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Chapter 5 “Holy Walking and Conversation”: Church Discipline When Betsy Goodman decided to leave her husband in the spring of 1813, her action became a citable offense for the Boar Swamp meeting. At the same time, Betsy’s mother, Judith Garthwright, was accused of showing partiality toward her daughter in the marital dispute rather than attempting to reconcile the couple’s differences. Judith’s noncompliance with church rule was exacerbated when she consulted nonmembers about her daughter and son-in-law’s personal problems. The two women had sinned in different ways—one by leaving her spouse, the other by interfering in a disorderly manner and revealing privileged information. These women had violated the ethos of the godly community, which was predicated on ideals of obedience, decorum, and faith as well as orderly households and harmonious families. They had also exposed an enclosed community that did not discuss its difficulties with nonbelievers. Members like Judith Garthwright were prosecuted not only for sinful behavior but also for failing to follow protocol that maintained stability and preserved privacy. This ideal of order and secrecy was agreed upon by all church members. New converts gave their allegiance to the Baptist community , performed religious obligations, promoted felicity among all believers, and pursued orderly “walking,” that is, suitable conduct. Rules of appropriate behavior were outlined in church covenants. Members at one church strove for communal accord when they agreed to “endeavour to avoid defaming speeches; revealing church secrets, or any thing that may grieve and trouble one another.” The Goose Creek church expected its members “not to indulge the infirmities of each other to any, etc., when it can be lawfully avoided.” Baptist meetings oversaw the entry of new converts into membership, their participation in church rites, and their supervision through church discipline . Church discipline was the last in the three-part progression of creating Baptist bodies, which upheld rigorous standards of embodied belief and behavior and structured Baptist ideals of spiritual identity. A triumvirate of conversion, ritual, and discipline shaped the Baptist model of religious subjectivity . To maintain this subjectivity, members regularly met in community, to renew their spirits and have access to “gospel food,” which was “calculated to refresh and strengthen the soul.” Conversion, or “renovation of the heart,” was followed by “a corresponding reformation of manners and a suitable deportment.”1 Baptists acknowledged their faith through pious speech and circumscribed demeanor and by following a model of “holy walking and conversation .”As embodied expressions of inner faith, the personal conduct of members had to be consistent with Baptist theology, and church discipline enforced bodily decorum upon all believers. Baptists were to “exhort and stir up one another to a diligence attendance on the means of grace, [and] stir up one another to zeal in holy living and in supporting the gospel.” Members promised “to bare one another’s burdens, to cleave to one another, and to have a fellow feeling with one another in all conditions, both outward and inward.” With charity and love, brethren and sisters surveyed the conduct of one another to sustain their community. They led lives of “watchfulness and prayer” and kept order both in “their inward and outward man according to the Scripture .” Religious belief without pious behavior, or the reverse, was insufficient ; both were required to live a godly life.2 Those who broke the bonds of religious communion by belief or behavior were answerable to the church court. As a means of social control, the church courts set standards of conduct for all members. The corporeal basis of church discipline inscribed regulation upon the believer’s body; in turn, that regulation constructed a discourse of an enclosed body and a concept of internalized sin in which bodily comportment became the outward symbol of an authentic spirituality. Once cited, the church hoped the accused would see “the evil of their standing.” Those who faltered in their faith fell into “a supine and lethargic state.” This was followed by a loss of “faith, hope and love for God and his Zion.” Backsliders would be indifferent to religious duties and their hearts would become “callous,” their minds wander, and their “zeal languid.” They would “grow weary waiting on the Lord.” Being too much in the world was a visible sign of a troubled believer.3 The Baptist body was part of an evangelical discourse—and gained its meaning through that discourse—of religious propriety and social decorum. The corporeal nature of Baptist spirituality, from personal...

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