Skip to main content

Why Teach about Kentucky's Early Nineteenth Century Camp Meetings

 

Over the next several weeks, this blog will feature posts about the early nineteenth century camp meetings such as the Cane Ridge Revival[1] in Bourbon County Kentucky which happened in August 1801. It was organized and promoted over several months as a Presbyterian celebration of Holy Communion. While Holy Communion remains a very important ordinance in every modern Christian denomination and church, it is usually embedded in a regular congregational meeting, taking no more than about 30 minutes. This was not the case with eighteenth and early nineteenth century Presbyterians. Consistent with the traditions brought to the United States by Scottish Presbyterians, Communion took at least three days. First the prospective participants were required to prove that they were spiritually qualified to receive the bread and wine that represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The next day was for the actual sacramental meal. The third day was given to praise and thanks to God for what they had experienced.

 

The Cane Ridge Meeting House had been appointed as a place where people from all over the frontier should gather for a four-day Communion celebration. Some scholars estimate that some 20,000 people serendipitously turned up at the small log church in their wagons and on foot. They were prepared to camp for a few days. The journals of the Christians who were present record that, besides the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists also came. They describe a very loud din from the singing, praying, preaching, and people agonizing over God’s claims on their souls. The activity continued night and day for a week. There were people at Cane Ridge of every age and ethnicity, both enslaved and free. The journals also insist that the Holy Spirit was present and that He took over the meeting.

 

Many historians consider that the Cane Ridge Revival initiated the Second Great Awakening in America. This revival spread across the country through the pop-up phenomenon of outdoor camp meetings. In addition to triggering the emergence of a grassroots expression of American Christianity in response to the nation’s commitment to the separation of church and state, camp meetings influenced cultural and social shifts in the nation that impacted antebellum attitudes, conflicts, laws, and changes to the status quo. So many people embraced the Christian faith at these camp meetings that antebellum attitudes changed concerning: the separation of church and state, the role of women and children, temperance, Sabbath laws and slavery. Camp meetings provided unprecedented opportunities for Americans from different cultural, racial, ethnic and generational backgrounds to mingle. Camp meetings were the catalyst for the development of American folk music and of Negro Spirituals. In fact, without providing students with an understanding of the religious impulse released at these camp meetings, it is difficult for them to grasp the reasons for the changes that happened within our culture.

 

The early nineteenth century camp meetings started in Kentucky. While you can still visit the Cane Ridge Meeting House and Museum, the site’s interpretation is more focused on the history of one denomination and on the significant architecture of the log meeting house than on reimagining the events and ideas from the 1801 revival. The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project is creating an outdoor re-imagined early nineteenth century camp meeting using Living History methods for public school students on field trips. We hope to have the outdoor classroom available (COVID-19 precautions permitting) by September 2021. Meanwhile, over the next several weeks, look for blog posts that will consider how these revival meetings impacted and shifted American culture and societal norms.

 

©2021 by Lesley Barker PhD

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First lessons about world religion for primary classes

Religion is lumped in with history, literature, languages and art as one of the humanities but we tend not to feel as comfortable teaching about religion as the other subjects. Teaching about religion does not promote any one particular faith. It introduces the fact that there are differences between people and their ideas and practices about God. Primary students can easily be introduced to the idea that there are different religions during social studies units about the community and its people. Different religions use different types of  buildings. Different religions can be identified by the way some adherents dress. When you are teaching about communities, say that people worship in different types of buildings. People who are Christians worship in churches or cathedrals. People who are Jewish worship in synagogues. People who are Muslim worship in mosques, and people who are Hindu or Buddhist worship in temples. Take pictures of any of these buildings in your school community...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy Birthday to the Trees!

Yesterday, February 6, 2023, was the Jewish festival Tu B'Shvat . It is the birthday of the trees. The date this festival is celebrated shifts from year to year. All Jewish feasts do because the Jewish calendar is lunar. The birthday of the trees it will always be in January or February, however. Why do the trees need a birthday? Because the ancient Jewish law forbade a person from eating from a fruit tree until it was five years old. So, all the trees have their birthdays on the same day.  What does that have to do with us at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project in Paris, Kentucky? Our mission is to provide education around the Christian religion and its history, particularly in Kentucky. As one of the signs on our half-mile Walking Trail says, the first people who believed the Christian message were Jewish people living in Jerusalem in the first century of the Christian era. So, by honoring this Jewish festival, we recall the roots of the Christian faith. Bes...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merry Christmas and Thank You: An Open Letter to Kentucky's K-12 Teachers

 Dear Teacher, It's nearly winter break. We here at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project wish every Kentucky teacher a blessed holiday season. We want you to know that we value what you do and that we understand that your job is not about the paycheck. It's truly about the students. It takes commitment and sacrifice. We want to take this opportunity to thank you.  You more than deserve the recognition and the honor. Many of you keep a warm coat in the trunk of your car for when you have bus duty at the end of the day and the temperature has dropped 20 degrees since you left your house before it was light. You probably have spent several recent evenings preparing to delight your students with a holiday surprise before winter break. You routinely spend your own money to make sure your classroom has enough paper, pencils, crayons and other essential supplies so that every student can learn. Many have made it a personal mission to provide a safe environment fo...
Post a Comment
Read more