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The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America

Paul E. Johnson

Paperback | Pages: 240 pages

Rating: 3.66 | 710 Users | 54 Reviews

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Original Title:	The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America
ISBN:	0195098358 (ISBN13: 9780195098358)
Edition Language:	English

Narration During Books The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America

During The Second Great Awakening’s religious revival of evangelicalism, Robert Matthews- the self-appointed prophet Matthias- was one of many to create and spread his own ultimately doomed religion, a patriarchal Kingdom of Truth in which Matthias sat at the head as the Father and redeemer. Matthias and his Kingdom were one of many religions developed and spread during the early 1800s, and many of Matthias’ teachings were similar to those of other prophets and seers more successful in popularizing their messages. Yet Matthias and his group remained on the margins of society. Johnson and Wilentz want to explain not only the religion itself, but the reasons for its failure while other similar ones succeeded.

The authors acknowledge that their main three sources are all biased for various reasons and were considered with this in mind. Accordingly, the sources, two books written about Matthias and the Kingdom and one pamphlet by Matthias’ wife about his years before the Kingdom, must be weighted against one enough to derive something as close to the truth about the events. Other primary sources used are newspaper reports, personal narratives/memory, church records, indictment papers from Matthias’ trial, and lectures. A lot of the background and contextual details are taken from various books, some of which Johnson and Wilentz wrote, and journal articles.

The rich and narrative style of the story helps it flow in a way that is interesting but informative. The two were able to create a story that read easy, that is fun to read and very enjoyable. The book is a snapshot of one religious group during the early 1800s that, though being the stuff of pure entertainment, has been all but forgotten. While the book is very isolated in its focus, it expands upon the world at the time by placing Matthias and his Kingdom in the context of their time period. Not only does the book show how the world around Matthias shaped his Kingdom, but how the Kingdom was part of the larger evolving world that it existed within. Though there were many other religions around this time in development, the bizarreness of the story of Matthias illuminates best the failures of religious revival as the others exemplify success, which allows for a more complete idea of the varied nature of 19th century American religion and society.

However, the heavy use of sources that are admittedly very shaky and biased places a lot of the events into question. While no doubt everything written is based on fact and reality, and though the authors state that they have derived truth from contradicting and biased evidence to the best of their ability, there remains a matter of what is fact and exaggeration. The authors can never know what truth really is, they can only guess at it. Additionally, the book went off on tangents about people and rivalries that had no significance to the story. For example, the explanations of Matthias’ brothers, and the story of the Stone and Folgers argument. They were fun to read, but ultimately had nothing to do with the story of Matthias and The Kingdom.

Present Of Books The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America

Title	:	The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America
Author	:	Paul E. Johnson
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 240 pages
Published	:	August 3rd 1995 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published April 28th 1994)
Categories	:	History. Nonfiction. Religion. North American Hi.... American History. Academic. School

Rating Of Books The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America

Ratings: 3.66 From 710 Users | 54 Reviews

Column Of Books The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America

Matthias is that singular, yet recurring figure, who manages to bring sheep into his flock with visions and dictates and rules and outrageous behavior. How could a flawed and failed man convince a small group of followers to allow him to control and spend their wealth, while he ignored his long suffering wife and children? It is really an astonishing tale that says much about the Second Great Awakening and America in the early 19th century. He flaunted authority and convention, which for many

The Second Great Awakening is the most fascinating part of American history to me and this is an exhaustive account of one of the many emerging prophets. It's also a perfect balance between research and narrative which is kind of rare for books like this.

An absolutely fascinating bit of little-known American history.

In The Kingdom of Matthias The Second Great Awakening is addressed in full through the lively narrative of the rise and fall of the religious radical Matthias. In this process of portraying and then analyzing Robert Matthews and his bizarre cult-following, Johnson and Wilentz are providing the reader with an enlarged view of both the role of new religion and gender roles in early 19th century America. Based primarily on the numerous journalistic stories, personal testimonies, and legal records

My son was assigned this book for a college course and asked me to read it as well so that we could discuss it. The story was interesting and bizarre on its own, but the inclusion of a famous figure in American History made it especially surprising. The authors don't mention the historical figure until the epilogue. I guess that was for shock value? I am not sure why they chose not to highlight this person throughout the book. In my opinion, this was a big mistake. While the epilogue did serve

Read for my Age of Jackson class. I kind of love getting to read narrative histories about stories you don't often hear! The mystical Christian stuff weaving through all of this makes for a fascinating tale, as well. This is another of those histories (I'm reading so many this semester) where there's not a sweeping argument being made, but rather a true story is being told that, by its very unusual nature, illuminates some of the norms and movements of its period. There's a lot of background