The Kingdom of Matthias argues that efforts to be religiously perfect can drive a person to insanity. Historians Johnson and Wilentz focus the book on the life stories of Elijah Pierson and Robert Matthews, who are both devout Christians growing up in the United States in the early 1800s. Despite Pierson and Matthews’s different understandings of Christianity and what it means to be a good Christian, both men feel immense pressure to be as morally perfect as possible, by praying, fasting, obeying, or being loving, every minute of the day. As a result of the intensity of these efforts, Johnson and Wilentz suggest, both men end up having religious delusions in which they think that God talks to them and that they’re prophets. They then start a cult (led by Matthews) that destroys countless people’s lives, including Elijah’s as he ends up getting murdered by Matthews. Through the stories of these two men, the book exposes the dangers of religious perfectionism, stressing how trying to be perfect all the time can drive a person mad, resulting in behavior and choices that are both self-destructive and harmful to society.
The people in the book who strive to be perfect in their religious devotion suffer physically, showing that trying too hard to be perfect all the time can trigger damaging effects like illness and even death. Evangelicals like Elijah Pierson and his wife, Sarah, believe that “all time [is] holy” and that people are “being judged every day.” This makes them think that they must devote every minute of their lives to being perfect Christians, by praying, fasting, and doing as much charity work as possible, even if it exhausts them. They behave in ways that prioritize “perfect holiness” above even staying healthy. Sarah is the most extreme example of this dynamic. She is so zealous about fasting and charity work that she falls ill and dies from “consumption brought on by exhaustion and malnutrition. Sarah had literally worked and fasted herself to the edge of death.” Her commitment to her faith effectively kills her.
Moreover, the story’s central characters, Robert Matthews and Elijah Pierson, take their faith so seriously that they begin to have delusions, which suggests that overzealous religious devotion can affect psychological as well as physical health. Matthews grew up in a strictly religious community, in which “long weeks of anxious fasting and prayer” trigger delusions in several members of the congregation. Matthews himself starts believing that he has “conversations with supernatural spirits” that evolve into full-blown “visions” as he gets older. A journalist named William Leete Stone also describes Matthews as a “madman” who has “made himself crazy” after hearing Matthews talk about his visions, reinforcing the idea that Matthews’ religious fervor damages his mental health. Elijah, similarly, turns to excessive prayer after his wife dies, and his religious fervor ultimately triggers hallucinations: he comes to believe that he sees Sarah sitting up in her coffin. Elijah’s acquaintances conclude that Elijah is “obviously deranged,” believing that his religious fanaticism has unhinged his mind.
In the end, both Matthews and Pierson end up making destructive life choices that impact not just their own but other people’s lives as well. Matthews’s religious delusions, for instance, inspire him to start an abusive cult in which he’s violent towards women, forces people to work to exhaustion, and even kills people (notably Elijah, whom he poisons). Matthews’s delusions actively motivate him to cause wider social harm. After Matthews’s cult causes a public scandal, several public figures publish books suggesting that religious extremism causes “an overheating of the emotions that [causes] otherwise normal people to entertain strange and enthusiastic doctrines” that affect their ability to function in society. William Leete Stone argues that each of Matthew’s followers “succumbed to the baleful spirit of fanaticism,” causing them to act in ways that harm themselves and others. Stone argues that fanaticism is the “great error of the times in which we all live”—a phenomenon not just damaging to individuals but to American society as a whole.
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Religion, Perfectionism, and Insanity ThemeTracker
Religion, Perfectionism, and Insanity Quotes in Kingdom of Matthias
Frances Folger and her friends were perfectionists […] to them, all time was holy, and women and men were being judged every day.
Elijah and Sarah prayed with the Holy Club for three years, and in 1828 Elijah began talking with the Holy Ghost. He had always been a man of prayer, and had always asked God for help when he had to make some decision. But it was only in 1828 that God began answering him in English.
The doctors now told him there was nothing they could do. Their diagnosis was consumption brought on by exhaustion and malnutrition: Sarah had literally worked and fasted herself to the edge of death.
In 1835, an enterprising Manhattan journalist disclosed that, as a boy, Robert Matthews had his own conversations with supernatural spirits and impressed his friends with feats of clairvoyance. […] It is even more likely that when the adult Matthews began having visions years later, he would have instinctively trusted that they came from God.
On July 28, Matthias, Elijah Pierson, Ann Folger, and Catherine Galloway sat down to supper. At the end of the meal the Prophet spooned out plates of blackberries that he and Pierson had picked that day. Ann Folger ate only two berries. Catherine finished her plate, and Elijah wolfed his down and had another. Matthias had none at all. […] About four o’clock the next afternoon, Elijah […] suddenly collapsed. […] Matthias forbade any doctors or medicine to aid Elijah, and Elijah agreed: prayer and prayer alone could relieve his affliction. […] In the morning, Ann Folger told the waking disciples that Pierson was dead.
