What Is This Drawing Of A Camp Meeting Most Likely Illustrating
Pugnacity, Power, Prurience and Greed: Preachers from the Frontier to the Television
In the Southern frontier the military camp meeting played an unparalleled social role, interim every bit non only a stricture on other forms of social amusement such as drinking, horseracing and brawling, but as well as an entertaining, revitalizing form of social interaction. While intentions were typically high and holy in the establishment of camp meetings, they often devolved into less than righteous gatherings. The unsupervised, disorderly emotion that frequently characterized the military camp meetings before long became their defining characteristic. This mingling of the holy and the unrighteous elements in the religious gatherings of frontier camp meetings similarly has come up to define the modern popular religious arena. The modern evangelical movement has frequently taken on the political and monetary motives that it, on the surface, rejects, falling prey to the lure of glamorized, televised popular morality. The frontier camp meeting and the mod evangelical revival coming together are depicted in both historical narratives and literary works as strangely schizophrenic. They meld and alloy righteousness and impiety, creating a religious carnival. This incorporation of disparate elements is most clearly exemplified through the almost archetypal characters usually present at both camp meetings and evangelical revivals. Amid characters such as the trickster and the virgin, one graphic symbol stands out, possibly surprisingly, equally i of the virtually of import and engaging players in the camp meeting and evangelical arenas in both fictional and historical accounts: the preacher. Embodying a strange duality, the army camp meeting preacher is at one time depicted as pious and revered and simultaneously bawdy, lustful, and uneducated. Similarly, the popular modern understanding of the evangelist preacher imagines him as deceitful under a sheen or virtue. Information technology is clear through the study of these accounts that embodied inside both preachers are elements of brazenness and impudence, holiness and righteousness, which meld to form a unique historical and literary effigy. Equally the dual nature of the army camp meeting preacher has evolved throughout American history, the mod 24-hour interval evangelist preacher, known for his dramatic antics, fundraising events, and glitzy, theatrical services has emerged; in both preachers there is an element of both piety and trickery, emerging from the fertile soil of life on the frontier and Hollywood manner.
The Camp Coming together and its Preachers
The Campsite Meeting and its Social Function
The frontier army camp coming together not only served a item religious purpose, namely, bringing unsaved souls to organized religion, it besides acted both within and outside the social constructs of its 24-hour interval in very item ways. The frontier was governed in many means by its social constructs that separated men from women, whites from blacks, rich from poor. It was an extremely hierarchical order in which one's worth was based on one's societal position. Unlike in more than urban areas, where the social hierarchy was fairly predetermined by one'south parents, the frontier hierarchy was, perchance, more fluid. One gained stature through one'due south power to live and thrive within the earthy, dangerous borderland globe. However, there was a particular structure that was adhered to by most without question that separated and classified people according to various standards. The military camp coming together often challenged this bureaucracy. In his essay, "Reminiscences of a Camp Meeting" Reverend W.I. Ellsworth speaks of the power the camp meeting held to erase social class and gender distinctions. He writes, "What a scene to gaze upon! At that place was bowed the sire and the son, the human of wealth and the human of penury, the dweller in the city and the dweller in the country, side by side, seeking the aforementioned Savior" (342). The camp meeting offered an alternate social construction from the hierarchical class system to which the frontier normally adhered. Nathan O. Hatch writes that those who supported the camp meeting move, ". . .began to piece together a popular theology that inverted the traditional assumption that truth was more likely to be found at the upper rather than the lower reaches of order. This perspective sprang from an intensely egalitarian reading of the New Testament" (45). Therefore, while those who were disenfranchised and lacking in power frequently identified and appreciated the camp meetings leveling power, the same meetings were often viewed as unsafe and threatening to those at the top of the social totem pole.
The Camp Meeting Preacher
However, because this religious experience was in direct opposition to the other secular social activities, campsite meetings and the preachers who espoused the army camp coming together ethics often came under set on by some of the people on the borderland. Because the military camp meeting preachers oft spoke against the more than secular forms of amusement such as brawling and drinking, they caused quite a backlash from some frontiersmen who were quite happy with their social standing and their crude manner of life that solidified their hold on ability. In her book Southern Cross Christine L. Heyrman speaks of the ways in which preachers were viewed as threats to the Southern borderland social order, writing, "[a]t stake for all masters was maintaining their independence, the essence of masculine accolade, and when they felt it had been violated, the carapace of their seeming civility toward the clergy croaky" (216). Camp meeting preachers represented, for these frontiersmen, an emasculating force that wished to rob them of their independence by destroying the more bawdy social orders and converting them.
