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89-558: The Cane Ridge Revival was a large camp meeting that was held in Cane Ridge, Kentucky , from August 6 to August 12 or 13, 1801. It was the "[l]argest and most famous camp meeting of the Second Great Awakening ." This camp meeting launched a multitude of smaller camp meetings on the frontier. In turn they stimulated a deeply personalized religious experience of salvation in hundreds of thousands of men and women. It

178-670: A Christian denomination. The camp meeting is a phenomenon of American frontier Christianity , as well as British Christianity , but with strong roots in traditional practices of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and the United States. Scots and Scots-Irish predominated in many parts of the frontier at this time, and had brought their familiar Presbyterian communion season practices with them. Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell , two leading ministers of

267-482: A Church, all those who adhere to them". Sacred things are not, however, limited to gods or spirits. On the contrary, a sacred thing can be "a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred". Religious beliefs, myths, dogmas and legends are the representations that express the nature of these sacred things, and the virtues and powers which are attributed to them. Echoes of James' and Durkheim's definitions are to be found in

356-599: A Methodist camp meeting in 1873 and now a beach resort town. Its temperance fountain remains. Old Orchard Beach, Maine , similarly became a seaside resort. Religion Antiquity Medieval Early modern Modern Iran India East-Asia Religion is a range of social - cultural systems , including designated behaviors and practices, morals , beliefs , worldviews , texts , sanctified places , prophecies , ethics , or organizations , that generally relate humanity to supernatural , transcendental , and spiritual elements —although there

445-491: A concrete deity or not" to which the individual feels impelled to respond with solemnity and gravity. Sociologist Émile Durkheim , in his seminal book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life , defined religion as a "unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things". By sacred things he meant things "set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called

534-493: A definition of religion. There are, however, two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical. The concept of religion originated in the modern era in the West . Parallel concepts are not found in many current and past cultures; there is no equivalent term for religion in many languages. Scholars have found it difficult to develop a consistent definition, with some giving up on

623-549: A denomination of Conservative Anabaptist Christianity, holds its annual camp meeting at Roxbury Holiness Camp. Christianity • Protestantism Francis Asbury , the first bishop of the American Methodist Episcopal Church , was a staunch supporter of camp meetings. At Methodist camp meetings, which continue to occur today: ... both the Eucharist and Love Feast were celebrated. But

712-447: A marked characteristic of the camp meetings. Rough and irregular couplets or stanzas were concocted out of Scripture phrases and every-day speech, with liberal interspersing of Hallelujahs and refrains. Such ejaculatory hymns were frequently started by an excited auditor during the preaching, and taken up by the throng, until the meeting dissolved into a "singing-ecstasy" culminating in general hand-shaking. Sometimes they were given forth by

801-416: A more just conception of it, suppose so large a congregation assembled in the woods, ministers preaching day and night; the camp illuminated with candles, on trees, at wagons, and at the tent; persons falling down, and carried out of the crowd, by those next to them, and taken to some convenient place, where prayer is made for them, some Psalm or Hymn, suitable to the occasion, sung. If they speak, what they say

890-668: A preacher, who had a sense of rhythm, under the excitement of his preaching and the agitation of his audience. Hymns were also composed more deliberately out of meeting, and taught to the people or lined out from the pulpit. Collections of camp meeting hymns were published, which served both to propagate tunes and texts that were commonly used, and to document the most commonly sung tunes and texts. Example hymnals include The Pilgrams' songster; or, A choice collection of spiritual songs (1828), The Camp-meeting Chorister (1830) and The Golden Harp (1857) Many of these songs were republished in shape note songbooks such as A Supplement to

979-472: A regular feature of Primitive Methodist life throughout the 19th century, and still survive today. The annual late May Bank Holiday weekend meetings at Cliff College are one example. A number of tents are set up around the site, each featuring a different preacher. The Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection holds its camp meetings annually at Methodist Camp in Stoneboro, Pennsylvania . Each conference of

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1068-443: A similar union between imperial law and universal or Buddha law, but these later became independent sources of power. Though traditions, sacred texts, and practices have existed throughout time, most cultures did not align with Western conceptions of religion since they did not separate everyday life from the sacred. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the terms Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and world religions first entered

