DOCSLIB.ORG

From Sabbath to Weekend: Recreation, Sabbatarianism, and the Emergence of the Weekend

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
From Sabbath to Weekend: Recreation, Sabbatarianism, and the Emergence of the Weekend FROM SABBATH TO WEEKEND: RECREATION, SABBATARIANISM, AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE WEEKEND A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Karl E. Johnson January 2011 © 2011 Karl E. Johnson FROM SABBATH TO WEEKEND: RECREATION, SABBATARIANISM, AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE WEEKEND Karl E. Johnson, Ph.D. Cornell University 2011 From the 1630s to the 1930s, the problem of leisure was that there was not much leisure, especially designated days of recreation. In this dissertation I describe reformers’ responses and contributions to the recreational landscape, primarily in the northeastern United States. Puritan attitudes toward recreation have been much misunderstood. Puritans opposed Saints Days and Sunday recreations as part of their larger project to reform or “desacralize” the calendar. Because they preferred recreation that was secular and regular, however, they were the first to advocate for designated days of recreation. In the New World, Puritan attitudes toward recreation were reinforced by republican virtues through the War for Independence. In the nineteenth century, different groups responded differently to the crises of leisure time and space. Unitarians supported uplifting public initiatives such as Central Park, while Methodists created alternative destinations such as Asbury Park and Ocean Grove. This Victorian “resacralizing” of leisure was not the initiative of conservative Calvinists, but of Arminians and religious liberals. Evangelicals in the Calvinist tradition focused on advocating for the Saturday half-holiday as a means of preserving Sunday for rest and worship. Sabbatarianism adapted to the Progressive Era in response to entertainment entrepreneurs’ exploitation of free time on Sunday. Saturday afternoons, however, were also filled with the very consumption and pleasure-seeking that Sabbatarians most abhorred. Thus, when Jewish Sabbatarians advocated for a Saturday full-holiday in the 1920s, Protestant Sabbatarians were unsupportive. They understood their advocacy for secular leisure was contributing to a new lifestyle and sensibility focused on fun, pleasure, and consumption. Sabbatarians in the Puritan tradition succeeded not only in banishing ritual festivities such as May games, but also in securing a weekly day of recreation: The weekend arrived first in 1930s England and America largely because of Sabbatarian advocacy. This success, however, was ambiguous; the singular “weekend” suggests an undifferentiated block of time that no longer distinguishes much between rest and recreation. In the end, Sabbatarians were neither as reactionary and unsuccessful as they are commonly depicted, nor as countercultural and successful as they aspired. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Karl E. Johnson was born on September 6, 1966, and graduated from Rye High School (Rye, NY) in 1984. After bicycling across the United States, he entered Cornell University in 1985. At Cornell he was an active member of the soccer team, the wind ensemble, and the Outdoor Education and Wilderness Reflections programs. While an undergraduate, he taught Physical Education classes in Day Hiking, Backpacking, Bicycle Touring, Basic Mountaineering, and started the first service- oriented Physical Education class at Cornell, Trail Maintenance. He graduated in 1990. For fifteen years, Johnson worked in outdoor education. From 1990 through 1992, he served as manager of the Ithaca Youth Bureau Outings Program, leading camping and canoeing trips for “at-risk” youth, and directing a Youth Conservation Corps project in the town of Dryden. In 1993, he began working as a consultant, trainer, and expert witness in the outdoor education field, and also began teaching a popular Cornell Adult University class entitled Outdoor Thrills and Skills. In 1996, he became the Dan Tillemans Director of the Cornell Team and Leadership Center, a division of Cornell Outdoor Education, and the following year he designed and oversaw the construction of Cornell’s Hoffman Challenge Course facility on Mt. Pleasant. He is now the proud namesake of two local facilities—a yurt on Mt Pleasant, in recognition of 20 years of service to Cornell Outdoor Education, and the Karl Johnson Privy in Danby State Forest, in recognition of service to the Cayuga Trails Club. Johnson has received multiple writing awards, including a 1995 Amy Award for writing in religion, and the Pack Natural Resources Management Essay Contest in 1996. In 1999 he was recognized as an Academy of Leisure Sciences Future Scholar. iii His publications have appeared in Journal of Experiential Education, Leisure/Loisir, and in popular publications such as Books & Culture, Taproot, and the New York State Conservationist. In 2000 he received an M.