{"id":11525,"date":"2024-07-11T17:02:38","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T17:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/?p=11525"},"modified":"2025-04-09T17:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T17:31:15","slug":"a-brown-bag-with-peter-covino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/a-brown-bag-with-peter-covino\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvation and Scandal at Michigan’s House of David"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Evelyn Sterne, History Department<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch a recording of the talk on our YouTube<\/a> channel.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1903, preachers Mary and Benjamin Purnell moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan, to found a commune called the House of David. Its members were Christian Israelites, who sought to assemble the remnants of the lost tribes of Israel in a new Jerusalem and believed this ingathering of 144,000 would never die. They relinquished all assets, practiced celibacy, and renounced meat, hair-cutting, and traditional family ties — in exchange for community, economic security, and the promise of immortality. The Israelites sought refuge from the abuses of industrial capitalism even as they embraced modern popular culture by running a successful amusement park, performing in the colony\u2019s touring musical groups, and playing on barnstorming baseball teams. The commune thrived into the 1960s \u2013 and lingers on as a tiny remnant today — despite a steady stream of financial and sexual scandals, a torrent of litigation, and obsessive coverage in the press. It defied the odds to become one of the longest lasting intentional communities in United States history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This talk \u2013 based on Evelyn Sterne\u2019s forthcoming book (The House of David: Salvation, Scandal and Survival in a Modern American<\/em> Commune<\/em>, Oxford University Press, 2025) \u2013 analyzes why critics were determined to discredit the House of David and what that reveals about limits to religious toleration, and debates over what constituted \u201creligion,\u201d at a pivotal moment in U.S. history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This
House of David headquarters in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Reproduced with permission of the Communal Societies Collection, Hamilton College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evelyn Sterne, History<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4099,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[289,284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2425-past","category-bb-2024-past"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4099"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11525"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11785,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11525\/revisions\/11785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}