This negative view of camp meetings and military camp meeting preachers often created quite a dichotomy between negative social perception and the reality of the military camp coming together preachers' positive intentions. Despite varied backgrounds and styles, many of the religious leaders that took part in military camp meetings were committed to their calling and morally grounded in Scripture. There are wide-ranging accounts of the sacrifices that many preachers and circuit riders made in club to witness to the people living on the frontier. For example, in the Marian Douglas poem "Before the Wedding ceremony" she writes:
Just when camp-meeting came effectually. . .He told the Gospel story/So thrillingly, through all the grove/Went up one shout of 'Glory!'/Rough men were bowed, hard sinners wept/I owned his ability to hold me. . .'A Methodist itinerant,/Who keeps forever moving,/Moving, moving moving,/Just two years in a place./That'south too hard a manner,' thought I/ 'To run the Christian race!'" (Douglas, 685)
Deceitfulness and Trickery
Even so, despite the reverence they received from some members of frontier society, the vocalism of the powerful and the threatened often drowned out these positive views. Whether they were honest or not, camp meeting preachers were often depicted past frontiersmen as deceitful con men who carried ulterior motives in their military camp meeting sermons and exercises. Literarily, camp meeting preachers were often pitted against renowned tricksters and were constantly proven more than deceitful and impious than those who were blatantly irreverent. In George Washington Harris' "Parson John Bullen's Lizards" the preacher at the camp meeting is portrayed equally a gluttonous man who is far from righteous. Sut Lovingood, the humorous trickster protagonist, describes him as, "The durnd infunel, hiperkritikal, pot-bellied, scaley-hided, whisky-wastin, stinkin ole groun'-squealer" (208). Hyperbolic or non, Sut's description of the army camp meeting preacher illustrates the ways in which army camp coming together preachers were regarded every bit dangerous to the social norms. Constantly, literary tricksters try to prove the camp meeting preacher as unworthy of any social reverence. By showing them to be men that were no amend than a mere huckster, they pointed out the community's error in holding the preachers in loftier regard. In Johnson Jones Hooper's "The Captain Attends a Army camp-Coming together" the trickster Simon Suggs is easily able to convince the congregation that he wants to become a government minister, conspicuously illustrating the willingness of the military camp coming together audience to follow a leader, regardless of whether he was righteous or non. Through these literary works, the piety and the religious role of the camp meeting preacher is constantly called into question as the authors point out the ways in which these ministers are merely attempting to upend the social structure in lodge to proceeds ability and influence for themselves, while stealing it from the "real men" of the frontier.
Sex and Violence
Military camp meeting preachers were not but bailiwick to literary satire, just historically their intentions and religious roles were also constantly nether scrutiny. It is clear that some of the literary satire was well warranted. While preachers often spoke against social rituals such as brawling and sex, hypocritically they also frequently took part in them. Plainly army camp meeting ministers utilized various methods of preaching and witnessing, amid them some that were overtly trigger-happy and others that carried explicitly sexual overtones. Frequently, because of these methods, the frontiersman's negative view of the camp meeting preacher was really confirmed and justified.
Defenseless upward in religious fervor, preachers would sometimes resort to coarser methods of 'bringing people to Christ,' at times bullying them into conversion. Additionally, if they felt threatened by nowadays troublemakers, military camp meeting preachers were unafraid of resorting to extreme violence. Heyrman notes, ". . .preachers sought respect among masters less by calling on religious charisma—which was, after all, the sole resort of white women, youths, and blacks—than past claiming the combative skills prized by most southern men" (236). It would seem that army camp coming together preachers were enlightened of their stereotypically emasculating function. Some actively rebelled against it by adopting, or reverting dorsum, to the normal and accepted violence of the frontiersman. These aggressive techniques were non only a means of survival, but also a way of gaining respect from their fellow southern males. Often this violence was used in club to control congregations, only it was also simply used as a reminder of the minister's position of power. Heyrman recounts the story of the Tennessee preacher John Brooks who, "overhearing one 'noted heathen. . .disparage Jesus Christ as a d—d bastard. . .threw him into a large fire and put my correct human foot on him to hold him at that place'" (237). The social structure had been revised by the military camp meeting preacher in order to identify the minister in a part of power. The aforementioned preachers who had created an atmosphere of social equality often felt the need to then maintain the power that they had maybe inadvertently been warranted through the reverence of their congregants.
Although many ministers utilized muscle to overcome those who opposed their preaching, Reverend Peter Cartwright is one of the most renowned. Once, when some rowdy men threatened to distract his congregation with their bouncy exclamations, Cartwright reportedly, "warned the man that if he did not remain quiet he would pound in his chest. . .The mob leader swung wildly at the fighting preacher just missed him. Cartwright saw an opening, hit the leader on the burr of his ear, and knocked him downwards. . .in a few minutes order was restored" (Mondy, 204). These exercises in violence, and others like them, helped establish the preachers equally equals among the Southern male laity that they served. Nonetheless, while it kept their congregations nether control, it certainly undermined their claim as peaceful men of God, and besides undercut their message of social equality.
In addition to occasionally utilizing fierce means in order to spread the Gospel, camp meeting preachers were also in danger of succumbing to the weaknesses of the flesh. Sometimes, utilizing their position of esteem, the preachers would play out lustful fantasies amidst the women that they hid nether the guise of 'religious exercises.' It was not uncommon for "[p]rostitutes [to troll] the outskirts of encampments, soliciting business from both the backslid and the devotedly hearten. . ." (Heyrman, 231). However, for ministers at camp meetings the religiously devout women were much easier targets for lustful practices. In "A Story of the Camp-Meeting" Mary E. Grafton writes of the camp meeting preacher, "he had been in neighborhoods where Dobson, years ago, earlier he became sanctified—was well known as a 'revivalist,' and he knew his reputation was such that 'family men' looked well to the ways of their own households, in the item districts in which he happened to be 'evangelizing'" (501). Exploiting the power a minister had equally a community leader, some preachers took full advantage of the esteem of religious women. In Johnson Jones Hooper's "The Helm Attends a Army camp-Meeting" ane of the preachers is portrayed as an underhanded, lustful graphic symbol. Hooper's protagonist and narrator Simon Suggs observes a camp meeting, noting of i of the leaders, ". . .ther he's been this half-hour, a-figurin amongst tem galls, and'southward never said the fust word to nobody else. Wonder what's the reason these here preachers never hugs upwards the old, ugly women? Never seed ane do information technology in my life—the sperrit never moves 'em that way!'"(Hooper, 293). While there are fewer accounts of preachers really taking sexual advantage of a member of his congregation, in that location are many implications of unnecessarily sexual activities initiated past the ministers and directed toward young women in the congregation, not just in Hooper, but also in Harris and Mark Twain.