1157-655: A subject of interest to philosophers and theologians. The word myth has several meanings: Ancient polytheistic religions, such as those of Greece, Rome , and Scandinavia , are usually categorized under the heading of mythology . Religions of pre-industrial peoples, or cultures in development, are similarly called myths in the anthropology of religion . The term myth can be used pejoratively by both religious and non-religious people. By defining another person's religious stories and beliefs as mythology, one implies that they are less real or true than one's own religious stories and beliefs. Joseph Campbell remarked, "Mythology

1246-437: A tradition of music and hymn singing with strong oral, improvisatory, and spontaneous elements. Hymns were taught and learned by rote , and a spontaneous and improvisatory element was prized. Both tunes and words were created, changed, and adapted in true folk music fashion: Specialists in nineteenth-century American religious history describe camp meeting music as the creative product of participants who, when seized by

1335-600: A transcendent deity and all else, between the creator and his creation, between God and man. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined religion as a: ... system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. Alluding perhaps to Tylor's "deeper motive", Geertz remarked that: ... we have very little idea of how, in empirical terms, this particular miracle

1424-450: A wide variety of academic disciplines, including theology , philosophy of religion , comparative religion , and social scientific studies. Theories of religion offer various explanations for its origins and workings, including the ontological foundations of religious being and belief. The term religion comes from both Old French and Anglo-Norman (1200s CE ) and means respect for sense of right, moral obligation, sanctity, what

1513-563: A word or even a concept of religion in the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in which these sacred texts were written. For example, there is no precise equivalent of religion in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities. One of its central concepts is halakha , meaning the walk or path sometimes translated as law, which guides religious practice and belief and many aspects of daily life. Even though

1602-400: Is accomplished. We just know that it is done, annually, weekly, daily, for some people almost hourly; and we have an enormous ethnographic literature to demonstrate it. The theologian Antoine Vergote took the term supernatural simply to mean whatever transcends the powers of nature or human agency. He also emphasized the cultural reality of religion, which he defined as: ... the entirety of

1691-468: Is also the product of the dominant Western religious mode, what is called the Judeo-Christian climate or, more accurately, the theistic inheritance from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The theistic form of belief in this tradition, even when downgraded culturally, is formative of the dichotomous Western view of religion. That is, the basic structure of theism is essentially a distinction between

1780-430: Is attended to, being very solemn and affecting – many are struck under such exhortations… Now suppose 20 of those groups around; some rejoicing, and great solemnity on every countenance, and you will form some imperfect idea of the extraordinary work! Indeed it is a miracle, that a wicked unthoughtful sinner, who never could, or did address himself, to an audience before, should, rise out of one of those fits and continue for

1869-520: Is derived from religare : re (meaning "again") + ligare ("bind" or "connect"), which was made prominent by St. Augustine following the interpretation given by Lactantius in Divinae institutiones , IV, 28. The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders : "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece , of a knight 'of

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1958-559: Is found in texts from the 17th century due to events such as the splitting of Christendom during the Protestant Reformation and globalization in the Age of Exploration , which involved contact with numerous foreign cultures with non-European languages. Some argue that regardless of its definition, it is not appropriate to apply the term religion to non-Western cultures, while some followers of various faiths rebuke using

2047-550: Is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine , sacredness , faith , and a supernatural being or beings. The origin of religious belief is an open question, with possible explanations including awareness of individual death, a sense of community, and dreams. Religions have sacred histories , narratives , and mythologies , preserved in oral traditions, sacred texts , symbols , and holy places , that may attempt to explain

2136-526: Is possible to understand why scientific findings and philosophical criticisms (e.g., those made by Richard Dawkins ) do not necessarily disturb its adherents. The origin of religious belief is an open question, with possible explanations including awareness of individual death, a sense of community, and dreams. Traditionally, faith , in addition to reason , has been considered a source of religious beliefs. The interplay between faith and reason, and their use as perceived support for religious beliefs, have been

2225-471: Is sacred, reverence for the gods. It is ultimately derived from the Latin word religiō . According to Roman philosopher Cicero , religiō comes from relegere : re (meaning "again") + lego (meaning "read"), where lego is in the sense of "go over", "choose", or "consider carefully". Contrarily, some modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell have argued that religiō

2314-486: The Abrahamic religions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism , while others are arguably less so, in particular folk religions , indigenous religions , and some Eastern religions . A portion of the world's population are members of new religious movements . Scholars have indicated that global religiosity may be increasing due to religious countries having generally higher birth rates. The study of religion comprises

