Revivalism, social conscience, and community in the Burned-over District : the trial of Rhoda Bement
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Revivalism, social conscience, and community in the Burned-over District : the trial of Rhoda Bement
Cornell University Press, 1983
- : hard
- : pbk.
Available at 4 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Contents of Works
- For the salvation of the world! : revivalism and reform in Seneca Falls, New York / Jan M. Saltzgaber
- The trial of Rhoda Bement : transcript from the Session of the First Presbyterian Church of Seneca Falls
- Varieties of religious activity : conflict and community in the churches of the Burned-over District / Glenn C. Altschuler
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In 1843 in Seneca Falls, New York, Rhonda Bement was brought before a disciplinary trial at her church, the First Presbyterian Church, charged with "unchristian and unladylike" behavior. Her transgression was to challenge the authority and integrity of her minister because he had refused to read to the congregation her announcement about abolitionist lectures taking place in the village, and she was eventually excommunicated. The transcript of her trial is the centerpiece of Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community in the Burned-Over District, which presents through the testimonies of the witnesses the tensions between organized religion and the reform movements of abolitionism, temperance, and women's rights that were sweeping the country in this period.
The book is divided into three parts. Jan M. Saltzgaber sets the stage in an introductory essay that examines the religious and social ramifications of the Second Great Awakening in the "burned-over" region of New York, analyzing in detail the changing social and economic environment of Seneca Falls and delineating connections between these changes and the currents of revival and reform in the 1830s and 1840s. The fully-annotated text of the trial is then presented in its entirety. In the epilogue, Glenn C. Altschuler uses the trial and evidence from other local churches to reassess the divisive effects of revivalism, stressing local conditions and church practices that acted as centripetal forces that impressed conservatives, moderates, and even "ultraists" with the importance of church unity.
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