I Just Read...

The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America by Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz

I had coffee last month with the professor who taught my last women’s history class at the University of Texas at Dallas. And my intersecting interests in theology and women’s history led her to recommend this book.

In the 1830s in New York, a man named Robert Matthews proclaimed himself the prophet Matthias. He built a communal cult around himself which captivated a number of respectable people. As with Jonestown, Waco, and more recently Eldorado, Texas, we see members required to surrender economically and sexually to their leader. Eventually Matthias even finds himself the subject of a murder investigation. And Sojourner Truth’s involvement in his movement raises eyebrows, to be sure.

Though the book falls in the “academic” category, it reads more like a popular-market novel. This is to the credit of its authors, who are profs at the University of Utah and at Princeton. I found only one real weakness: constant use of the word “evangelical” as a synonym for “revivalist.” (Charles Finney was a leading revivalist in the Second Great Awakening, but his theology was/is at odds with evangelical thinking, especially in his views of human involvement in salvation.)

The book is about a fourth of an inch think. So if you love history, theology, and women’s issues, it’s time to add yet another book to your growing wish list. Fortunately, you can read it in an afternoon.