The Way of the Cross Leads Home. The Domestication of American Methodism by A. Gregory Schneider (review)

134BOOK REVIEWS Herbert F. Bolton and Mary Ross pubUshed their introduction to Arredondo's Historical ProofofSpain's Title to Georgia, a secondary work written in 1742. Hard on the heels of his substantial Ph.D. dissertation on the Timucuan missions of Florida (1992), this volume on the Guale missions of Georgia estabUshes Worth as a scholar equaUy at home Ui anthropology, archaeology, and history. Most ethnohistorians and historical archaeologists working on the Spanish and Indian Southeast have to depend on the few historians in the field to find and interpret those Spanish documents which might be ofuse to them. Along with the translations pubUshed by the historianJohn H. Hann in Florida Archaeology, 2 (1986), and Missions to the Calusa (1991),Worth's translations open vistas to scholars untrained in early modern Spanish and palaeography; yet to those who have visited the riches beyond, they are not enough. A systematic document pubUcation program like Connor's long-abandoned Colonial Records ofSpanish Florida (1925, 1930), juxtaposing Spanish transcripts and EngUsh translations, would be truly invaluable. Amy Turner Bushnell College ofCharleston The Way of the Cross Leads Home. The Domestication ofAmerican Methodism . By A. Gregory Schneider. (Bloomington and IndianapoUs: Indiana University Press. 1993- Pp. xxx, 257. $2995.) Traditional histories of American Methodism abound. The movement began in eighteenth-century England with John Wesley. A handful of foUowers had moved to the colonies before the Revolution, and an American church was organized on Christmas Day in 1784. It grew phenomenally in the next two generations . The tireless efforts of Bishop Francis Asbury and countless circuit riders brought thousands of converts. By 1850 Methodists comprised the largest denomination Ui the land, but by then the movement was already changing. A. Gregory Schneider writes a very non-traditional history. He neither disputes nor repeats the famiUar story but interprets it in a fresh context. His methods are those of reUgious studies rather than church history. His thesis is that "the forms of social reUgion Ui American Methodism laid the foundations in white people's experience for the adoption of an evangeUcal version ofthe Victorian domestic ideology" (p. xxU). This is no narrative history, but Schneider does teU a story of change over time. In the late eighteenth century white Southerners Uved within a "culture of honor." EUte white males took great pride in property, social rank, and skiUs associated with theU class. Election days, horse races, cock fights, baUs, and other pubUc occasions were rituals in which they competed for pubUc accla- book reviews135 mation. This much of the study is derivative, drawing upon the works of the anthropologist Rhys Isaacs and the historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown pubUshed Ui 1982. American Methodism flourished in the South and among Southerners who moved into the Ohio VaUey. Schneider interprets Methodist rituals and relationships as an alternative to the culture ofhonor in these regions. It is no accident that Methodism appealed to those outside of the eUte. Class meetings, camp meetings, love feasts, and femUy prayerwere rituals in which pride was declared to be a sin, and an alternative set ofvalues and behaviors was lifted up. This part of the study is highly original, rich and textured and convincing. "The way of the cross" which Methodists foUowed led away from the dominant culture ofhonor, a culture which prized the pubUc acts ofpowerful males, toward domesticity. Hence Methodism employed the language of famUy relationships and at the same time contributed to changes in ideas about the home. Further, Methodism appealed to women and contributed to new ideas about gender. More importantly, the spread of Methodism was an important part of a cultural sea change in the mid-nineteenth century. This is a study limited to white Methodists in the Ohio VaUey before the CivU War. Schneider understands that the experience of African-Americans or New Englanders or other evangeUcals would each require another study. StUl, this is an ambitious study which uncovers not only what these people did and said but what it meant to their families and their sense of identity. Schneider has significantly enriched our understanding of American reUgion. Richard D. Shiels The Ohio State University at Newark Ministry and Meaning: A Religious History of Catholic Health Care...