Not Such Simple Gifts
Lynne Stembridge looks beyond the homespun image of the Shakers, to reveal the substance of the original movement and its sometimes turbulent past.
’Tis a gift to be simple,
’Tis the gift to be free,
’Tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be
....Shaker Song No.72
They have been called the most enduring religious experiment in American history, outlasting both the flourishing of utopian communities in the 1800s and the brief hippie commune movement of the 1960s. As the last half-dozen Shaker Sisters near the ends of their lives, many people today look back wistfully at the serenity of this group. The current romanticisation of Shaker ways is a post-modern yearning for ‘the simple life’, combined with a misunderstanding of the tenets and struggles of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing.
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