Faith, “A channel of living trust,” as defined in the Bible, as a notion of celebrating the Almighty and a commitment to the religions’ house of worship (Holy Bible). Around the world, communities praise and proclaim the doctrine of their beliefs and devotion to serve humanity. According to the Pew Research Center Forum’s on Religion and Public Life on Global Religious Landscapes conducted in 2012, there are only 0.8 percent of “other religions” that are practiced around the world that are not known as major religions (The Global Religious Landscape). Discovering and acquiring knowledge of communities that practice different religions will allow individuals to become more aware of the cultures even in small town areas across the United States of America. A small religious community, known as the Assemblies of Yahweh, located in Bethel Township, in Berks County, Pennsylvania practices a unique belief established by a profound Religious leader, Pastor, Teacher, Author, Publisher, Radio and Television Broadcaster; Elder Jacob O. Meyer (Assemblies of Yahweh - Elder Jacob O. Meyer). Elder Jacob O. Meyer, a Leader of the Assemblies of Yahweh, renewed, administered and operated a religious culture that had disappeared centuries ago, but has been revived and studied through modern-day practices of Elder Jacob O. Meyer. Otherwise known as Elder Meyer, he is particularly known in is affiliation for the establishment of promoting his beliefs and sermons through The Sacred Name Broadcast (Russell, Jesse, and Ronald Cohn). Elder Jacob O. Meyer’s motives to broadcast the religion through television, radio and publications, created an awareness across the world from a small town community. In many ways, Jacob O. Meyer, could be considered a head of his time to create a public awareness for his community. Although, Jacob O. Meyer rests in peace, his message and the faith in which
...shall, eds. Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia. New York, New York: ABC-CLIO, August 10, 2010. Print.
People of all groups, social status, and gender realized that they all had voice and they can speak out through their emotional feels of religion. Johnathan Edwards was the first one to initiate this new level of religion tolerance and he states that, “Our people do not so much need to have their heads filled than, as much as have their hearts touched.” Johnathan Edwards first preach led to more individuals to come together and listen. Than after that individual got a sense that you do not need to be a preacher to preach nor you do not need to preach in a church, you can preach wherever you want to. For the first time, you have different people coming together to preach the gospel. You had African American preaching on the roads, Indian preachers preaching and you had women who began to preach. The Great Awakening challenged individuals to find what church meets their needs spiritually and it also let them know about optional choices instead of one. The Great Awakening helped the American colonies come together in growth of a democratic
Nancy Ammerman writes Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life to convey her findings of studying spirituality and religion in the ordinary life of her sample population. The inspiration for this book came from previous data about Christians and the “Golden Rule,” the concept of treating everyone how you would like to be treated (3). In order to understand this concept better, Ammerman decided to study religion and spirituality in everyday life. Her population included 95 people from the Boston and Atlanta areas. These participants came from “Catholic, liberal Protestant, conservative Protestant, African American Protestant, Jewish”, Mormon, Wicca and Neopaganism as well as an internet chat group (11). Unaffiliated participants were also
He was a man whose very words struck fear into the hearts of his listeners. Acknowledged as one of the most powerful religious speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what was the reaction to his teachings? In order to understand these questions one must look at his life and works to understand how he was successful. In his most influential sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards’ persuasive language awakened the religious fervor that lay dormant in colonial Americans and made him the most famous puritan minister of the Great Awakening in North America.
One the most distinguished artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City and spnt part of his child hood in Pennsylvania. After his parents split up in 1924, he went with his mother and siblings to New York, settling in Harlem. "He trained as a painter at the Harlem Art Workshop, inside the New York Public Library's 113 5th Street branch. Younger than the artists and writers who took part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Lawrence was also at an angle to them: he was not interested in the kind of idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks - the Noble Negroes in Art Deco guise - that tended to be produced as an antidote to the toxic racist stereotypes with which white popular culture had flooded America since Reconstruction. Nevertheless, he gained self-confidence from the Harlem cultural milieu - in particular, from the art critic Alain Locke, a Harvard-trained esthete (and America's first black Rhodes scholar) who believed strongly in the possibility of an art created by blacks, which could speak explicitly to African-Americans and still embody the values, and self-critical powers, of modernism. Or, in Locke's own words, "There is in truly great art no essential conflict between racial or national traits and universal human values." This would not sit well with today's American cultural separatists who trumpet about the incompatibility of American experiences - "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand" - but it was vital to Lawrence's own growth as an artist. Locke perceived the importance of the Great Migration, not just as an economic event but as a cultural one, in which countless blacks took over the control of their own lives, which had been denied them in the South: When years later he told an interviewer that "I am the black community," he was neither boasting nor kidding. He had none of the alienation from Harlem that was felt by some other black artists of the 1930s, like the expatriate William Johnson.
BWH Bulletin. (2012, June 15). Past, Present and Future of BWH Discussed at Town Meeting. Retrieved from http://www.brighamandwomens.org/about_bwh/publicaffairs/news/publications/DisplayBulletin.aspx?articleid=5614
Scheitle, Christopher P., and Roger Finke. Places of faith: a road trip across America's religious landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Jacob Lawrence Jacob Lawrence's unique career has earned him a National Medal of Arts, election to the National Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design, a National Council of the Arts commisionership, and dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. His paintings have been featured in several major art exhibitions and many different museums. Lawrence's parents came from the south, but they moved to Harlem, where Lawrence grew up. Lawrence was born in 1917 and grew up in Harlem during the Great Depression. He had many extraordinary educational opportunities as well as his first employment as an artist.
The most fascinating branches of a religion are often the most extreme, the most different from the mainstream denomination. Two such groups are Hasidic Jews and the Amish, a sect of Christianity. Shown a picture of a member of one of these sects, the average person would not be able to identify to which group he belonged. However, though “their shared style of dress does indeed reflect shared values of piety, extreme traditionalism, and separation,” these groups are extremely different(“A Brief Introduction”). Beyond the obvious difference of ideology in that Hasidism is based in Orthodox Judaism and Amish tradition in Christianity, to say nothing of the diverse groups within these separatist umbrellas, there are stark differences in origins, beliefs, practices, and the way that each group interacts with the secular world.
From the beginning of this religion, to the present day family roles, the Amish religion has been dissected thoroughly to prove that they are not as boring as perceived by American society. To date, the largest group of Amish people live in Lancaster County, home to about 30, 000 Amish people. Prior to researching this religion, I had many bias thoughts and assumptions about the Amish people. Through weeks of research, I have enlightened myself to a new religion that I did not have much appreciation for, but most importantly, group of people whom I share many of my values and beliefs with.
A large portion of the Book of Mormon describes the history of several pre-Christian civilizations that existed throughout America. A group of Israelites lead by a righteous man named Nephi established a society o...
"Growth of the Church - LDS Newsroom." LDS News | Mormon News - Official Newsroom of the Church. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. .
Jonathan Edwards- one if Americas greatest preachers he was one of the vital people in the first great awakening.
Eastman, Roger. The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major Traditions. Third Edition. Oxford University Press. N.Y. 1999
Sweet, Leonard I. Communication and Change in American Religious History. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1993.