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Dissertation Information for Christopher Hendrick Owen

NAME:
- Christopher Hendrick Owen

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1991)

ADVISORS:
- James L Roark

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: Sanctity, slavery, and segregation: Methodists and society in nineteenth century Georgia

Abstract: Nineteenth-century Georgia Methodism was sui generis to its region because it adapted to the southern social order and yet remained Wesleyan. Wesleyanism, rooted in Anglicanism and Pietism, has its feeble beginnings in Georgia in the 1780s. The advent of campmeetings after 1800 increased Methodist membership and thereby helped fill a religious void which hitherto had existed in the state. Early Methodism was concentrated among white plain folk of the upcountry. The 1820s saw vast increases in Methodist membership. Methodists began to attract many wealthy Georgians and large numbers of slaves. This wedded Methodism firmly to the southern social system based on plantation slavery. Yet Georgia Methodists were not very different from their northern co-religionists except on the issue of slavery. After creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1845, Georgia Methodists became more insistent on Biblical literalism and decried religious-political involvement. But few of them ascribed to an Old Testament vision of a hierarchical society. They remained conversion-oriented evangelicals whose saving message was aimed at individuals.

During the Civil War, white Georgia Methodists were dedicated to Confederate success. They made model wartime citizens as well as good soldiers. But Wesleyans harbored deep reservations about all forms of secular government and did not identify Confederate success with religious victory as northerners identified Union success. The relative otherworldliness of their faith allowed white Methodists to come to grips fairly well with defeat though they remained hostile to northern Wesleyans. Meanwhile, black Methodists welcomed Union victory, and most quickly joined African-American denominations. Much like the process of political redemption, hostility between northern and southern Wesleyans had waned greatly by 1880. In the last two decades of the century, bitter struggles between traditionalists and progressives wracked Georgia Methodism. Georgia Methodism was not yet "liberal." But because it was strong in urban areas, it was influenced by social gospel ideas and by scientific rationalism, which in turn caused a backlash among traditionalists. Because of such disputes, Georgia Methodism lost ground to the Baptists and became less central to the southern religious story.

MPACT Scores for Christopher Hendrick Owen

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-06-01 11:55:39

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Students under Christopher Hendrick Owen

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None