2403-672: The Bible Methodist Connection of Churches owns land on which its camp meetings are held each year. The Primitive Methodist Church also has camp meetings in its districts. Many United Methodist churches also hold yearly camp meetings, such as the Shiloh United Methodist Church Camp Meeting, Northport Indian United Methodist Church and Trinity United Methodist Camp Meeting, for example. Many Free Methodist churches hold camp meetings every year, such as those that take place at

2492-755: The Harriseahead Methodists that their weeknight prayer meeting was too short. Bourne also saw these as an antidote to the general debauchery of the Wakes week in that part of the Staffordshire Potteries , one of the reasons why he continued organising camp meetings in spite of the opposition from the Wesleyan authorities. The pattern of the Primitive Methodist camp meeting was as a time of prayer and preaching from

2581-561: The medieval period . In the Quran, the Arabic word din is often translated as religion in modern translations, but up to the mid-1600s translators expressed din as "law". The Sanskrit word dharma , sometimes translated as religion, also means law. Throughout classical South Asia , the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions . Medieval Japan at first had

2670-574: The origin of life , the universe , and other phenomena. Religious practices may include rituals , sermons , commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints ), sacrifices , festivals , feasts , trances , initiations , matrimonial and funerary services, meditation , prayer , music , art , dance , or public service . There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, though nearly all of them have regionally based, relatively small followings. Four religions— Christianity , Islam , Hinduism , and Buddhism —account for over 77% of

2759-527: The religion of Avys '". In classic antiquity, religiō broadly meant conscientiousness , sense of right , moral obligation , or duty to anything. In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin root religiō was understood as an individual virtue of worship in mundane contexts; never as doctrine , practice, or actual source of knowledge . In general, religiō referred to broad social obligations towards anything including family, neighbors, rulers, and even towards God . Religiō

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2848-498: The tabernacle . Camp meetings offered community, often singing and other music, sometimes dancing, and diversion from work. The practice was a major component of the Second Great Awakening , an evangelical movement promoted by Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and other preachers in the early 19th century. Certain denominations took the lead in different geographic areas. As with brush arbor revivals and tent revivals , camp meetings today are often held annually at campgrounds owned by

2937-492: The 1500s to distinguish the domain of the church and the domain of civil authorities ; the Peace of Augsburg marks such instance, which has been described by Christian Reus-Smit as "the first step on the road toward a European system of sovereign states ." Roman general Julius Caesar used religiō to mean "obligation of an oath" when discussing captured soldiers making an oath to their captors. Roman naturalist Pliny

3026-451: The Bible. In the first camp meeting, four separate "preaching stations" had been set up by the afternoon, each with an audience, while in between others spent the time praying. From May 1807 to the establishing of Primitive Methodism as a denomination in 1811, a series of 17 camp meetings was held. There were a number of different venues beyond Mow Cop , including Norton-in-the-Moors during

3115-580: The Church, such as during Christmastide . Sunday Sabbatarian principles were practiced, with swimming being forbidden on the Lord's Day , as well as the gates to the city being locked on that day. Ocean Grove "prohibited other activities deemed not consonant with Christian living--dancing, cardplaying, and the sale of liquor." On Sunday, 31 May 1807, the first Camp Meeting was held in England at Mow Cop . At

3204-528: The Elder used the term religiō to describe the apparent respect given by elephants to the night sky . Cicero used religiō as being related to cultum deorum (worship of the gods). In Ancient Greece , the Greek term threskeia ( θρησκεία ) was loosely translated into Latin as religiō in late antiquity . Threskeia was sparsely used in classical Greece but became more frequently used in

3293-567: The English language. Native Americans were also thought of as not having religions and also had no word for religion in their languages either. No one self-identified as a Hindu or Buddhist or other similar terms before the 1800s. "Hindu" has historically been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people indigenous to the Indian subcontinent . Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of religion since there

3382-696: The Kentucky Harmony (1820), the Sacred Harp (1844), and dozens of other publications; they can typically be distinguished by the reuse and re-arrangement of certain lines of lyrics from other songs, re-set to a new melody and sometimes containing new lyrics. Many of these camp songs are also set in a " call and response " format, typically, every line of lyric is followed by the words " Glory Hallelujah !" (although this varies, and other phrases or combinations can be used as well), which allows for easy audience participation in their original format, as

