Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770-1810

ISBN-13: 9780195313062 / Angielski / Miękka / 2006 / 264 str.

Cynthia Lynn Lyerly

Opis

This book looks at the role of Methodism in the Revolutionary and early national South. When the Methodists first arrived in the South, Lyerly argues, they were critics of the social order. By advocating values traditionally deemed "feminine," treating white women and African Americans with considerable equality, and preaching against wealth and slavery, Methodism challenged Southern secular mores. For this reason, Methodism evoked sustained opposition, especially from elite white men. Lyerly analyzes the public denunciations, domestic assaults on Methodist women and children, and mob violence against black Methodists. These attacks, Lyerly argues, served to bind Methodists more closely to one another; they were sustained by the belief that suffering was salutary and that persecution was a mark of true faith.

Recenzje

Lyerly examines Methodism separately from other evangelical sects. Moreover, she analyzes religious thought and practice on their own terms, not s the expression or reflection of Revolutionary republicanism or other secular ideologies... [the book] challenges the notion that Methodism and evangelicalism were, in part, tools for elite hegemony... Lyerly employs the creative reading of conventional sources (itinerant's reports, church histories) with arduous manuscript research... Methodism and the Southern Mind is an accessible, penetrating analysis of an era of Methodist history that has been overshadowed by the Church's remarkable growth in later decades. It deserves a wide readership.