In the 1830s, the growing popularity of evangelical sects and Christian revivalism led to a high number of sex scandals. While most sex scandals were recorded between clergymen and female parishioners, a fair few were the results of attempts to shame women out of ascending to the pulpit by spreading rumors of promiscuity. One unique case of these evangelical sex scandals is that of Eleazer Sherman, the only documented scandal between members of the same sex. Sherman's trial, though it was on a much smaller scale than some scandals, was very significant in terms of understanding the relationship between Christianity and sexuality at that point, due to its multifaceted nature. (Jazper Schmidt)

There are three ways that the trial of Eleazer Sherman highlights what we know about religion, gender and sexuality in the early 19th century: the significance of gender transgressions, the significance of intimacy and homosexuality, and how expressions of male sexuality and sex reform changed during that time. (Jazper Schmidt)

Eleazer Sherman was a revivalist preacher during the early-to-mid 1800s who, beginning in 1835, came under fire for accusations of homosexual advances upon the men that he frequently lodged with as a itinerant preacher. Sherman was initially a well-known and well-respected preacher, but the scandal caused many of his fellow ministers to call for him to stop preaching because of his “gross immoral conduct.” Sherman was called to be tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal led by a council of ministers in Providence, who heard the testimonies of Hiram Brooks, Henry White, James Allen, and Silas Wood against him. (Noah Rutkowski)

Gender transgression comes about in two main ways in this article. The first is that more and more women are joining the religious pulpit (preaching) and facing socially prescribed backlash where the transgression comes in the form of “inverted gender” or women making themselves “like men” in order to preach. There is a perceived destabilization of the gender hierarchy, by women in the evangelical movement that threatened sexual order. The second being that shamans scandal, and other scandals encouraged emotional intimacy and closeness which was unbecoming of the usual social idealization of men, which was, a sense of self control and authority.The trial functioned to bring light to the expected gender norm and reinforce those expectation in a competitive, new revivalist religious setting. Not just about same sex intimacy in the 19th century. (Tea Aliu)

Dorsey shows that gender transgression in evangelical culture was policed both through women’s expanding roles in preaching and through anxieties about male emotional intimacy. Female preachers threatened established hierarchies by appearing to assume masculine authority, while scandals involving men exposed fears that intimacy undermined ideas of self control and dominance central to manhood. Together, these tensions reveal how revivalist religion used public discipline and scandal to reassert gender norms at a moment when religious expression and gender roles were rapidly changing. (Caitlyn Edwards)

Dorsey examines a same-sex relationship involving a preacher, and uses it to investigate sexuality and religion as corporeal experiences as well as to alter what gender, intimacy, and masculinity means in 19th century America. He goes on to argue that the relationship involving the preacher was a door to exploring gender norms, masculinity, and religious authority as well as the transition from private to written accounts/records. This transition can be seen post-scandal when the trial was published which fueled the fire and resulted in the end of a preaching career, loss of support within the congregation, and religious exile. These points are important in recognizing how religion played a role in one’s socioeconomic place as Sherman came from a poor family and a failed career. He looked to preaching as a form of social mobility and as a way to achieve recognized manhood. In addition, he used this as a way to challenge his struggles regarding financial instability, however, his efforts were diminished by accusations of moral and gendered transgression. Overall, this scandal exposes concerns of masculine intimacy and the changing definitions of masculinity, as well as the shifting boundaries between a private and public life. (Reiley Gibson)

Dorsey’s analysis shows how male same-sex intimacy in early 19th century New England did not automatically map onto modern categories of homosexuality, but instead existed within fluid evangelical ideals or friendship, piety, and masculine formation. The scandal surrounding the preacher demonstrates how behaviours once tolerated or ambiguously understood as institutional discipline. In this way, intimacy becomes a site where evolving notions of homosexuality, masculinity, and religious authority collided, revealing how sexual meaning was produced through social, economic, and religious power rather than fixed identity. (Caitlyn Edwards)

Sherman's trial reveals the tensions between old notions of Christian male intimacy and newer ideas about sinful homosexuality that could potentially be punishable by death. Dorsey notes that Sherman never fully denied any intimate touches between him and the men he'd lodged with, but he claims that these touches were purely holy rather than sexual. Sherman's insistence upon a distinction between spiritual and sexual intimacy indicates that, at this time of increasing visibility of homosexuality, the lines between different forms of intimacy were very blurred to onlookers. Dorsey's analysis is significant in that it doesn't seek to determine whether or not Sherman was actually acting in a sexual way, but rather the ways in which male intimacy was going through a major transformation in Christian communities in the US. (Noah Rutkowski)

Dorsey mentions that the nature of Christian manliness was a competitive religious market, that has multiple clashes over the intimacy of men who have homoerotic ideals for sexual desires. With the church and religion deeming homosexuality as a sin the question of manliness becomes for-front within this religious space. Dorsey mentions the difference between men and women being the aspect of gossip, which the clergymen who were in charge of Sherman's trial used in order to judge his character, instead of proven evidence, which shows the lack of concrete boundaries between the churches ideals for men and women. (Sage Milton)

This article challenges our modern notions of sex and sexuality, particularly when it comes to its discussion of masturbation. Our modern masturbation taboo has its origins, at least in part, in the evangelical revival of the Second Great Awakening, where preachers began to focus much of their efforts on sexual purification. This stood in contrast to the prevailing ideas of masturbation up until that point: a thing that was not discussed publicly, but generally tolerated. Eleazer Sherman, despite himself being an evangelical associated with a Christian revival movement, gave public defenses of masturbation and other increasingly taboo forms of personal or social intimacy against sexual reformers - most of whom were only a decade younger than him. This underscores total and rapid upheaval of what it meant to be a man in the nineteenth-century. Male-male intimacy, which had defined masculine relationships up until that point, became entirely taboo incredibly suddenly, and male-male social relationships became redefined into something colder and more closed off. (Nick Thodal)

Doresey highlights how evangelical reform movements fundamentally reshaped acceptable forms of sexual expression by transforming previously private or tolerated behaviours into markers of moral failure. Sherman’s public defence of masturbation reveals the instability and contestation of these new sexual norms, even among evangelicals themselves, and illustrates how reform was uneven rather than universally accepted. These debates signal a broader cultural shift in which masculine intimacy and bodily expression were increasingly regulated, narrowing the emotional and physical boundaries of male relationships in the 19th century. (Caitlyn Edwards)