3471-693: The Methodist Church led many of these camp meetings and established semi-permanent sites for summer seasons. Ocean Grove, New Jersey , founded in 1869, has been called the "Queen of the Victorian Methodist Camp Meetings." Similar areas include Cape May Point, New Jersey , with others in Maryland and New York. At the end of the nineteenth century, believers in Spiritualism also established camp meetings throughout

3560-779: The Tri-State Free Methodist Campground. In 1825, the Presbytery of Hopewell established a network of camp meetings. The Smyrna Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to hold an annual camp meeting at its Camp Smyrna. The Red River Meeting House , belonging to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church , also has a yearly camp meeting. A number of camp meeting grounds have fallen into disuse or diverged from their original use and ownership. These include Rehoboth Beach, Delaware , founded as

3649-584: The United States, several camp meeting facilities were founded, many of which remain operational to this day. For example, the Balls Creek Campground is a popular Methodist camp meeting that was formed in 1853. In 1869, the Ocean Grove Camp-Meeting Association was founded, running a popular Methodist camp meeting at Ocean Grove, New Jersey . Methodists flocked to the area, especially around major feasts of

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3738-415: The United States. Camp meetings in the United States continued to be conducted on a wide scale for many years . Some are still held in the 21st century, primarily by Methodist (including churches affiliated with the holiness movement ) and Pentecostal groups, as well as other Protestants , such as Baptists and Presbyterians . Some scholars consider the revival meeting a form that arose to recreate

3827-697: The Wakes in 1807 (Bourne's target venue), and Ramsor in 1808. After Bourne and a significant number of his colleagues, including the Standley Methodist Society, had been put out of membership of the Burslem Wesleyan Circuit , they formed a group known as the Camp Meeting Methodists until 1811. That year they joined with the followers of William Clowes , known as the "Clowesites". Camp meetings were

3916-547: The West (or even in the West until after the Peace of Westphalia ). The MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions states: The very attempt to define religion, to find some distinctive or possibly unique essence or set of qualities that distinguish the religious from the remainder of human life, is primarily a Western concern. The attempt is a natural consequence of the Western speculative, intellectualistic, and scientific disposition. It

4005-531: The area of the original paths which the wagons would encircle. The area is also known as Tiny Town because of the small size of the original cottages. In the aftermath of the American Civil War , such evangelical camp meetings gained wide recognition and a substantial increase in popularity as a result of a holiness movement camp meeting in Vineland, New Jersey in 1867. In the mid-Atlantic states,

4094-482: The assistance of circuit preachers began a series of camp meetings in the surrounding area. One such meeting, first being held out of the home of a local family, has met annually in Hollow Rock Run since it was formally organized as a Methodist camp in 1818 while continuing to use the family's farm land. In 1875 at the urging of prominent clergy and members, the camp meeting became interdenominational through

4183-533: The audience can call back the response even if they do not know the lyrics of the song itself. For example, the tune " Antioch 277" from the Sacred Harp reads: I know that my Redeemer lives, Glory, Hallelujah! What comfort this sweet sentence gives, Glory Hallelujah! Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground, Glory Hallelujah! The dead's alive and the lost is found, Glory Hallelujah! (F.C. Wood, 1850) The 20th-century American composer Charles Ives used

4272-422: The belief in spiritual beings exists in all known societies. In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience , the psychologist William James defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine". By the term divine James meant "any object that is god like , whether it be

4361-430: The beliefs and traditions of Judaism are found in the ancient world, ancient Jews saw Jewish identity as being about an ethnic or national identity and did not entail a compulsory belief system or regulated rituals. In the 1st century CE, Josephus had used the Greek term ioudaismos (Judaism) as an ethnic term and was not linked to modern abstract concepts of religion or a set of beliefs. The very concept of "Judaism"

4450-480: The camp meeting phenomenon as a metaphysical basis for his Symphony No. 3 (Ives) . He incorporated hymn tunes and American Civil War-era popular songs (which are closely related to camp meeting songs) as part of the symphony's musical material. The piece was not premiered until 1946, almost 40 years after its composition, and the symphony was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. The Dunkard Brethren Church ,

