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  Book Review - Religion in the Southern States: A
 Historical Study
, by Samuel S. Hill

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This book review was written in 2003.

            Increasingly studied, Southern religion is traditionally defined as evangelical Protestantism as expressed by Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.  Numerous modern studies have moved beyond this homogeneity to find diverse expressions in terms of Roman Catholicism, smaller faith groups, folk religion, and broader spirituality.  The sixteen essays in this volume (arranged alphabetically according to state name) collectively occupy a middle ground, focusing primarily on the dominant Christian denominations in each southern state, but also incorporating Roman Catholics and minority faith groups.

            Recognizing the subjectivity of defining the “South,” Hill and the volume’s other contributors orient their definition around the dominance of Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.  Louisiana, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, and Oklahoma are included because they are more similar than dissimilar to the dominant pattern.  Hill argues that religions patterns did not appear until the 1740s, and did not take hold until after the American Revolution.  The sparse population in the region contributed to the late development of religious patterns in the 18th century, while favoring the rapid growth of less-formal Protestant religious expressions in the 19th century.  The Civil War consolidated the grip of evangelical Protestantism, while individually-oriented moral sensitivity, rather than corporately-oriented Social Gospel, characterized southern religious life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  According to Hill, World War II brought the South to equal footing with the rest of the nation, followed by social revolution and the beginnings of an ongoing, slow, and almost imperceptible unraveling of the homogeneity of traditional Southern religion.

            Although the story of many southern states is that of early establishment, albeit weakness, of Roman Catholic or Anglican state religion, followed by religious liberty and  the rising popularity and eventual dominance of less-educated and more rural-oriented Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, some states traveled divergent paths.  Florida’s religious history is presented as largely pluralistic, with southern patterns manifested only from 1870 to 1921, framed on the one end by early isolated communities, and on the other by an economic boom that attracted northerners to the state.  Kentucky, as the originator of the Second Great Awakening in response to the influx of unchurched rural folk, played a significant role in consolidating evangelical Protestantism throughout the South.  Louisiana’s Protestant north and Catholic south, in addition to the presence of African religious expressions, resisted traditional religious patterns longer than did most states.  Following early Native American and French Roman Catholic influence, Missouri continued to display a relatively large degree of diversity as evidenced in the founding of the Missouri Synod Lutherans and the presence of the Mormon Church, in addition to fierce battles over abolition. 

            Of all southern states, Oklahoma harbored the largest Native American influence, holding traditional religious patterns at bay until the 20th century, which quickly witnessed religious uniformity under the banner of conservative to fundamentalist theology.  Tennessee, according to David E. Harrell, has been distinguished as the “most prolific breeding ground for sects” (289), as the rough landscape first delayed settlement and then fostered religious diversity throughout the state, aided by the northern presence during the Civil War and the arrival of the holiness and Pentecostal movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

            Although understandably limited in scope because of space constraints, the essays in this volume provide excellent introductory surveys of the religious developments of the various southern states.  Methodologies and emphases vary from author to author, but certain themes emerge time and time again, including the centrality of the Civil War to the cementing of southern religion and independent development of African-American religion, the influence of the Christian Church / Disciples of Christ, the legacy of the Second Great Awakening, the 19th century trend to institutionalized religion, the importance of educational institutions, the focus on personal morality, and a gradual growth of pluralism in competition with traditional religion.  In short, the main themes of historical southern religious expression are to be found in the pages of this volume, although on an uneven basis from state to state.  Readers seeking a survey of minority religious expressions will only be partially satisfied, as Jewish, Native American religions, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Seventh Day Adventist and other groups receive limited attention.  In addition, the volume comes up short in analyzing post World War II developments in southern religion.

            In the final analysis, Religion in the Southern States serves as an excellent introductory survey of the establishment and development of religion in the southern states, providing the foundational framework for further exploration of the diversity within traditional denominations as well as divergent religious expressions existing independent of traditional structures.