A Shifting Theology
The power that campsite meeting preachers had over their congregants was demonstrated through their effective use of violence and sex in lodge to win converts. However, it is through sermons that preachers nigh clearly lay out their egalitarian theology that allows uneducated preachers who are on par socially with the disenfranchised members of society to claim and agree on to social power and influence as purveyors of religious 'truth.' Anne C. Loveland, in her book Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order: 1800-1860 , states, "For southern ministers, as for virtually all nineteenth century evangelicals, preaching was the most important duty" (38). The camp meeting sermon was a special event. As Harris' Sut Lovingood describes them, these sermons were "pow'wing mixed wif brimstone, an' trim'd wif blueish flames" (208). Ofttimes it was because these preachers were uneducated men who were part of the 'plain-folk' as much equally their congregation that they were able to speak to their audiences clearly and emotionally. The army camp meeting preacher insisted that theology would non often get in the manner of the message of Scripture. John B. Boles in The Bang-up Revival: Ancestry of the Bible Belt writes, "[a]southward the revival spread beyond the upper region of South Carolina, it became obvious that the camp coming together thrived best under the tutelage of the less-educated, more emotional [preachers]" (95). This emphasis on manipulating the emotions rather than speaking to 1'due south intelligence caused the army camp meeting ministers to pit themselves, fairly intentionally, against the theological establishment of the solar day that favored social club, course systems, and strict liturgy. The camp meeting preachers authored a new method of reading the Bible that allowed any laic equal access to Scripture. They believed that theological teaching was unnecessary to understanding Scripture. In fact, they argued, it often became a stumbling block for believers. The campsite meeting sermon, therefore, emphasized egalitarian theology and the necessary emotional response to faith.
As the main vehicles of conversion, sermons were understood to convey the untempered truth of the Gospel. In "Going to a Campsite Coming together" by a Mrs. H.C. Gardner, the writer illustrates the way in which a well-delivered sermon could solidify a preacher's reputation and garner him praise and reverence from all who heard it. She writes:
I can not still convince myself that the sermons to which I have listened at campsite meeting exercise not surpass in many respects, in unction and power, for instance, all other sermons that I have heard. . .If there is whatsoever thing like eloquence in [the preacher] it is sure to exist angry. And then at that place is a fervency of spirit, a melting dearest and concern for the impenitent, which is seldom exhibited and then prominently elsewhere. (Gardner, 646-647)
"Fifty-fifty those previously unmoved past the emotion of a camp meeting could be swayed, Gardner implies, past the power of a sermon'southward delivery. It was the emotion backside a sermon more than any eloquence of intellectual power of the preacher that moved the camp meeting audience. Reverend Gustavus Hines writes in his essay "The Camp Meeting: A Reminiscence," ". . .in that location was no daubing with untempered mortar, no mincing the truth of God's word, no effort to preach a fantabulous sermon, no attempts to lower the standard of the Gospel truth to accommodate the whims and prejudices of the fastidious. . ." (259). The military camp meeting sermon intended to deliver the power and truth of Scripture without whatever nuance or theological shading. According to some, it was actually considering of the preacher'due south lack of teaching that he was able to tap the true cadre of religious emotion through what was seen as his truthful, unfettered reading of Scripture, and his unbiased condemnation of sin.
Hardin E. Taliaferro's "Parson Squint: By Skitt, Who Has Seen Him" illustrates the coarseness that often identified and divers a camp coming together sermon. While satirical in content, Taliaferro'due south satirical parody of a sermon does let for a strange sympathy and, according to Cohen and Dillingham, "it would be more accurate to term his comic sermons recollections or reconstructions rather than burlesques, for in form and language he is faithful to his originals" (129). In "Parson Squint" Taliaferro is able to articulate the manner by which preachers used Biblical texts as confirmation of their ain religious views rather than reading them considerately and and so interpreting them. Parson Squint uses a passage from the book of Hosea in order to criticize other forms of Baptists, condemning them through the text in an emotional but intellectually unconvincing reading. Getting carried away with tangential subjects, Parson Squint also addresses theological bug and Christian dogma, stretching the text to its limits in order to use it to explicate the varying beliefs of unlike denominations. Throughout the sermon Squint illustrates his lack of formal education. Finally, in a impact of irony Parson Squint states, ". . .the whole wourld, all say nosotros are few and ignunt. Let um say information technology, ole Squint is able to bear it. . .We kin soon exist multipled similar the widder's meal and ile, ah! Accordin to the prophesy'due south o' the prophets, thar's a glorious futer for [the states]" (Taliaferro, 147). For Taliaferro the preacher is non especially harmful, or, possibly, fifty-fifty hypocritical, although he does harshly condemn other Christian denominations. Rather, he is a victim of his ain lack of educational activity and his uninformed pride. The sermon rarely utilizes the text beyond a reading that simply solidifies the preacher's preconceived and preconstructed bespeak.