4539-608: The communication of supernatural beliefs, defining religion as: ... the communicated acceptance by individuals of another individual’s “supernatural” claim, a claim whose accuracy is not verifiable by the senses. Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl , commonly translated as "the feeling of absolute dependence". His contemporary Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through

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4628-439: The congregation of Mr. Stone. – This was the largest meeting of any that I have ever seen: It continued from Friday till Wednesday. About 12,000 persons, 125 waggons, 8 carriages, 900 communicants, 300 were struck. Patterson tried, "as well as I am able", to describe the emotion. Of all ages, from 8 years and upwards; male and female; rich and poor; the blacks; and of every denomination; those in favour of it, as well as those, at

4717-698: The dominant religious culture." These sorts of meetings contributed greatly to what became known as the Second Great Awakening . A particularly large and successful revival was held at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801, led by some ministers later active in what became the Restoration Movement . Some scholars suggest that this was the pioneering event in the history of frontier camp meetings in America. What made camp meetings successful and multiply quite rapidly "were their emphases upon revivalism and morality, de-emphasis upon formal theology, clergy sharing

4806-535: The duration of the meeting, participants could take part in almost continuous services, which resulted in high emotions; once one speaker was finished (often after several hours), another would often rise to take his place. Several ministers, sometimes from different denominations, provided virtually nonstop preaching and hymn singing during the day, in the evening, and late into the night. Attenders anticipated and had emotional conversion experiences, with crying, trances, and exaltation. Lee Sandlin gave an overview of

4895-508: The event was based on Scottish traditions of Holy Fairs or communion seasons . The meeting began on a Friday evening with preaching continuing through Saturday, and the observation of communion beginning on Sunday. Traditional elements included the "large number of ministers, the action sermon, the tables, the tent, the successive servings" of communion, all part of the evangelical Presbyterian tradition and "communion season" known in Scotland. An estimated 800 to 1,100 received communion. During

4984-600: The event, such as Colonel Robert Patterson, who had been involved in the settlement of Kentucky practically from the beginning. He had described with amazement the religious phenomena taking place during the sequence of meetings. His description of the Cane Ridge Revival, taken from a letter to the Rev. Doctor John King on September 25, 1801, is memorable: On the first Sabbath of August, was the Sacrament of Kainridge,

5073-450: The finite spirit." Edward Burnett Tylor defined religion in 1871 as "the belief in spiritual beings". He argued that narrowing the definition to mean the belief in a supreme deity or judgment after death or idolatry and so on, would exclude many peoples from the category of religious, and thus "has the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them". He also argued that

5162-410: The focus of the camp meeting was on preaching of the "way of salvation," and the physical layout of the camp meeting assembly area came to be a sacred space representing the stages on the way of salvation. The altar rail , originated the point for receiving Holy Communion, came to represent the surrender of oneself in conversion and entire sanctification. The " mourner's bench " (or "anxious bench," as it

5251-634: The formation of the Hollow Rock Holiness Camp Meeting Association and its leasing and eventual purchase of the land. The association, which still operates the camp, notes that it is the oldest Christian camp meeting in continual existence in the United States, being supported by various denominations in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. Another camp gathering area, known now as the Campgrounds,

5340-434: The instant in opposition to it, and railing against it, have instantaneously laid motionless on the ground. Some feel the approaching symptoms by being under deep convictions; their heart swells, their nerves relax, and in an instant they become motionless and speechless, but generally retain their senses. Patterson went on to describe other manifestations which lasted from "one hour to 24", and continued: In order to give you

5429-440: The later Restoration Movement of the 1830s, had each been ordained as Presbyterian ministers and served for several years in that role, leading preaching at numerous meetings. The movement of thousands of settlers to new territories without permanent villages of the types they knew meant they were without religious communities. Not only were there few authorized houses of worship , there were fewer ordained ministers to fill

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5518-424: The linguistic expressions, emotions and, actions and signs that refer to a supernatural being or supernatural beings. Peter Mandaville and Paul James intended to get away from the modernist dualisms or dichotomous understandings of immanence/transcendence, spirituality/materialism, and sacredness/secularity. They define religion as: ... a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses

5607-430: The meeting multiple ministers would preach at the same time in different locations within the camp area, some using stumps, wagons and fallen trees as makeshift platforms. Camp meeting Originally camp meetings were held in frontier areas, where people without regular preachers would travel on occasion from a large region to a particular site to camp , pray , sing hymns , and listen to itinerant preachers at