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell, where his thesis focused on the philosophy of recreation and leisure. He has since guest lectured in Cornell University’s departments of Education, Natural Resources, and Applied Economics and Management, and in Ithaca College's Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. In 2001 Johnson enrolled in a doctoral program through Cornell’s Employee Degree Program. In 2005 he became the founding director of Chesterton House, a Center for Christian Studies at Cornell University, an affiliate organization of Cornell United Religious Work. iv To Julie v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was completed over the course of ten years through Cornell University’s Employee Degree Program. I am very grateful to Cornell for this opportunity, and especially to Todd Miner, Cornell Outdoor Education Executive Director, for approving a leave of absence in order to allow me to fulfill the degree program requirements. I am additionally grateful to Steve Froehlich and the Chesterton House board for similar support and flexibility in recent years. Academically, my deepest debt is to my Special Committee Chair, Professor Emeritus Richard A. Baer, Jr. As a generation of students has already noted, Dick’s undergraduate lectures challenged, enlightened, and inspired. Moving fluidly from poetry to policy, they never failed to question conventional wisdom and provide a new perspective on seemingly familiar phenomena. Likewise, I owe a debt to Special Committee member Professor Emeritus R. Lawrence Moore, whose undergraduate classes were also a highlight of my undergraduate education. Though it would be cliché if it were not true, Dick and Larry’s classes literally changed the trajectory of my life by leading me to do something I had never imagined—return to graduate school. I would also like to thank the other members of my Special Committee, including Barbara Bedford, for a very close reading of the thesis and encouragement to continue publishing for a broad public audience, and Jim Lassoie, for providing some much needed assistance at the eleventh hour. To all my committee members: thank you—for your time, your guidance, and above all for your patience. Because I completed this project while working full-time, it has been a lonelier affair than I would have liked. I am therefore all the more grateful for the collegiality I have enjoyed. Jim Tantillo, never at a loss to suggest yet further reading, has been a great encouragement (and source of comic relief) throughout the process; Jamie vi Skillen has been a model of a careful, disciplined, and productive young scholar; and Greg Hitzhusen balanced our group by keeping one foot in the world of practitioners, always reminding us of the connection between theory and praxis. My thanks to all three for conversation, comments, and feedback. Although we are now scattered, I know that my work bears the mark of our time together. Alexis McCrossen provided thoughtful correspondence and comments on a publication related to this dissertation. Paul Heintzman extended several invitations to speak and publish in various venues, as well as comments on a number of papers over the years. And John DeGraaf of Take Back Your Time provided an opportunity to present some of this material at the National Vacation Matters Summit in 2009. I am grateful to all three for taking an interest in my work from a distance. On a more personal note, I am grateful to my parents, Mary B. and the late Stephen H. Johnson. The writing of this dissertation coincided with some difficult years during which my mother suffered a debilitating stroke, and my father and sister succumbed to cancer. More than once the challenges of everyday life caused me to question the value of continuing with this project. And yet the knowledge that my parents would want me to do so was a great help. Although I originally planned to study business, my father—an entrepreneur who never had the opportunity to complete a college degree—suggested that I study something that a university education is actually good for. I embarked on a liberal arts course of study with some reluctance but have never looked back. Thank you. Finally, my thanks to Julie and our children—Meg, Elizabeth, Christine, Sarah, and David. I have aspired to complete this project without great cost to either quality or quantity of time spent with my children, and I hope I have mostly succeeded. Being there to share in the joys and frustrations of your learning to read and write, add and subtract, conjugate and translate, has been and remains a great joy, and I wouldn’t vii miss it for anything. Thank you for your patience on those occasions when my mind seemed elsewhere. Hopefully, Daddy is now really home!
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rome's Arraignment of Sabbath-Breakers
    Rome’s Arraignment of Sabbath-Breakers By J. O’Keefe The editors are pleased to share with you a centennial reprint of a sermon by a J. O’Keefe. This sermon was first printed in the July 3, 1897, issue of the Catholic Mirror and then reprinted that same month by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in a tract entitled Bible Student Library, No. 150, July 1897. We believe our readers will find this sermon to be significant in the light of the ongoing controversy regarding the Bible Sabbath. All emphasis reflects that which appeared in the "Bible Student Library" tract. Any additions made by the editors of Our Firm Foundation are indicated with [square brackets], though some were in the original. The original footnotes on page one of the "Bible Student Library" tract are as follows: The gentleman referred to [J. O’Keefe] is a priest of prominence in the Roman Catholic diocese of Baltimore, Md., and the paper that thus publishes the sermon is the leading Catholic paper of America, the organ of Cardinal Gibbons. The Scripture quotations are often [loosely quoted], sometimes from the Catholic Douay-Rheims version, and sometimes from the King James Version. The reader will find no essential difference. We leave them unchanged, merely correcting typographical errors, and punctuating in the ordinary way. --------------------------------- On last Sunday Rev. J. O’Keefe delivered a sermon at St. John’s Church, which will be of interest to our readers to reproduce in full. He spoke as follows: "But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not; and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted" See Jude 10.