The anonymously penned "The Harp of a Thousand Strings: A Hard-Crush Baptist Sermon" emphasizes the preacher's lack of teaching. Even so, for this preacher, this is a matter of pride, for it is something that he has overcome. He states, "I may say to you my brethring, that I am not an edicated mane in the State of Indianny, whar I live, thar'southward no man as gets bigger congregations nor what I glisten' although I'chiliad capting of the flatboat that lies at your landing, I'm non proud, my brethring" (Whitehead and Muhrer, 56-57). Once once more, the preacher is less concerned with the souls of his congregation than with the advancement of his own career. As a flatboatman, the preacher has already gained the respect of frontiersmen because of the bravery and assumed manliness that that career demands. Not quite every bit pious as his conservative religious views would back up, he continues:
Now thar's a dandy many kinds of sperits in the world—in the fuss place, thar'southward the sperits as some folks call ghosts, and thar's the sperits uv turpentine, and thar'due south the sperits every bit some folks call liquor, an' I've got a skillful an artikel of them kind of sperits on my flatboat as ever was fotch down the Mississippi River. . .(57)
The author of the parody implies that the preachers are never as pious as they would like to announced to their congregations. The government minister not just owns liquor and other worldly possessions, he is besides proud of them. Parodies such as "Parson Squint" and "The Harp of a Thousand Strings" depict camp meeting preachers as beingness as proud and worldly as their congregants. Hypocritically they condemned other Christians, while they remained revered men of God who, through bootlegging and other presumably impious practices, became wealthy men.
The army camp meeting preacher, therefore, is a report in paradox. He, and the army camp meeting organization in which he worked, continually challenged the existing structures of social dominance and class. The preacher insisted that any and all tin come to equal understandings of God and organized religion through simple encounters with Scripture. However, only as he attempted to upend the social hierarchies that existed on the frontier, he continually tried to maintain the power and reverence that he had gained through this social leveling. He was therefore satirized as hypocritical and dishonest by those whose power and masculinity had been challenged, for while the preacher condemned widespread social customs, he also was required to enter and exist within them in club to maintain his social power. This strange balancing human activity left the camp meeting preacher at once both revered and reviled by those on the borderland and by those religious leaders outside the frontier earth.
The Modernistic Evangelist
The New Movement
The duality betwixt honesty and perversity that existed within the brazen frontier preacher was only the beginning of a longer-lasting tradition of evangelical ministers. Throughout the years preachers have non only been revered as 'God'south witnesses,' but have likewise been feared past those whose social power and standing are threatened by the power of the preacher. It seems there is an indefinite line that exists betwixt divine and the devil in popular imagination, peculiarly when it comes to ministers who exists in the public limelight. This may be most evident in the more fundamentalist preachers who thrive on publicity and tv popularity. The resurgence of huge, publicized revivals, and the emergence of televangelism creates a type of preacher whose message is extremely dualistic. While challenge to be preaching the Gospel, these preachers are driven by money, power, and politics. Both revered by their peers and rejected past exterior observers, these preachers be as the mod form of the frontier preacher.
Greed
Unlike the frontier preacher, the modern evangelist is driven less by an upending of social hierarchies than the entrance into such a hierarchy, and the demand to climb the hierarchies ladder through the attainment of wealth. Whether as a televangelist or a modernistic revivalist, information technology seems that the issue at stake for many modern evangelists is money. Despite the best intentions at the beginning of one's career, oft the lure of wealth seems to supercede whatsoever of the modern evangelists' former goals. For instance, A.A. Adams, a cocky-pronounced spiritual and physical healer, became obsessed with coin to the indicate that his previously egalitarian theology shifted in club to account for his wealth. James Morris writes of Adams' youth, "He had started smoking at the age of six, had his offset adult female at the age of twelve, and at xviii lived with a common-constabulary married woman. By the time he was twenty-three he claimed the reputation of worst sinner in that department of Missouri. . ." (6-vii). However, just as sometimes the frontier's tricksters were converted at the military camp-meetings, Missouri's sinner, Adams, converted at a Methodist tent revival, and soon joined a Pentecostal Church building nearby. While in his humble ancestry Adams was decidedly opposed to the wealth of a minister, later barely making it for a time, his views changed. Morris writes, "At the first of his ministry, he firmly believed that a preacher should not talk near coin, that a minister with two suits was a sinner, a pastor with a new motorcar, an obvious hypocrite. But living on the edge of poverty had tempered those beliefs somewhat" (9-ten). As his ministry grew, Adams observed the huge crowds attention faith healers such every bit Oral Roberts' revivals. Challenge to have heard a call from the Lord, Adams after entered into the realm of healer too. Presently he was being revered as ane of the most influential revivalists of his mean solar day.
Every bit Allen's popularity grew, then did the number of critics. The i criticism that Adams could not escape was that he was growing rich off of his congregants, some of whom were poverty-ridden or destitute. Morris writes:
Time magazine decided in its March vii, 1969, outcome that his [Allen'south] faith healing ministry had for all practical purposes become some other sect, and reported, with eyebrows suitably raised, that in the previous year A.A. Allen Revivals, Inc., had grossed $2,692,342—not including the salaries of Allen and his two associate preachers, whose �cut,' according to Time, was taken in the grade of 'love offerings' from their field campaigns. (5)
As his wealth increased, Adams' theology again slowly shifted. While he himself had been poverty-ridden in his previous life, Adams began to exploit the poor as a faith healer. He encouraged his poor followers to pledge money; if they were faithful, the Lord would assistance them pay. Morris notes that by 1968 Adams had "refined his peculiar coin doctrine into a perverted form of hyper-Calvinism which taught that wealth was a sign of God'southward blessing. He could not abide followers who remained poor, for that was certain prove they were out of God's will" (45). Adams remained adamant until his death from alcoholism that his congregants continue to pay him big sums of money. Adams, like other evangelists, had felt the lure of money to be made. Based on the trust of his congregants, who revered him as a man of God, Adams was able to build an evangelical empire.