5696-593: The nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing. According to the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions , there is an experiential aspect to religion which can be found in almost every culture: ... almost every known culture [has] a depth dimension in cultural experiences ... toward some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for

5785-441: The night, as the torches and bonfires flared around the meeting ground and the darkness of the trackless forests closed in, people behaved as if possessed by something new and unfathomable. As Finley wrote: "A strange supernatural power seemed to pervade the entire mass of mind there collected." Sandlin's commentary is a provocative opinion piece compared to the less sensationalist descriptions by those better qualified to write about

5874-428: The possibility of a definition. Others argue that regardless of its definition, it is not appropriate to apply it to non-Western cultures. An increasing number of scholars have expressed reservations about ever defining the essence of religion. They observe that the way the concept today is used is a particularly modern construct that would not have been understood through much of history and in many cultures outside

5963-464: The pulpits. The "camp meeting" led by itinerant preachers was an innovative response to this situation. Word of mouth told there was to be a religious meeting at a certain location. Due to the primitive means of transportation , if the meeting was to be more than a few miles' distance from the homes of those attending, they would need to stay at the revival for its entire duration, or as long as they desired to remain. People generally camped out at or near

6052-683: The recorded population of Kentucky in 1800". At least one, and possibly more, speaking platforms were constructed outside the building because the number of attendees far exceeded the capacity of the meeting house. The meeting was hosted by the Presbyterian church at Cane Ridge and its minister, Barton W. Stone . The church decided to invite other local Presbyterian and Methodist churches to participate in its annual Communion service. Ministers from Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist backgrounds participated. Eighteen Presbyterian ministers participated, as well as numerous Methodists and Baptists, but

6141-419: The rest of life. When more or less distinct patterns of behavior are built around this depth dimension in a culture, this structure constitutes religion in its historically recognizable form. Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience—varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture. Anthropologists Lyle Steadman and Craig T. Palmer emphasized

6230-438: The revival site, as on the frontier there were usually neither adequate accommodations nor the funds for frontier families to use them. People were attracted to large camp meetings from a wide area. Some came out of sincere religious devotion or interest, others out of curiosity and a desire for a break from the arduous frontier routine; the structure of the situation often resulted in new converts. Freed from daily routines for

6319-417: The second or third day, people were crying out during the sermons, and shouting prayers, and bursting into loud lamentations; they began grabbing at their neighbors and desperately pleading with them to repent; they sobbed uncontrollably and ran in terror through the crowd, shoving aside everybody in their path. … As the preachers ranted without letup, the crowd was driven into a kind of collective ecstasy. In

6408-502: The space of two hours recommending religion and Jesus Christ to sinners, as a lovely Savior, free willing, and all sufficient, and calling to sinners and inviting them to come to Christ and close in with the offer of salvation, in the most pressing an engaging manner. Revivalism had been a significant force in religion since the 1740s and the First Great Awakening , but in the days of the camp meeting, "revivalism became

6497-402: The spirit of a particular sermon or prayer, would take lines from a preacher's text as a point of departure for a short, simple melody. The melody was either borrowed from a preexisting tune or made up on the spot. The line would be sung repeatedly, changing slightly each time, and shaped gradually into a stanza that could be learned easily by others and memorized quickly. Spontaneous song became

6586-554: The spirit of the frontier camp meeting. The Balls Creek Campground camp meeting was established in 1853 and is believed to be one of the largest religious campgrounds in the southern United States. Other sites of Methodist camp meetings in North Carolina are the Chapel Hill Church Tabernacle , Center Arbor , and Pleasant Grove Camp Meeting Ground (1830). The camp meeting tradition fostered

6675-413: The term superstitio (which meant too much fear or anxiety or shame) to religiō at times. When religiō came into English around the 1200s as religion, it took the meaning of "life bound by monastic vows" or monastic orders. The compartmentalized concept of religion, where religious and worldly things were separated, was not used before the 1500s. The concept of religion was first used in

6764-769: The time, Wesleyan Methodists disapproved and subsequently expelled Hugh Bourne "because you have a tendency to set up other than the ordinary worship.". He eventually formed the Primitive Methodist Church . The Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Primitive Methodist Church in Great Britain later reunited to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain ). During his visits to England, Lorenzo Dow brought reports of North American camp meetings. Hugh Bourne, William Clowes and Daniel Shoebotham saw this as an answer to complaints from members of