    [Show full text]
  • Courtesy of Theyood Family TABLE of CONTENTS
    Courtesy of TheYood Family TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 MIGRATIONS 4 Daniel Soyer: Goldene Medine, Treyfene Medine: Judaism Survives Migration to America 5 Deborah Dash Moore: The Meanings of Migration: American Jews, Eldridge Street and Neighborhoods 9 PRACTICE 13 Riv-Ellen Prell: A Culture of Order: Decorum and the Eldridge Street Synagogue 14 Jeffrey Gurock: Closing the Americanization Gap between the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s Leaders 19 and Downtown’s Rabbis ENCOUNTERS 23 Jeffrey Shandler: A Tale of Two Cantors: Pinhas Minkowski and Yosele Rosenblatt 24 Tony Michels: The Jewish Ghetto Meets its Neighbors 29 PRESERVATION 34 Samuel Gruber: The Choices We Make: The Eldridge Street Synagogue and Historic Preservation 35 Marilyn Chiat: Saving and Praising the Past 40 MUSEUM AT ELDRIDGE STREET | ACADEMICANGLES 3 he Eldridge Street Synagogue is a National Historic Landmark, the first major house of worship built by East European Jews in America. When it opened in September of 1887 it was an experiment, a response to the immigrants’desire to practice Orthodox Judaism, and to do so in America, their new Promised Land. Today the Eldridge Street Synagogue is Tthe only building on the Lower East Side—once the largest Jewish city in the world—earmarked for broad and public exploration of the American Jewish experience. The Museum at Eldridge Street researches the history of the building, uncovering new ways and stories to bring the building and its history to life. Learning about the congregants and their history ties us to broader trends on the Lower East Side and in American history. To help explore these trends, the Museum at Eldridge Street asks leading scholars to lend their expertise.
    [Show full text]
  • “In God We Trust:” the US National Motto and the Contested Concept of Civil Religion
    religions Article “In God We Trust:” The U.S. National Motto and the Contested Concept of Civil Religion Michael Lienesch Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3265, USA; [email protected] Received: 12 April 2019; Accepted: 20 May 2019; Published: 25 May 2019 Abstract: In this essay, “In God We Trust”, the official motto of the United States, is discussed as an illustration of the contested character of American civil religion. Applying and evaluating assumptions from Robert N. Bellah and his critics, a conceptual history of the motto is presented, showing how from its first appearance to today it has inspired debates about the place of civil religion in American culture, law, and politics. Examining these debates, the changing character of the motto is explored: its creation as a religious response to the Civil War; its secularization as a symbol on the nation’s currency at the turn of the twentieth century; its state-sponsored institutionalization during the Cold War; its part in the litigation that challenged the constitutionality of civil religious symbolism in the era of the culture wars; and its continuing role in the increasingly partisan political battles of our own time. In this essay, I make the case that, while seemingly timeless, the meaning of the motto has been repeatedly reinterpreted, with culture, law, and politics interacting in sometimes surprising ways to form one of the nation’s most commonly accepted and frequently challenged symbols. In concluding, I speculate on the future of the motto, as well as on the changing place of civil religion in a nation that is increasingly pluralistic in its religion and polarized in its politics.
