Marching to Zion: Religion in a Modern Utopian Community

Abstract

The twenty-fourth of September 1905 started as a typical Sunday in Zion City, Illinois. Promptly at 2:00 P.M. John Alexander Dowie ascended the platform of Shiloh Tabernacle, robed in the brightly embroidered garments of an Old Testament High Priest. He was acknowledged by the seven thousand souls who sat before him as the Messenger of the Covenant, the third and final incarnation of the prophet Elijah, and the General Overseer and First Apostle of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion. The 6,600 acres of farms, homes, factories, and businesses surrounding the tabernacle were exclusively his. And for all practical purposes, so were the people. One contemporary journalist judged that Dowie had come to possess the “most autocratic power it is possible to wield in this republic,” while another concluded that “no man… of our time has ever secured anything like the personal following he has.” Near the end of the five hour service the prophet changed into his white expiation robes and, as he had done on countless Sundays in the past, prepared to bless and distribute the Holy Sacraments. But this time, in the semi-darkness of the early evening, he seemed to stagger and slump to the floor. The people soon learned that Dowie had suffered a crippling stroke. They also soon knew that their effort to build a biblical Zion on the “sky-skirted prairie” north of Chicago was in shambles.