This dissertation is a model for the in-depth study of small-scale worship communities. I treat Cane Ridge as a busy intersection of cultural, religious and theological dynamics. For this purpose, this dissertation utilizes methods from theology and historical anthropology. Through the lens of historical anthropology, I describe thickly what happened at the beginning of 19 ^th century in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. This project looks at the historical, cultural and religious dynamics of the Cane Ridge camp meeting by digging into primary sources and archival data such as letters, testimonies, sermons, autobiographies and memoirs.

After examining historical accounts of the Cane Ridge camp meeting, an interpretation of what happened over this six-day period on the basis of a particular understanding of temporality and eventfulness developed by cultural anthropologists and philosophers is provided. As a concluding remark, I argue that worship occurs in a space or at a crossroad of specific cultural and religious subjectivities such as thoughts, emotions, bodies, and many spontaneous exercises rather than as a fixed or traditional order such as found in Roman Catholicism.

Liturgy is always performed in a discrete time period. Liturgical ordo is not a paradigmatic authority; rather it is a temporal phenomenon in which participants can find their meanings out of their own movement and engagement into worship with their body. This is why we should examine how ordo is shaped and formed in a concrete historical, social, and cultural context. The ordo of Christian worship should be understood as a discrete phenomenon in which the sacred is recognized and experienced by participants. To demonstrate this, Revival Camp Meeting that took place at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in August 1801, is examined. At the Cane Ridge Camp Meeting, we can observe how sacred time and space were created through the complex ways participants engage in worship.

When worship evoked profound emotions such as anxiety and joy, these emotions were projected upon participants' bodies. The human body often displays and represents the Sacred that occurs in the collective and complex worship experience. Transcendence deeply permeates the secular body.