    [Show full text]
  • <Igh,E Atominrntntor
    Winter ... Wear Is <iGh,e atominrntntor Woolen Here .. ·Tzltzis · Official Undergraduate Newspaper of Yeshiva College Vol. LVIII NEW YORK CITY, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER ,4, 1963 No .S Students'P~o.blems_Need Rabbi Soloveit-chi.k w-~nls Uni:ted Personal Religious Therapy Action Against.- Missiorraty 1Threat "Extend your experienced hand halachic roles as one proficient in . ·· , by Stewen_PtJ1to'lir1ky . f ·. · to our college students," was the active field , work:, counseling, and · appeal made by Dr. Menachem intellectual and spiritual attain- Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik the G-d~'of-Israel .•• This is evangelize the whole Jewish corn- M. Brayer, speaking as consulting ments, is now obscured. ·. addressed the students and faculty,, . .. our only answer ;· .. No com- munity as.such;'' psychologist at Yeshiva College, in After classifying Yeshiva stu- of the three Hebrew divisions in promise and no retreat .. ·• We The· ris'e of· the. State of Israd an address before the YU Rab- dents into a host of psychological a special assembly convoked "to follow ·our destiny, we defy even is ' a'. prime reason for the new binical Alumni in Furst Hall, No- categories, Dr. Brayer called upon meet one ..f the most awesome our own common sense • .. we evangelical interests. The-.Church vember 27. ' the rabbis to use traditional re- challenges in the millenia of our have our commitment." has ;taught thai: Jews can never ligious values as the basis for ther- history." ' Rabbi Soloveitchik:'s address return to ,.Zion because :riiey rc- THE COMMENTATOR staff apy. "Judaism," he declared, "lives Rabbi Soloveitchilc discussed and ' ·.. ; . extends a hearty maze/ tor, in today and prepares for tomor- analyzed the evangelical missions to Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Contesting Tradition and Combating Intolerance a History of Free Thought in Kansas
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Fall 2000 Contesting Tradition And Combating Intolerance A History Of Free thought In Kansas Aaron K. Ketchell University of Kansas, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Ketchell, Aaron K., "Contesting Tradition And Combating Intolerance A History Of Free thought In Kansas" (2000). Great Plains Quarterly. 2129. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2129 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. CONTESTING TRADITION AND COMBATING INTOLERANCE A HISTORY OF FREETHOUGHT IN KANSAS AARON K. KETCHELL Diversity is the hallmark of freethought in Although the attitudes of freethinkers toward Kansas, for freethinkers were never a homoge­ religion are the primary concern of this essay, neous body. The movement was not only reli­ it must be remembered that freethinkers had gious, or for that matter, antireligious, different ideas about what the movement although the majority of social and political meant and that opposition to organized reli­ issues that it addressed had religious ground­ gion was only one, but a crucial element of the ing. No one specific organized group domi­ freethought agenda. nated historical Kansas freethinking. Instead, In order to understand the history of individuals in the form of editors of various freethought in Kansas one must first define newspapers, journals, and book series became the movement and its ideology.
    [Show full text]
  • Major League Baseball in Nineteenth–Century St. Louis
    Before They Were Cardinals: Major League Baseball in Nineteenth–Century St. Louis Jon David Cash University of Missouri Press Before They Were Cardinals SportsandAmerican CultureSeries BruceClayton,Editor Before They Were Cardinals Major League Baseball in Nineteenth-Century St. Louis Jon David Cash University of Missouri Press Columbia and London Copyright © 2002 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 54321 0605040302 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cash, Jon David. Before they were cardinals : major league baseball in nineteenth-century St. Louis. p. cm.—(Sports and American culture series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8262-1401-0 (alk. paper) 1. Baseball—Missouri—Saint Louis—History—19th century. I. Title: Major league baseball in nineteenth-century St. Louis. II. Title. III. Series. GV863.M82 S253 2002 796.357'09778'669034—dc21 2002024568 ⅜ϱ ™ This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Designer: Jennifer Cropp Typesetter: Bookcomp, Inc. Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typeface: Adobe Caslon This book is dedicated to my family and friends who helped to make it a reality This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Prologue: Fall Festival xi Introduction: Take Me Out to the Nineteenth-Century Ball Game 1 Part I The Rise and Fall of Major League Baseball in St. Louis, 1875–1877 1. St. Louis versus Chicago 9 2. “Champions of the West” 26 3. The Collapse of the Original Brown Stockings 38 Part II The Resurrection of Major League Baseball in St.
