the significance of pentecostalism as a form of catharsis, and also “folk pentecostalism”. how does elvis presley as a blend of the sexual and religious tie into the american religious experience? it’s all very interesting.
Oddly enough, it was the Methodists who popularized the tent revivals or “camp meetings”, as they were originally called. Nowadays Methodism is a liberal, mainstream denomination that is avowedly non-fundamentalist, welcomes gays, and rarely preaches fire and damnation.
But in the beginning Methodists were derided as fanatics who were obsessed with the Holy Spirit and it’s ability to transform people’s lives. Methodist preachers scoured the prisons of Britain for converts. In the early 19th century America, Methodist preachers spread out over the then largely unsettled frontier and held large revivals involving hundreds or sometimes thousands of peoples: camp meetings. There were tens of thousands of converts, who then set up Methodist societies and eventually built churches. Their biggest competitors were the Baptists and the Pentecostals/Holiness people. The latter continues on the revivalist tradition.
From the journal of a Methodist preacher traveling in Canada during the glory days:
[quote]Monday July 1st 1805
Yesterday I preached twice with freedom and power, thanks be unto God for his kindness. My love to God increases. I feel more strongly attached to this work than ever. There is a strange thing happened here. A man bereft of his reason has been remarkably waked and continues so yet, and yet nevertheless he takes up the cause of Religion boldly by bearing testimony to the truth in our Public assemblies when he is markedly regular. But the most unhappy consideration is he makes himself almost equal with God, which is a demonstration, to me at least, that an high opinion of himself has brought on these Delusions. O what a blessing it is to have the use of our reason. O Lord forbid that my sins should provoke this to deprive me of this gift of Providence for Christ’s sake. O sweet Jesus how lovely thou art.[/quote] yorku.ca/scottm/journals/1805july1.htm
The Church of the SubGenius has “devivals” featuring bands and “rants” (like sermons, except funny, at least ideally).
The Church of Christ / Disciples of Christ / Christian Church was another big quasi-denomination that really got started during this era. Seems a couple of Presbyterian ministers (Thomas and Alexander Campbell) decided that God disapproved of denominationalism. So they sent out the call for all Christians to band together under the name of “Christians”. The result (a new denomination) was predictable, at least in hindsight, but they did get a Baptist group (the Barton Stone group) to merge with them. Today they’ve split into the D of C, which is more or less like all the other Protestant groups, and the C’s of C, which are hidebound conservative anti-evolution, anti-organ-playing churches that should never be allowed to run a college.
Holiness was a Methodist offshoot, which took some ideas of Wesley’s and ran with them. Pentecostalism as we know it is only about a century old, if memory serves (did it start in Kansas or Azusa Street?), but growing leaps and bounds. I found a book by an anthropologist who studied glossalalia cross-culturally (with different religions too), and found that the “language” which they used had linguistically similar features, such as a peculiar rising- and falling- pattern of pitch.
[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]The Church of the SubGenius has “devivals” featuring bands and “rants” (like sermons, except funny, at least ideally).
The Church of Christ / Disciples of Christ / Christian Church was another big quasi-denomination that really got started during this era. Seems a couple of Presbyterian ministers (Thomas and Alexander Campbell) decided that God disapproved of denominationalism. So they sent out the call for all Christians to band together under the name of “Christians”. The result (a new denomination) was predictable, at least in hindsight, but they did get a Baptist group (the Barton Stone group) to merge with them. Today they’ve split into the D of C, which is more or less like all the other Protestant groups, and the C’s of C, which are hidebound conservative anti-evolution, anti-organ-playing churches that should never be allowed to run a college.
Holiness was a Methodist offshoot, which took some ideas of Wesley’s and ran with them. Pentecostalism as we know it is only about a century old, if memory serves (did it start in Kansas or Azusa Street?), but growing leaps and bounds. I found a book by an anthropologist who studied glossalalia cross-culturally (with different religions too), and found that the “language” which they used had linguistically similar features, such as a peculiar rising- and falling- pattern of pitch.[/quote]
I knew about the C of C’s but had no idea Holiness was a Methodist offshoot. I live close to a Holiness church and their attempts to purify themselves and embody “Christian perfection” can be quite annoying. Bunch of screaming Jesuses I tell ya.
Catharine Williams gives an interesting account of camp meetings in “Fall River” (1833). It’s a narrative about the murder trial of a Methodist minister accused of seducing and impregnating a young girl who attended revivals. And it was set way up north in Massachusetts. Excerpts from Williams’s own experience at a revival:
[quote=“Catharine Williams”]The loud Amen, the cries for mercy, the groans of distress, (either real or imaginary) resounded from every quarter, while the triumphant exclamations of those who shouted, “I’m full – I’m running over – I’m eating heavenly manna – glory! Hallelujah! &c. &c. were as distinctly heard” and this, this scene of discordant noise and unseemly riot (as it appeared to me) was what they called “the power of God.” Forgive, thou insulted Being, the use I am here obliged to make of they great and dreadful name! occasionally some of the young men who were within the circle would draw near the young women, whose shrieks gradually changed to groans, and ask, in a low voice, “do you feel any better?” I could not hear that they made any answer. One young man, while the prayer was going on, began to shake violently, and then falling flat upon the straw, exclaimed “God, I’m willing – I will my own Saviour – I will, I will:” at the same time, his feet kicking at such a rate, that the dust from the straw nearly suffocated us all.
The effect was electric, the Amen was echoed in all the different notes of the gamut, while the expressions of “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly,” were heard from different parts of the tent. My soul was momentarily shocked by those familiar addresses to the Deity, “God, come down here – Jesus come this minute – we want you tonight – we want you now,” &c. &c. &c. The din and confusion increased every moment. Stamping, slapping hands, and knocking fists together, formed altogether a scene of confusion that beggars description, and really terrified us.
One lady who had been invited to drink tea in one of the tents, observed she had been much shocked by a man coming in and inviting her to stay the evening. He went in shaking violently and saying “we shall have the Holy Ghost in here to-night!” and said a little niece of hers who stood by, “do stay aunt Polly, for I want to see him.”[/quote]
The revival was fairly common on college campuses across America in the early 1800s. Oftentimes it coincided with the annual day of prayer, which started at Yale back in 1750. Anything could set one off – the death of an undergrad, reading of “the infidel works of Virgil and Caesar,” etc.
In his yout’, the chief spent a summer singing bass in a quartet that traveled the tent revival circuit.
Nothing like The Healing Ring of Jesus Fire to raise the skirts on them farm girls…
Without tent meetings, there wouldn’t likely be any rock and roll to speak of.
Elvis’ sole ambition in life for his first 25 years was to sing in a revival-style quartet like The Statesmen or The Blackwood Brothers.
That’s where your Louvin Brothers began.
Never get between him and a Jaggermeister. Saw him at Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaslime, Ca. Double billed with the Cadillac Tramps…about as near a religious experience I’ve ever had.