American Messiahs: False Prophets of a Damned Nation by Adam Morris (review)

Against dismissal of fringe American prophets as freakish, dangerous, and characteristically anti-American and anti-Christian, Adam Morris in American Messiahs details the very American value of egalitarianism shared by six messianic religious movements and the communes they set up. In so doing, he resurrects at one and the same time the legacies of the first Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock and the apostolic "primitive church" of Jesus and his disciples.

Beginning with the Rhode Islander Jemima Wilkinson (1752–1819) who, at the brink of the American Revolution, proclaimed that her soul had passed on and her body was now the receptacle of Christ's (male) spirit called "the Public Universal Friend," Morris narrates the messianic movements of five more charismatic figures: Ann Lee (1736–1784) and the Shakers; Thomas Lake Harris (1823–1906) and his Brotherhood of New Life; Cyrus "Koresh" Teed (1839–1908) and his Koreshan Unity; Father Divine (1876?-1965) and his Peace Mission, and Jim Jones (1931–1978) and Peoples Temple. In sympathetic and sometimes playful language, Morris presents the founding of each movement by someone who would claim an exalted rank on a spectrum of being God incarnate (e.g. Father Divine and his mentor Samuel "Jehovia" Morris) to just having a unique divinely commissioned mission, such Thomas Lake Harris, "the pivotal man." All six movements set up communal or semi-communal groups that emphasized celibacy, labor and collaborative work as holy, and sharing resources. Each addressed systems of injustice through teachings of transcending social—and even biological—differences of gender, race, and class, proactive preparation for an apocalypse, and attaining a spirit-body immortality.

Morris is careful, however, not to conflate these movements but highlights their nuances and unique characteristics, centering his book on the complex story of each group, and their respective socio-economic and political contexts. For example, whereas Teed taught racial amalgamation, Father Divine disavowed racial categories. Whereas the Public Universal Friend and the Shakers seemed to be preparing for an eternal life that God would usher in with an apocalypse, Harris taught special breathing techniques for healing and immortality, while Father Divine, inspired by New Thought, mandated positive thinking to fully attune to Christ Consciousness or "the Spirit of Infinite Life and Power."

Morris provides evidence to argue, mostly persuasively, that these various movements over this two-hundred-year period share a "lineage" or genealogy. This is usually convincing, as in the case of Jim Jones studying and visiting Father Divine, or the Public Universal Friend and the Shakers each emerging out of the Quakers. In other cases, the connection is less clear, such as a link through some shared vocabulary between Father Divine's mentor and Cyrus Teed.

I have only a few disappointments with this overall admirable book. American Messiahs would have been enhanced by integrating a more robust discussion of gender and queer theory, given the fact that these messiahs were radically overturning gender norms in their anthropology of bisexual humans made in the image of an androgynous God. Likewise, the author may have used more than a few pages to problematize further the loaded term "cult." Nevertheless, Morris is consistent in clearly articulating and documenting his research into these American messiahs rather than complicating the narrative with grand theories or tropes that may confuse or obfuscate more than they explain. Moreover, the book is enhanced by an 18-page, detailed index of proper names, places, topics, and sub-topics.

Adam Morris conveys well the incisive critiques of structures of economic exploitation and gender and racial discrimination these movements provided the broader society—messages that Morris appears to share. Rather than merely representing fringe fanaticism or providing a sense of belonging that attracted gullible people, these groups offered viable alternatives to the status quo. This argument is brought home in the epilogue, which serves as a conclusion, in which Morris convincingly argues that the contemporary Singularity movement is also a kind of messianic religion...