While Adams was only criticized for his excessive pleas for coin, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were forced out of the ministry after it was revealed that they had been non but soliciting money from their followers, simply as well misusing the donations. Their huge evangelical empire was centered in an amusement park called Heritage United states of america and a television network called PTL (an acronym standing for People That Love or Praise The Lord, interchangeably). The empire, congenital during an American economic upswing, subsisted largely on donations given past viewers and followers of the Bakkers' ministry. Larry Martz and Ginny Carroll speak of the Bakkers' pleas for donations, stating, "Giving to God, of grade, meant giving to PTL, and Jim learned to have reward of his flock's new prosperities backbone of his [Bakker's] empire was the mailing list of 507,000 'PTL partners' who were regular correspondents, and nigh half of them were pledged to brand a monthly contribution of $15 or more than" (10-xi). These contributions were supposedly marked for apply in the upkeep of the network and the ministry. Yet, after credit card companies traced the spending of both Jim and Tammy Faye, the suspicions mounted. Ane man who worked for the Bakkers reported, "On ane road trip. . .he [the employee] was sent out to buy a hundred dollars worth of cinnamon buns, non because anyone was hungry but because Tammy liked the way they made the hotel room smell" (Ma 
After being investigated by both the FCC and the IRS, it was reported that ". . .the top officials of PTL had been paid $14.9 million more than their services were worth in the years 1981-1987. Of that, Jim and Tammy had taken $9.36 million" (Martz and Carroll, 63). While it is not uncommon for evangelists, especially those who minister via television, to enquire for donations from their congregants and viewers, the Bakkers presented a unique example of the misuse of such funds through their extreme extravagance. Lavish spending included, ". . .a flight to Europe on the Concorde, with seats at more $two,000 apiece. . .an $800 briefcase; a $70 accost book; a $74 toilet kit from Gucci; a $120 pen. . ." (Martz and Carroll, 65). Information technology was clear that the Bakkers had been misusing funds; ". . .an IRS worksheet [stated] that Jim Bakker had taken undocumented expenses totaling $860,000 in 1985" (Martz and Carroll, 165). Because of their extravagance and Jim's alleged sexual misconduct, the Assembly of God denomination defrocked the Bakkers, and Jerry Falwell, an evangelist from Lynchburg, Virginia, took over the PTL network that subsequently folded completely. Nearly agree that Falwell's deportment in the proceedings were more aligned to the advancement of his own career than Christian pity for a fellow minister. This may be well-nigh evident in Doug Marlette's editorial cartoon that appeared in the Charlotte Observer . In his delineation, Falwell is portrayed as the Edenic serpent, greedily wrapping himself around the PTL empire, while publicly presenting himself as the Bakkers' saving grace. All the same, despite the greed exhibited on Falwell'southward part and the evidence that evangelists oftentimes fall casualty to vices, the forehandedness exhibited by the Bakkers was unprecedented, and remains i of the best illustrations of the misuse of congregants' trust and donations.
Sex
Greed is not the only motivating gene in the evangelical movement, even so. Just as in camp-meetings, modernistic evangelists oft fall prey to the temptations of lust, many in the public eye. Jim Bakker fell to the temptation of lust and was accused of infidelity. Information technology was considering of this adultery, non because of his misuse of funds, that Bakker was removed from ministry. Although the fiscal state of affairs was what caused Bakker to be watched, it was the cheating activity that created the ultimate downfall. While one's congregants often accept greed, sex becomes more problematic within the realm of the Church. Randall Balmer notes that "Some commentators fabricated much of the fact that Hahn (subsequently the requisite plastic surgery) [Jim Bakker's secretary with whom he had an declared affair] appeared in Playboy, while the woman linked with [Jimmy] Swaggart appeared in Penthouse" (35). In the mod era in which sexuality is already a burgeoning marketplace, it is clear that these showmen of the Church building are unable to resist its lure. Unlike the sexual undertones of the camp-coming together preachers' revivalist techniques, modern day evangelists' sexual misconduct is much more than blatant, undercutting their brownie as 'men of God' and proving their ultimate humanity.
One of the best modern examples is that of Jimmy Swaggert. Swaggert, whose cousin was Jerry Lee Lewis, came from a long line of showmen, edifice an empire on his televangelism. Ironically, later on criticizing the sexual misconduct of other ministers such every bit Jim Bakker and Marvin Gorman, Swaggert was filmed entering a Louisiana hotel room with a prostitute. Before his own transgressions were uncovered, Swaggert had stated in his magazineThe Evangelist , "To permit a preacher of the Gospel, when he is caught beyond the shadow of a doubt committing an immoral act . . . to remain in his position every bit pastor (or whatever), would be the most gross stupidity." (Ostling, 55). Nevertheless, later the Assemblies of God denomination suspended him from preaching for ii years, Swaggert defied the determination and went back to his ministry after three months (Balmer, 34). Again, the theological stance one time adopted by a hard-line evangelical had to be bent in gild to maintain a position of religious leadership and power.
