Kingdom Of Matthias Sparknotes

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The Kingdom of Matthias is a collection of history that seeks to inform on the story of Robert Matthews, who later adopted the name Matthias the Prophet. The story also sets forth to describe the socioeconomic state of the United States during which the rise of cults was rampant. It also lays the groundwork and establishes the framework for which modern day cults are viewed.
The book begins by describing the upbringing of Elijah Pierson, a soon to be member of the Kingdom of Matthias. Elijah Pierson was raised under the influence of a strict Yankee Calvinist community in rural Morristown, New Jersey. The Calvinist community in Morristown was patriarchal and family history and social rank was indispensible in the community’s core value. In this community, Pierson was raised to fear God. However he was constantly reminded that not even a “perfect outward adherence to God’ rules would assure him a place in heaven. For in the Calvinist community, one’s destiny is immutable. Although Morristown was not too far from New York, the world views that both communities were utterly different.
After spending much of his childhood in Morristown, Pierson moved to New York to start begin a new trade. Pierson started his own merchant firm on Pearl Street, present day Manhattan. In New York, Pierson experience cultural shock. He was now a part of a minority and his religion and all religion for that matter did not hold the same importance to the people of New York as it did to him. He observed that the affluent saw church as an avenue for socializing and the poor wee too busy with their personal lives and making ends meet that Christianity was out of their reach.
With the change in environment, Pierson still held on to his Christian beliefs. To dev...

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...leased from prison, Mathews continued his quest for religion by seeking Joseph Smith of the Mormon society, under the alias Joshua the Jewish Minister. The two had a heated discussion of resurrection and reincarnation. On the other hand, Matthews claimed to be both God and the reincarnation of the apostle Matthias. However Matthews his meeting with Smith was unsuccessful because both prophets believed the other was of the devil. Matthews’ s religious journey albeit chaotic and aberrant now serves as subconscious guide for how new religious movements and cults in present day America.
In order to understand the consequences of Matthias’s formation of his kingdom one must consider the social, financial, ethnic, and sexual conditions of the time and setting during which his kingdom was founded. These conditions served as the catalysts that cause the eruption of cults.

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