Includes bibliographical references (p.[261]-349) and index.

Newfoundland Methodism as social history -- Methodism and Newfoundland religion in the nineteenth century -- Dialectical tensions within Methodism -- Newfoundland Methodism and the question of distinctiveness -- Early Methodism in Conception Bay, St. John's, and Trinity Bay -- Bonavista and Bonavista Bay -- Twillingate and Notre Dame Bay -- Burin and Placentia Bay -- Grand Bank, Fortune, and the South Coast.

"In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century, Newfoundlanders, who often lived in small, mobile communities where they supported themselves through strenuous work and ingenuity, increasingly broke away from Anglicanism to find joy and comfort in the Methodist tradition. In a remarkable study of a region's reasons for changing how they practiced their faith, Shouting, Embracing, and Dancing with Ecstasy presents a unique perspective on the histories of Methodism and Newfoundland." "Contesting previous historical scholarship, Calvin Hollett argues that the growth in Methodism was not the result of clergy-dominated missionary work intended to rescue a degenerated populace. Instead, the author shows how Methodism flourished as a people's movement in which believers in coastal locations were free to experience individual and communal rapture, and giving rise to large lay revivals in more populous areas." "An insightful look at the growth of a religion, Shouting, Embracing, and Dancing with Ecstasy reasserts the importance of laypeople in religious matters, while detailing successful ways to bring the religious experience into daily life."--BOOK JACKET.

Description based on print version record.