6853-429: The typical camp meeting in frontier America: A typical meeting began in a low-key, almost solemn way. A preacher gave a sermon of welcome and led a prayer for peace and community. This was followed by the singing of several hymns. Then there would be more sermons. … The next day, and the day following, the sermons grew increasingly sensational and impassioned, and the excited response of the crowd grew more prolonged. By

6942-521: The word to describe their own belief system. The concept of "ancient religion" stems from modern interpretations of a range of practices that conform to a modern concept of religion, influenced by early modern and 19th century Christian discourse. The concept of religion was formed in the 16th and 17th centuries, despite the fact that ancient sacred texts like the Bible , the Quran , and others did not have

7031-502: The world's population, and 92% of the world either follows one of those four religions or identifies as nonreligious , meaning that the remaining 9,000+ faiths account for only 8% of the population combined. The religiously unaffiliated demographic includes those who do not identify with any particular religion, atheists , and agnostics , although many in the demographic still have various religious beliefs. Many world religions are also organized religions , most definitively including

7120-523: The worldview of the frontier dwellers, and respect for common people. Frost summarizes: "Camp-meeting religion reinforced older themes of revivalism, including a sense of cooperation among the denominations, all of which confronted individual sinners with the necessity of making a decision to be converted." In the early 1800s in what is now Toronto, Ohio , members of the Sugar Grove Methodist Episcopal Church with

7209-400: The writings of Josephus in the 1st century CE. It was used in mundane contexts and could mean multiple things from respectful fear to excessive or harmfully distracting practices of others, to cultic practices. It was often contrasted with the Greek word deisidaimonia , which meant too much fear. Religion is a modern concept. The concept was invented recently in the English language and

7298-439: The writings of, for example, Frederick Ferré who defined religion as "one's way of valuing most comprehensively and intensively". Similarly, for the theologian Paul Tillich , faith is "the state of being ultimately concerned", which "is itself religion. Religion is the substance, the ground, and the depth of man's spiritual life." When religion is seen in terms of sacred, divine, intensive valuing, or ultimate concern, then it

7387-557: Was based at the Cane Ridge Meeting House near Paris ( Bourbon County ) and drew between 10,000 and 20,000 people. According to The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement , logistical considerations make it unlikely that more than 10,000 could have been present at any one time, but 20,000 could have attended the meeting at some time during the week, which would have been "nearly 10 percent of

7476-526: Was decried by the theologians of the Mercersburg movement) was placed in front of the altar rail and represented the experience of spiritual "awakening" that typically preceded conversion in understanding of the "way of salvation." In a weekend format, one might expect a sermon on sin, awakening and repentance on Friday, sermons on conversion and assurance on Saturday, and preaching on sanctification (including entire sanctification ) on Sunday. Throughout

7565-555: Was invented by the Christian Church , and it was in the 19th century that Jews began to see their ancestral culture as a religion analogous to Christianity. The Greek word threskeia , which was used by Greek writers such as Herodotus and Josephus, is found in the New Testament . Threskeia is sometimes translated as "religion" in today's translations, but the term was understood as generic "worship" well into

7654-540: Was located in present-day Merrick, New York . Parishioners arrived by wagon, parking them in two concentric circles. Eventually some started building small seasonal cottages, which offered more comfort than the wagons for repeated use. A chapel and a house for the minister were also built. In the 1920s, with new areas open to those with cars, people stopped using the campground. The cottages and church buildings were adapted as local, permanent residences, and most survive today. The two roads, Wesley and Fletcher avenues, encompass

7743-434: Was most often used by the ancient Romans not in the context of a relation towards gods, but as a range of general emotions which arose from heightened attention in any mundane context such as hesitation , caution, anxiety , or fear , as well as feelings of being bound, restricted, or inhibited. The term was also closely related to other terms like scrupulus (which meant "very precisely"), and some Roman authors related

7832-524: Was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning, but when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this idea. According to the philologist Max Müller in the 19th century, the root of the English word religion, the Latin religiō ,

7921-424: Was originally used to mean only reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety (which Cicero further derived to mean diligence). Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What is called ancient religion today, they would have only called law. Scholars have failed to agree on

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