From a literary perspective this sexual misconduct is rampant in Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry . As a minister Elmer is expected to be a mainstay of moral society. However, this is clearly not the instance every bit Lewis writes, "He [Elmer] had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing any for decency and kindness and reason" (28). Information technology is clear from early in the novel that one of Elmer'southward greatest flaws is his inability to curb his womanizing tendencies. Lewis writes of Elmer'south animalism, "Lulu Bains had been a tempting mouthful; Cleo Benham was of the race of queens. To possess her, Elmer gloated, would in itself by an empire, worth any battling still he did not itch to get her in a corner and osculation her, equally he had Lulu. . ." (268). Caught between his love of money and his love of sex, perhaps the 2 strongest temptations for evangelists, Elmer chooses to marry Cleo for her coin and carry on extramarital diplomacy to assuage his animalism. Lewis writes, "He kept himself from paying any attention, except rollickingly kissing her once or twice, to the fourteen-year-sometime girl of his landlady. He was, in fact, total of good works and clerical exemplaries" (288). Elmer'southward duties as a minister keep the temptations of sex at a distance, withal practice not erase them. In the end of the novel, Elmer has become an established evangelist. However, his womanizing has not however concluded. During a prayer "[h]due east turned to include the choir, and for the first time he saw that there was a new singer, a girl with charming ankles and lively eyes, with whom he would certainly have to become well acquainted. Only the idea was so swift that it did not interrupt the paean of his prayer. . ." (Lewis, 432). Lewis' satirical view of evangelism'due south dualities is clearly illustrated through Elmer. Even as he prays to make America a moral nation, Elmer habitually falls prey to his own immoral temptations. Literarily, Lewis has portrayed the hypocritical stance an evangelist who has non lived up to his phone call must assume. To maintain religious leadership Elmer Gantry must preserve the façade of piety, while his baser man lusts lead him to undercut that piety through sex and greed.
Violence
Merely as in camp-meetings, preachers today frequently struggle with the temptation to abuse the power invested in them by their congregants. This may accept the course of greed or sexual practice, only it is also played out through brutality and violence. While preaching divine traits such as peace and dearest, as humans, these preachers often fall short. Ane of the nearly vivid portrayals of this brutality is in the picture show "The Apostle." Robert Duvall, equally Sonny, a Pentecostal Southern evangelical preacher, is unable to control his calumniating employ of power. An adulterer himself, Sonny is unable to handle his wife's adultery. After she leaves him, he confronts her lover at a baseball game. Drunk and angry, Sonny swings a baseball game bat at the human's caput, knocking him to the ground. This abuse of power plagues Sonny through the rest of the movie. Eventually, he finds that this outburst of violence has eventuated the man's expiry. Charged with murder, Sonny is taken to jail to face the consequences of his actions. As he is taken to jail he tells a recently converted member of his congregation, "You're going to Heaven. I'm going to jail and you're going to heaven" ("The Campaigner"). In the end, Sonny'southward misuse of physical power brings about his downfall. Yet, "The Apostle" may be viewed equally a tale of redemption. It is through Sonny's loss of the ability over his wealthy church, his loss of family and roots, and his misuse of ability that Sonny is forced to reclaim his faith. Although his sins are not forgotten, and are punished past social club, it is through the consequences of his brutality and violence that Sonny is really redeemed and reconciled with his religion.
In another instance of a preacher's use of violence, the picture "The Night of the Hunter" traces the story of Reverend Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum, as he is released from jail but to murder for wealth. In ane scene the preacher summarizes the dualities of love and hate that exist within many preachers in his explanation of the tattooed words across his knuckles. Although Reverend Powell exhibits this polarity to a much more mortiferous extent than many modern evangelists, his caption of the dichotomy is quite instructive. After noticing John'due south interest in the words 'love' and 'detest' that are tattooed across his knuckles, the preacher explains:
Ah, piddling lad, yous're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the piffling story of right-mitt/left-hand? The story of expert and evil? H-A-T-Due east! It was with this left manus that erstwhile brother Cain struck the accident that laid his blood brother depression. Fifty-O-Five-Eastward! You see these fingers, dearest hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of dearest. Now sentinel, and I'll show y'all the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is ever a-warring and a-tugging, one adverse t'other. Now lookout 'em! Former brother left hand, left mitt he's a fighting, and it looks like honey's a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love's a winning! Yessirree! Information technology'south beloved that'southward won, and sometime left hand hate is downward for the count! ("The Night of the Hunter").
"It is obvious in the preacher's explanation of this struggle between good and evil that exists within him, that each preacher fights a constant battle between the demands of his calling and the standards fix by his organized religion and the reality of his ain humanity and sinfulness.
The brutality that is exhibited in "The Campaigner" and "The Nighttime of the Hunter" is besides evidenced in real accounts of mod evangelists. Whereas in "The Apostle" brutality that goes unchecked is punished, ofttimes in the realm of existent evangelists brutality is disregarded. Instead of taking function in the abuse themselves, evangelists need the allegiance of their workers to be proven through their concrete overpowering of their critics. While in "The Apostle" it is the government minister himself who is unable to control his temper, in the case of A.A. Adams, the preacher stayed outside of the band of violence, yet allowed his followers to implement information technology in order to uphold his reputation. After Adams was arrested for drunk driving, Morris writes of a reporter for the Knoxville Journal being "thrown out of the services when some of Allen's men noticed he was taking notes. Webb [the reporter] subsequently revealed that exterior the tent his escorts had slugged him twice on the head and warned him: 'Don't e'er come back'" (xv). Information technology is through violence, therefore, that many evangelists similar Adams ensure that their reputations are not soiled. While during military camp-meeting times the preacher himself was often accused of brutality, within the mod evangelical motion this brutality has often been relegated as a chore for the preacher's men, further removing the preacher from any personal blame. However, the legacy of brutality remains.
