Holy leisure: The camp meeting at Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Ocean Grove was "God's Square Mile," the first permanent camp meeting dedicated to the pursuit of "holiness." An outgrowth of the late nineteenth-century holiness movement in the Methodist church, Ocean Crove was the first of many camp meetings established throughout the northeast for the special promotion of Christian holiness. The performance studies approach of this dissertation argues that the numerous informal recreations of summer life at Ocean Grove reveal as much about holiness in this time and place as the overtly religious activities of camp meeting. Within Ocean Grove's architecture of holiness, the baby parades, oriental bazaars, pageants, beach activities, ushers' marches, drills by Young Rough Riders, and regulated order of everyday life made perfection a tangible and attainable reality. These everyday activities were performances of "holy leisure." By praying and playing together, the people of Ocean Crove charted a unique understanding of self and community rooted in the pietism of nineteenth-century Methodism, the liberal social reform movements of the religious middle class, and the nascent leisure industry.;Ocean Grove was a Methodist parlor society writ large. It was an intentional gathering of like-minded evangelicals who came together to seek holiness through hearing and doing the testimonies of perfection. The system of performances of holy leisure in Ocean Grove allowed the residents to testify to perfection by modeling it. These models displayed perfection so people could see and understand what it was. The models located perfection in the everyday life of Ocean Grovers and enabled them to assume it by performing it. This dissertation looks at the role of time, space, body, gender, and the Jerusalem model in the performances of holy leisure. They were and are the tools by which the residents of Ocean Crove negotiate the reality of holiness. The genius of Ocean Grove was in extending holiness from the parlor meeting to the beach. At Ocean Grove, conservative evangelicals discovered a moral imperative to enjoy rest and recreation.