    [Show full text]
  • Landis, Cobb, and the Baseball Hero Ethos, 1917 – 1947
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2020 Reconstructing baseball's image: Landis, Cobb, and the baseball hero ethos, 1917 – 1947 Lindsay John Bell Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Recommended Citation Bell, Lindsay John, "Reconstructing baseball's image: Landis, Cobb, and the baseball hero ethos, 1917 – 1947" (2020). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 18066. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/18066 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reconstructing baseball’s image: Landis, Cobb, and the baseball hero ethos, 1917 – 1947 by Lindsay John Bell A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Rural Agricultural Technology and Environmental History Program of Study Committee: Lawrence T. McDonnell, Major Professor James T. Andrews Bonar Hernández Kathleen Hilliard Amy Rutenberg The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this dissertation. The Graduate College will ensure this dissertation is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred. Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2020 Copyright © Lindsay John Bell, 2020. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Documentary History of the Westminster Assembly
    THE P KESBYTERIAN REVIEW. MANAGING EDITORS : ARCHIBALD A. HODGE, CHARLES A. BRIGGS. ASSOCIATE EDITORS : SAMUEL J. WILSON, JAMES EELLS, FRANCIS L. PATTON, RANSOM B. WELCH, TALBOT W. CHAMBERS. VOLUME I. 1880. NEW YORK: Published for the Presbyterian Review Association, by ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. COPYRIGHT, iSSo, BY A. D. F. RANDOLPH * CO. Edward 0. Jenkins, Printer and Stereotyper, jo North William St., New York. TABLE OF CONTENTS. JANUARY. I.— IDEA AND AIMS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN REVIEW, . 3 The Editors. II.— HUME, HUXLEY, AND MIRACLES 8 Prof. W. G. T. Shedd, D.D., LL.D. III.— JUVENAL'S HISTORICAL JUDGMENTS 34 Prof. W. A. Packard, Ph.D. IV.— THE APOLOGETICAL VALUE OF THE TESTAMENTS OF THE XII PATRIARCHS 57 Prof. B. B. Warfield, D.D. V.— NOTES ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN THE REFORMED CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND FRENCH SWITZER LAND 85 Prof. H. M. Baird, D.D. VI.— RAVENNA 104 Rev. M. R. Vincent, D.D. VII.— DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEM BLY 127 Prof. C. A. Briggs, D.D. VIII.— NOTES AND NOTICES 164 IX.— REVIEWS OF RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE, . 172 APRIL. I.— THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH, 211 Prof. W. J. Beecher, D.D. II.— THE CHINESE IN AMERICA 247 Prof. James Eells, D.D. III.— DEACONESSES 268 Prof. A. T. McGill, D.D., LL.D. IV.— HENRY VAUGHAN, THE POET OF LIGHT 291 Rev. S. W. Duffield. V.— THE THEORY OF PROFESSOR KUENEN 304 Rev. T. W. Chambers, D.D. VI.— A PLEA FOR EVANGELICAL APOLOGETICS, . , . 321 Rev.
    [Show full text]
  • A Genealogist's Guide to Seventh Day Baptists
    A Genealogist’s Guide to Seventh Day Baptists by Shellee A. Morehead, PhD O YOU HAVE ANCESTORS FROM SALEM, WEST who practiced or preached alternate doctrines were D Virginia? What about Janesville, Wisconsin; not welcome in those communities, and were often Denver, Colorado; Piscataway, New Jersey; Berlin or arrested for not adhering to Puritan standards. Alfred, New York; or Woodbridgetown, Pennsylvania? Baptists differed from Puritans — and other reli- These disparate places were all home to migrant groups gious groups — on the practice of infant baptism. of Sabbatarians, or Seventh Day Baptists (hereafter Baptists believed only adults could truly understand SDB), many of whom can be traced back to Rhode and make pledges regarding their faith and, therefore, Island families of the late seventeenth century. This ar- only adults should be baptized. This difference in the- ticle will briefly summarize the history of Seventh Day ology was one reason why Baptists were persecuted. Baptists in the United States, explain how they differed The Baptist concept of a “covenant church” allowed from other religious groups, and describe the relevant each individual to follow his own conscience regarding genealogical records. his beliefs, rather than accept the beliefs and actions propounded by a ruling government and church hier- Roots of Sabbatarianism archy. This was another significant bone of contention Sabbatarianism began in England during the first half with the Puritans. In Massachusetts, the Puritan gov- of the seventeenth century, a time of great political and ernment controlled religious life. Baptist churches, usu- social upheaval. Many groups left England, either by ally consisting of a pastor, elders, perhaps some deacons, force or by choice, to escape persecution and pursue and members, did not conform to the more hierarchi- their religious beliefs according to their own conscience.