Entering the Politics Game
The power that preachers exert over their congregants is not always physical, however. Oft, more than dire is the mental and emotional ability that the modernistic evangelist tin can hold over his followers. This is most clearly evidenced in many modern televangelists' involvement in political parties and politics in general. The lure of the political arena is described past Perry Deane Young who writes, ". . .the preachers have e'er known where the money was, and from the first settlements they have more often than not aligned themselves with the wealthy and powerful" (162). These wealthy and powerful about often reside, according to Immature, within the political field. Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann note, ". . .the new ingredient in the emerging coalition is the belief that it is the responsibility, indeed the duty of Christians to engage in the political process every bit a means of bringing America back to God. . .they believe morality tin be legislated. Therefore, it is important to go the right people elected to office" (134). One of the best illustrations of modern evangelism's power is that illustrated within the political arena. As demonstrated by James Robison, a leader of one of the New Christian Correct'south groups, evangelism has distinct power over the ballot of state and federal officials. This move to involve Christians in the political affairs of America has been spearheaded recently by the bourgeois Christian evangelists, of whom the modern evangelist preacher is frequently the leader.
As the evangelists have gained power in their own right, as illustrated through their ability to procure huge amounts of money, politicians have taken note. At present, within this modern era, conservative Christians accept aligned themselves with conservative politicians to create a symbiotic relationship that increases both groups' impacts. Hadden and Swann note:
The New Correct sought to recruit idiot box preachers for some time before it succeeded. . .They frequently invoke the proper name of God equally the progenitor of their cause, only they need highly visible religious leaders to sanctify the invocations. . .The New Christian Right, thus, obviously owes its genesis to the master programme of the New Correct. . .The engineering that the New Right is using to transform American politics is essentially the same technology that the televangelists are using to build their religious empires (142-143).
"It is out of this mutually beneficial relationship betwixt the highly visible Christian evangelists and the politically savvy conservative politicians that groups such every bit the Moral Majority have originated.
As one of the evangelists most involved in the public arena, fundamentalist Jerry Falwell entered the political field through his involvement in the establishment of the Moral Majority. The Moral Majority, a conservative Christian political organization, utilized Falwell's position as a church building leader to claim God every bit political capitalist. His interest acquired a large corporeality of controversy, every bit his highly conservative ethics were foreign to many more liberal Christians who did not similar being aligned with the Moral Bulk in the political arena. Of Falwell's involvement in the Moral Bulk, Young writes, "I think the political pros wanted Jerry Falwell precisely because he had none of these qualities [showmanship, practiced-looks, charisma and intelligence, according to Young]. He had no publicly identifiable politics, then they could mold him as they saw fit; he could caput up their new coalition of unmarried issues because he hadn't spoken out on any of them. . ." (197). For evangelical Christians, Falwell represented a new move to infuse 'morality' into an ethically dead political realm. In an interview Falwell stated, "Church building people. . .are the secret ingredient that none of the pollsters counted on" (Hadden and Swann, 161). In a photograph of a rally of Christian Right voters, Falwell stands in front of a line of American flags, clearly illustrating the alignment of church building and state within the ideologies of groups such equally the Moral Majority. On June eleven, 1989 the Moral Majority folded due in part to the negative light on which the indictments of Bakker and Swaggert cast evangelism in full general. However, the religious right remains intact and powerful (Institute for Offset Amendment Studies). This realm of church building and state'due south intermingling has added a new dimension of power for the evangelical preachers. At present, not only are their voices heard from the pulpit, but they are also heard from the lecterns of political rallies.
Conclusion
Therefore, information technology seems clear that preachers from army camp meetings to the modernistic evangelists, are ofttimes swayed by the lure of power to the point of perverting the holiness of their callings. Although the dualities that were present in the camp-coming together preachers are echoed in these modern evangelists, the way by which the mod preacher acts on this struggle between right and wrong is sometimes different from the army camp meeting preacher. This may be explained through the difference in the preachers' environments. While army camp coming together preachers were ofttimes quite blatantly violently in guild to survive their frontier surroundings, modern evangelists utilize violence only through others in society to retain their reputations. On the other hand, while military camp-meeting preachers were often sexual in the undertones of their ministries, it was rare that they always acted on these lustful desires. Nonetheless, in the modern era as sexuality has become more readily accepted by the general public, evangelists are often accused of blatant sexual misconduct. Therefore, while dualities still exist in modern evangelists, the tenor of these dualities has shifted as the society to which they government minister has shifted ideologically and in its principles.
Within the social and religious spheres of the camp meeting there was a constant partition betwixt the co-existing elements of good and evil. Both literary and historical accounts of camp meeting preachers illustrate the ways in which he embodied piety and sinfulness, humility and power. As one of the most pivotal leaders of the religious sphere both in frontier and modern times, preachers utilized their power in order to influence their congregations. While some ministers rejected the power they were given through their esteemed position, others reveled in information technology. In gild to maintain their power, ministers often adopted the rough-and-tumble habits of their congregants, in the process sacrificing the theology of equality that their evangelical background led them to espouse. Likewise in modern times, evangelists wield hefty amounts of power both politically and spiritually over their congregants in club to procure wealth, sex and prestige. Often their theology must shift in order to accommodate their newfound power and wealth. These elements of power, sex and money are hopelessly tangled, creating a strange conglomeration of sins that merges with the pious aspects of these ministers. It is through this strange melding of the elements of virtue and vice that preachers evolve and appear as some of the most interesting and entertaining figures, both in the frontier and in modern America.
