Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt / Edition 1

by Christine Leigh Heyrman

Overview

Revealing a surprising paradox at the heart of America's "Bible Belt," Christine Leigh Heyrman examines how the conservative religious traditions so strongly associated with the South evolved out of an evangelical Protestantism that began with very different social and political attitudes.
Although the American Revolution swept away the institutional structures of the Anglican Church in the South, the itinerant evangelical preachers who subsequently flooded the region at first encountered resistance from southern whites, who were affronted by their opposition to slaveholding and traditional ideals of masculinity, their lack of respect for generational hierarchy, their encouragement of women's public involvement in church affairs, and their allowance for spiritual intimacy with blacks. As Heyrman shows, these evangelicals achieved dominance in the region over the course of a century by deliberately changing their own "traditional values" and assimilating the conventional southern understandings of family relationships, masculine prerogatives, classic patriotism, and martial honor. In so doing, religious groups earlier associated with nonviolence and antislavery activity came to the defense of slavery and secession and the holy cause of upholding both by force of arms—and adopted the values we now associate with the "Bible Belt."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807847169
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	04/27/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Christine Leigh Heyrman is professor of history at the University of Delaware.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Prologue: Canaan's Language

1. Raising the Devil
2. The Season of Youth
3. Family Values
4. Mothers and Others in Israel
5. Mastery

Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An extraordinarily rich exploration of the first hundred years of evangelical faith in the South. . . . Heyrman has given us a great deal to think about in this wonderfully told and beautifully written story. In the end, we are left to ponder what the South, and indeed the United States, might look like today if those 18th-century evangelical firebrands with their message of freedom for slaves and recognition for women had managed to carry the day.—Charles B. Dew, New York Times Book Review



An eloquent piece of narrative history. . . . This is an outstanding book, impressively saturated with primary sources, beautifully written, and spiced with pervasive wit. Heyrman offers a novelist's sensitivity to the many colorful characters in her tale. . . . A remarkable book that will set a high standard for future studies of religion in the antebellum South.—Kirkus Reviews



Heyrman provides an elegant and evocative portrait of the early estrangements. Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt has narrative power, unusually combining incisiveness with humanity. . . . It is hard to see that her book has a serious competitor.—Times Literary Supplement



Indispensable for the study of Southern religion.—Religious Studies Review



[Describes] in vivid and convincing detail, the ways in which Southern evangelicals remade their faith to fit more easily into their society. For that accomplishment, and for tackling the history of the evangelical mainstream in an innovative way, this book represents an important contribution.—Koinonia



Undoubtedly one of the most important, and most impressive, works on southern religion to appear this decade.—Atlanta History



A masterly study combining meticulous scholarship, thoughtful argument, and informed storytelling. Heyrman brings literary wit and grace to her subject, and students and scholars of the early National period and the antebellum South will be well-rewarded by this engaging text.—Maryland Historical Magazine



[A] remarkable study. . . . Although other historians . . . have noted the slow process of evangelization that culminated so successfully in the mid-nineteenth century, none have told the story with such compelling detail, compassionate sympathy and wise humor as Heyrman.—Georgia Historical Quarerly



One of the most engaging and compelling histories I have ever read; indeed, it is the best history of religion in the South that we now have and is sure to become a model of how we should do religious history.—Donald Mathews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



Although a work of serious interpretation, Christine Heyrman's Southern Cross makes the story of the Christianizing of the South as exciting as a fast-paced adventure story.—Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida

Editorial Reviews

[F]or tackling the history of the evangelical mainstream in an innovative way, this book represents an important contribution.

"Koinonia"

"Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt" has narrative power, unusually combining incisiveness with humanity.

"Times Literary Supplement"

ÝF¨or tackling the history of the evangelical mainstream in an innovative way, this book represents an important contribution.

"Koinonia"

An extraordinarily rich exploration of the first hundred years of evangelical faith in the South.

Charles B. Dew, "New York Times Book Review"

This is an outstanding book, impressively saturated with primary sources, beautifully written, and spiced with pervasive wit.

"Kirkus Reviews"

""Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt" has narrative power, unusually combining incisiveness with humanity.

"Times Literary Supplement""

"[F]or tackling the history of the evangelical mainstream in an innovative way, this book represents an important contribution.

"Koinonia""

"An extraordinarily rich exploration of the first hundred years of evangelical faith in the South.

Charles B. Dew, "New York Times Book Review""

"This is an outstanding book, impressively saturated with primary sources, beautifully written, and spiced with pervasive wit.

"Kirkus Reviews""

Indispensable for the study of Southern religion.

"Religious Studies Review"

From the Publisher

Heyrman (history, Univ. of Delaware) traces the development of evangelical Christianity in early Southern history, from Colonial days to the early 19th century. The author shows how the primarily Methodist and Baptist evangelicals were able to overcome strong resistance to become a predominant force in Southern culture. Young and inspired preachers, fear of the devil, signs and wonders, and an appeal to the most disadvantaged members of society brought initial success. Later, a movement toward patriarchal church and family structures and racial separatism helped the radical movement establish a permanent niche for itself. Both strands of this heritage continue to have influence. The author points out the importance of understanding this powerful heritage when analyzing modern trends in conservative Protestantism. A fascinating work; recommended for public and academic libraries.C. Robert Nixon, Lafayette, Ind.

Library Journal

Reprint of the 1997 Kuopfedition, winner of the 1998 Bancroft Prize (and well reviewed by Kirkus, LJ, Booklist, Choice). Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

An extraordinarily rich exploration of the first hundred years of evangelical faith in the South. -- Charles B. Dew, The New York Times Book Review

Charles B. Dew

An eloquent piece of narrative history that seeks to clarify one of American religion's most enduring puzzles: How did the South, once a culture highly resistant to evangelical revivalism, become the "buckle" of the Bible Belt?

Historian Heyrman (Univ. of Delaware) has crafted a meticulous portrait of the early South in the era of the Second Great Awakening, roughly around the turn of the 19th century. She demonstrates that evangelical religion and southern culture were at first rigidly incompatible—young itinerant Methodist and Baptist preachers threatened the authority of middle-aged southern planters, while women and slaves who found outlets as evangelical exhorters challenged white male power. Evangelicalism could only triumph in the South when its evangelists were willing to make themselves over in the image of the southern male gentry. This meant that preachers had to become older, more settled, and more aggressively masculine, while women ceased to exercise public spiritual authority, retreating instead to the domestic realm. Evangelical religion, which had once demanded that its adherents sever all ties with unbelieving family members, reinvented itself as the force which held the southern family together. The South's "family religion" continues to this day; in the epilogue, Heyrman briefly explores the contemporary legacy of this evangelical male transformation in groups like the Promise Keepers. This is an outstanding book, impressively saturated with primary sources, beautifully written, and spiced with pervasive wit. Heyrman offers a novelist's sensitivity to the many colorful characters of her tale, with each anecdote illuminating the overall evolution of southern evangelicalism. One might wish only for more attention to slave religion, and the interplay between white and black evangelicalism.

But in all, this is a remarkable book that will set a high standard for future studies of religion in the antebellum South.

Kirkus Reviews