    [Show full text]
  • Holy Time: Moderate Puritanism and the Sabbath [Review] / John H. Primus
    BOOK REVIEWS 79 Meier's attempt to reconstruct the historical Jesus thus rests on no very firm foundation and produces no assured results. Those who want solid information on the historical Jesus are far better off turning to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, no matter how "naive" it might be to do so. Northern State University Aberdeen, SD 57401 Primus, John H. Holy Time: Moderate Puritanism and the Sabbath. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1989. viii + 184 pp. Hardcover, $24.95; paperback, $16.95. Since the 1960s there has been a flurry of new interest in the phenomenon of English Sabbatarianism. Articles by Patrick Collinson, Herbert Richardson, Winton Solberg, Richard Greaves, and books by James T. Dennison, Kenneth L. Parker, witness to this. John H. Primus describes his contribution to this discussion as "a re-examination of the relationship between the emerging Puritan movement and the phenomenon of Sabbata- rianism" in order to shed "additional light on the complex dynamics of the sixteenth-century Church of England" (vii). In his research he responds to current discussions and especially to Parker, who has "reopened the fundamental question of the origin of Sabbatarianism and its relationship to Puritanism" (2, 3). Holy Time is not intended exclusively for specialists in Tudor Puritanism. For this reason, Primus includes very helpful contextual and explanatory paragraphs on events already known to experts (vii). Part 1 is a brief historical sketch that highlights certain emphases which Parker tends to overlook. Chap. 1 describes the high Sabbath views in England already evident in the early Reformation. By the end of the sixteenth century "Sabbatarianism had become the linchpin in the Puritan program for more complete reform in England" (17), with one of its distinguishing characteristics being "the divine appointment of Sunday as the new day of rest" (20).
    [Show full text]
  • The Origins of Millerite Separatism
    The Origins of Millerite Separatism By Andrew Taylor (BA in History, Aurora University and MA in History, University of Rhode Island) CHAPTER 1 HISTORIANS AND MILLERITE SEPARATISM ===================================== Early in 1841, Truman Hendryx moved to Bradford, Pennsylvania, where he quickly grew alienated from his local church. Upon settling down in his new home, Hendryx attended several services in his new community’s Baptist church. After only a handful of visits, though, he became convinced that the church did not believe in what he referred to as “Bible religion.” Its “impiety” led him to lament, “I sometimes almost feel to use the language [of] the Prophecy ‘Lord, they have killed thy prophets and digged [sic] down thine [sic] altars and I only am left alone and they seek my life.”’1 His opposition to the church left him isolated in his community, but his fear of “degeneracy in the churches and ministers” was greater than his loneliness. Self-righteously believing that his beliefs were the “Bible truth,” he resolved to remain apart from the Baptist church rather than attend and be corrupted by its “sinful” influence.2 The “sinful” church from which Hendryx separated himself was characteristic of mainstream antebellum evangelicalism. The tumultuous first decades of the nineteenth century had transformed the theological and institutional foundations of mainstream American Protestantism. During the colonial era, American Protestantism had been dominated by the Congregational, Presbyterian, and Anglican churches, which, for the most part, had remained committed to the theology of John Calvin. In Calvinism, God was envisioned as all-powerful, having predetermined both the course of history and the eternal destiny of all humans.
    [Show full text]
  • The Emergence of Pentecostalism In
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by SHAREOK repository THE EMERGENCE OF PENTECOSTALISM IN OKLAHOMA: 1909-1930 By MICHAEL SEAMAN Bachelor of Arts in History Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 2010 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS May, 2018 THE EMERGENCE OF PENTECOSTALISM IN OKLAHOMA, 1909-1930 Thesis Approved: Dr. Bill Bryans Thesis Adviser Dr. Joseph Byrnes Dr. Michael Logan ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my wife, Abigail, for the support over our entire marriage. Your importance to the completion of this work could fill a thesis. I want to thank our two little ones, Ranald & Thaddeus, who came to us throughout my graduate work. To my dad, Rolland Stanley Seaman, for all of his encouragement. My sister and brother for letting me make it out of childhood. To Dr. Michael Thompson for the kind words and guidance throughout my undergraduate career. To Dr. Lesley Rimmel and Dr. David D’Andrea were also very supportive voices during that time as well. To Dr. Ronald Petrin who helped me pick this topic. Dr. David Shideler for being a friend I should have listened to more often and his wife Tina, who is always (well, usually) right (but I’m mostly just thankful for the free food). To Dr. Tom and Marsha Karns for supporting my family and for their cabin, having that secluded space was worth more than gold to me.
    [Show full text]