Works Cited
Bearding. "The Harp of a Thou Strings: A Difficult-Shell Baptist Sermon." Free-Idea on the American Frontier . Ed. Fred and Verle Muhrer Whitehead. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1992. 56-threescore).
Balmer, Randall. "Still Wrestling with the Devil: A Visit with Jimmy Swaggert Ten Years After His Fall." Christianity Today 2, March 1998: 31-38.
Boles, John B. The Neat Revival: Ancestry of the Bible Belt . Lexington, KY: The Academy Press of Kentucky, 1972.
Bruce, Dickson D., Jr. And They All Sang Hallelujah: Manifestly-Fold Campsite-Coming together Religion, 1800-1845 . Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1974.
Douglas, Marian. "Before the Hymeneals." The Atlantic Monthly [Boston] December 1872: 685-87.
Duvall, Robert, dir. The Apostle . Rec. 1997. Butchers Run Films, 1997.
Ellsworth, Rev. Due west. I. "Reminiscences of a Campsite Meeting." The Ladies' Repository [Cincinnati] November 1848: 341-43.
Gardner, H.C. "Going to Camp Meeting." The Ladies' Repository [Cincinnati] November 1863: 644-49.
Grafton, Mary E. "A Story of the Camp-Meeting." Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine [San Francisco] May 1886: 497-504.
Hadden, Jeffrey 1000. and Charles East. Swann. Prime number Time Preachers: The Ascension Power of Televangelism . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1981.
Harris, George Washington. "Parson John Bullen'south Lizards." Humor of the Old Southwest. 3rd Ed . Ed. Hennig and William B. Dillingham Cohen. Athens, GA: The Academy of Georgia Press, 1994. 206-12.
Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
Heyrman, Christine Leigh. Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Hines, Rev. Gustavus. "The Camp Meeting: A Reminiscence"." The Ladies' Repository [Cincinnati] June 1853: 259-61.
Hooper, Johnson Jones. "The Captain Attends a Military camp Meeting." Humor of the Old Southwest. 3rd Ed. Ed. Hennig and William B. Dillingham Cohen. Athens, GA: The Academy of Georgia Printing, 1994. 291-99.
Laughton, Charles, dir. The Nighttime of the Hunter . Rec. 1955. United Artists, 1955. 93 minutes.
Lewis, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry . New York: Harcourt, Caryatid and Company, 1927.
Loveland, Anne C. Southern Evangelicals and the Social Gild: 1800-1860 . Baton Rouge: Lousiana Country University Printing, 1980.
Lorenzo Dow and the Jerking Exercise. Engraving by Lossing-Barrett, from Samuel 1000.Goodrich, Recollections of a Lifetime. Copyprint. New York: 1856 General Collections, Library of Congress (195).
Marlett, Doug. "Editorial Cartoon." Ministry of Greed: The Inside Story of the Televangelists and Their Holy Wars . Larry Martz and Ginny Carroll. New York: A Newsweek Book, 1988.
Martz, Larry and Ginny Carroll. Ministry of Greed: The Inside Story of the Televangelists and Their Holy Wars . New York: A Newsweek Volume, 1988.
Mondy, Robert William. Pioneers and Preachers: Stories of the Old Frontier . Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1980.
"Moral Majority Folds." Institute for First Amendment Studies, Inc: Freedom Writer June/July/August 1989. http://www.ifas.org/fw/8906/majority.html (xx, April, 2001).
Morris, James. The Preachers . New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.
Ostling, Richard N. "Worhipers on a Holy Whorl: Scandals and Swaggart Neglect to Deter." Fourth dimension xi, April 1988: 55.
Rider, Alexander. "Army camp Meeting." Early 19th century.
Taliaferro, Hardin East. "Parson Squint: By Skitt, Who Has Seen Him." Humor of the Erstwhile Southwest. 3rd Ed. Ed. Hennig and William B. Dillingham Cohen. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1994. 143-47.
Waud, A.R. "The Circuit Preacher." Engraving of the Drawing. Harper'southward Weekly.
Immature, Perry Deane. God'southward Bullies: Native Refelctions on Preachers and Politics . NY: Holt, Rienhart & Winston, 1982.
Notes:
Kristin Adkins Whitesides graduated magna cum laude from the University of Richmond in 2002 with a bachelor of arts in religion and English. She is currently in her senior year at Knuckles Divinity School where she is pursuing an 1000.Div [chief of Divinity] degree. At Duke Kristin has concentrated on Old Testament studies and American religious history. Her detail interests include women'southward roles in theology and ministry, Baptist history and heritage, Jewish-Christian relationships, Biblical exegesis, and the separation of church and state. She hopes to pursue ordained ministry building after graduation, although she may notice the lure of further graduate study too hard to resist.
We would similar to thank the staff of the Library of Virginia Archives and Special Collections, Alderman Library, and Barrett Collection for their assistance. This folio contains fabric in the public domain and information technology may exist reproduced in its entirety or cited for courses, scholarship, or other non-commercial uses. We enquire that users cite the source and back up the archives that have provided materials to the Spirit site.
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