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“We Are the Church Together”: A Case Study of Community, Family, and Religion at Richmond Hill Methodist Church, 1875-1899
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Knight, Sara J. |
| Copyright Year | 2002 |
| Abstract | The church does not exist in a vacuum: it co-exists with the society in which it is situated, interacting and developing in concert with the people who comprise it. The Methodist church in the latter half of the nineteenth century, for example, shifted the rhetoric of its discourse from that of patriarchy to that of family in order to fit with Victorian ideals of domestic piety. And yet religious history as written from the perspective of a maledominated institution is a story of declension rather than evolution and progressive development. If the wider family and community implications of the church are made the focus of study, its status shifts from one of a malebased hierarchical institution to one of a place for communal interaction mirroring the increasing influence of family and domesticity on Victorian culture. This inclusiveness created a more active religious community that welcomed the talents brought by all members of the family, not simply those of the patriarch. Previous studies of Protestantism and domesticity in the nineteenth century have begun to address the role of women in the church, but they have done so without reference to their position as members of a household, an attribute central to their own definition of self. And while male roles have been central to discussions of church organization, they have most often been without reference to the position of these roles as part of a larger male community in business, civic leadership, and leisure pursuits. Children were an integral part of the Victorian church, and their upbringing was central to the cult of domesticity and family, yet they are seldom mentioned in religious studies. Through church involvement we can |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://historicalpapers.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/historicalpapers/article/download/39303/35634 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
