James McGready

James McGready

From Scotch-Irish stock in Pennsylvania. A preacher, he stressed the wrath of the Lord against stiff-necked sinners. In North Carolina he ignited a revival that drove scores of penitents to conversion. Yet he found that the frontier congregations did not always wilt under torrid preaching. In 1798 he abruptly moved to Kentucky where he preached to three small congregations at Red river, Gasper River and Muddy River in Logan County, the southwestern corner of the state, where the area abounded with horse thieves, desperados, and murders. Surprisingly, lawless backwoodsmen there responded enthusiastically to McGready’s pictures of heaven and hell. In July, 1800, McGready held a revival at Gasper River, holding the first "camp meeting", a religious service of several days’ length held outdoors, for people who had traveled a distance to attend. They camped on the spot — thus the name.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, James-McGready[/tags]

 

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