Church, State, and Race
Church, State, and Race

Author: Ryan P. Jordan

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0761858113

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ryan P. Jordan uses the discourse of religious liberty to explore racial differences during an era of American empire building (1750-1900). This book seeks to destabilize the widespread assumption that the dominant American culture inevitably trends toward greater freedom in the realm of personal expression.

Lion of the Forest
Lion of the Forest

Author: Charles C. ColeJr.

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 0813189195

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

James B. Finley—circuit rider, missionary, prison reformer, church official—transformed the Ohio River Valley in the nineteenth century. As a boy he witnessed frontier raids, and as a youth he was known as the "New Market Devil" In adulthood, he traveled the Ohio forests, converting thousands through his thunderous preaching-and he was not above bringing hecklers under control with his fists. Finley criticized the federal government's Indian policy and his racist contemporaries, contributed to the temperance and prison reform movements, and played a key role in the 1844 division of the Methodist Episcopal Church over the slavery issue. Making extensive use of letters, diaries, and church and public documents, Charles C. Cole, Jr. details Finley's influence on the moral and religious development of the Ohio River area. Cole evaluates Finley's writings and focuses on his ideas. He traces the important changes in Finley's attitudes toward slavery and abolition and provides new insights into his views on politics, economics and religion. For anyone with an interest in early life and religion in the Ohio River Valley, Lion of the Forest supplies a critical but sympathetic portrait of a complex, colorful and controversial figure.

The Ladies' Repository
The Ladies' Repository

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1857

Total Pages: 830

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The idea of this women's magazine originated with Samuel Williams, a Cincinnati Methodist, who thought that Christian women needed a magazine less worldly than Godey's Lady's Book and Snowden's Lady's Companion. Written largely by ministers, this exceptionally well-printed little magazine contained well-written essays of a moral character, plenty of poetry, articles on historical and scientific matters, and book reviews. Among western writers were Alice Cary, who contributed over a hundred sketches and poems, her sister Phoebe Cary, Otway Curry, Moncure D. Conway, and Joshua R. Giddings; and New England contributors included Mrs. Lydia Sigourney, Hannah F. Gould, and Julia C.R Dorr. By 1851, each issue published a peice of music and two steel plates, usually landscapes or portraits. When Davis E. Clark took over the editorship in 1853, the magazine became brighter and attained a circulation of 40,000. Unlike his predecessors, Clark included fictional pieces and made the Repository a magazine for the whole family. After the war it began to decline and in 1876 was replaced by the National Repository. The Ladies' Repository was an excellent representative of the Methodist mind and heart. Its essays, sketches, and poems, its good steel engravings, and its moral tone gave it a charm all its own. -- Cf. American periodicals, 1741-1900.

Religion and Violence in Early American Methodism
Religion and Violence in Early American Methodism

Author: Jeffrey Williams

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2010-04-22

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0253004233

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Early American Methodists commonly described their religious lives as great wars with sin and claimed they wrestled with God and Satan who assaulted them in terrible ways. Carefully examining a range of sources, including sermons, letters, autobiographies, journals, and hymns, Jeffrey Williams explores this violent aspect of American religious life and thought. Williams exposes Methodism's insistence that warfare was an inevitable part of Christian life and necessary for any person who sought God's redemption. He reveals a complex relationship between religion and violence, showing how violent expression helped to provide context and meaning to Methodist thought and practice, even as Methodist religious life was shaped by both peaceful and violent social action.