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| Methodist camp meetings | |
|---|---|
| Name | Methodist camp meetings |
| Caption | 19th-century camp meeting tents |
| Location | United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia |
| Founded | Early 19th century |
| Founder | Richard Allen; Francis Asbury; Thomas Coke |
| Denomination | Methodism; Methodist Episcopal Church; United Methodist Church |
| Attendance | Thousands (historical peak) |
| Frequency | Annual, seasonal |
Methodist camp meetings were large outdoor religious gatherings associated with Methodism that emerged in the early 19th century and became a central feature of revivalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. They combined itinerant preaching, communal worship, and extended stays in temporary encampments, drawing participants from rural and urban congregations affiliated with bodies such as the Methodist Episcopal Church, Primitive Methodist Church, and Wesleyan Methodist Church. Camp meetings played a key role in the Second Great Awakening and influenced figures, institutions, and movements across Protestantism, including ties to the Holiness movement, Temperance movement, and African American religious leaders.
Methodist camp meetings arose during the early 1800s amid frontier expansion and denominational growth led by leaders like Francis Asbury, Thomas Coke, and Richard Allen; contemporaries included Charles Grandison Finney and Cyrus McCormick-era rural networks. Early American sites such as Red River Meeting House and Camp Meeting of Cane Ridge became touchstones linked to broader events like the Second Great Awakening and the revivalism seen in the circuits of the New England Conference and the Bishopric of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In the United Kingdom, associations with John Wesley and the establishment of the Wesleyan Methodist Church shaped itinerant field preaching and later influenced camps affiliated with the Primitive Methodist Church and the Salvation Army. Expansion into Canada connected camp meetings to the Upper Canada Rebellion era religio-cultural landscape, while in Australia colonial settlers adapted the pattern in the contexts of the Colony of New South Wales and the Port Phillip District.
Worship at camp meetings drew on doctrinal emphases found in texts such as the hymns of Charles Wesley and the sermons of John Fletcher, stressing personal conversion, assurance, and sanctification as articulated in Methodist Articles of Religion. Preaching itinerants like Peter Cartwright, George Whitefield (earlier influence), and Bishop Hedding emphasized experiential piety and references to scriptural narratives found in the King James Bible and devotional writings of Adam Clarke. Musical practice incorporated hymnals such as those compiled by Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason, with singing often led by choirs associated with congregations like Asbury Chapel. Practices including altar calls and public testimony drew parallels with developments in the Holiness movement and later Pentecostal currents linked to figures like William Seymour.
Camp meetings were organized by denominational conference structures such as the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), district superintendents, and circuit riders who coordinated logistics with local trustees and committees often drawn from prominent local families connected to institutions like Princeton Theological Seminary alumni or regional colleges such as Ohio University. Administrative tasks involved land acquisition near transportation hubs like Erie Canal termini or railroad stations served by lines such as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Funding and governance intersected with temperance societies like the Anti-Saloon League and fraternal organizations including the Freemasonry networks that sometimes donated lumber and materials for tabernacles and cottages. Records were kept in minutes submitted to Annual Conferences and preserved in archives like those of the Methodist Archives and Research Centre.
Camp meetings affected settlement patterns, political mobilization, and cultural production. They contributed to abolitionist organizing connected to activists such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and intersected with suffrage leaders like Susan B. Anthony in mobilizing rural women. Musical culture spawned hymn traditions influential to later genres tracked by scholars of gospel music and institutions like the Library of Congress collecting songbooks. Campgrounds gave rise to permanent institutions including summer schools tied to Chautauqua Institution-style education and prompted architectural forms seen in meeting houses modeled after designs in Mount Vernon. Camp meetings influenced literature by authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who depicted revivalist scenes, and they shaped popular political rhetoric used by figures such as William Jennings Bryan.
Prominent sites included Cane Ridge, Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, Miller's Run, Mount Olivet Camp Ground, and the Washington Camp Meeting Grounds; each attracted leaders like Peter Cartwright, Phoebe Palmer, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton on occasion. Ocean Grove in New Jersey developed a permanent boardwalk and tabernacle complex linked to the New Jersey Conference and hosted speakers tied to national movements like Temperance movement advocates and trade unionists emerging from industrial towns such as Paterson, New Jersey. Southern campgrounds around Methodist Episcopal Church, South circuits included sites near Savannah, Georgia and the Shawnee Springs area, while Canadian examples clustered near Niagara Falls and in the Maritimes.
After the late 19th century, camp meetings declined as urbanization, denominational institutionalization, and transportation shifts—railroad consolidation under companies like Pennsylvania Railroad—changed leisure patterns; yet revivals in the 20th century involving Billy Sunday and the Azusa Street Revival milieu showed continuities. Mid-20th-century revivals connected with the Billy Graham campaigns and later evangelical networks such as the Southern Baptist Convention renewed interest in open-air meetings. Contemporary camp meeting traditions persist in sites run by the United Methodist Church, independent holiness associations, and Pentecostal fellowships, sometimes hosted alongside events featuring speakers from institutions like Wheaton College and Liberty University and musical ministries that draw on curricula from conservatories like Juilliard School.
Category:Methodism Category:Christian revivalism Category:Religious festivals