Home : Book details : Book description

Description of  The Ministers War: John W. Mears, the Oneida Community, and the Crusade for Public Morality (New York State Series)

0815635761 epub Unbridled passions threatened nineteenth-century America, a vulnerable young nation already feeling beset by foreigners, corruption, and disease. Purifying crusaders like Hamilton College philosophy professor and Presbyterian minister John W. Mears mobilized to fight every sin and carnal lure, from liquor to free love. In Upstate New Yorks famed Oneida Community, Mears encountered his stiffest challenge. Oneidas founder and patriarch, John Humphrey Noyes, oversaw a radical Christian commune where men and women sexually mingled through the practice of complex marriage. While others struggled to dislodge the community that had evolved since 1848 into a successful business venture and congenial neighbor, it was Mears who, after years of trying, rallied New Yorks church and university leaders for a final, concerted anti-Oneida campaign. In Read more