Cane Ridge Shrine, Bourbon County, Kentucky
Yesterday I visited the Cane Ridge Shrine, in Bourbon County, Kentucky. This is a state historic site that is dedicated to preserving the history of the 1801 Cane Ridge Revival. An original meeting house has been preserved by the construction of a stone building over the original log structure. There is a cemetery in which some three hundred, mostly unnamed people lie buried, a visitor center/museum with a very small shop and a large number of picnic tables. The site is open most days from 10-5 and does not charge any admission. One lovely, very elderly docent was there when we visited. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of blogs about faith-based museums and historic sites. I want to begin to profile them in the same way that Charlotte Smith created a taxonomy for house museums. I want to understand the place these sites hold both for current expressions of faith and for what they articulate about the history and future of faith in our culture. I want to look at var...