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Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920

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Charles Reagan Wilson's work brilliantly describes the civil religion (as described by Geertz) of the "Lost Cause" that was pervasive in the Reconstruction and Early Modern South.

Wilson argues that this civil religion was a combination of Christian and Confederate symbols. According to Wilson this civil religion was formed out of Confederate ministers attempts to reconcile defeat in the war with the Will of God and (as the ministers believed) Confederate righteousness.

Significant in this study is Wilson's look at the role that White Supremacy played in this civil religion. He looks extensively at the role of racism as embodied in groups such as the KKK.

All in all, the work is a brilliant look at ideas pervasive in the reconstruction and early modern south, ideas which have been influential in formation of the modern New South.

Wilson's Baptized in Blood is a brilliant book, one of which I was required to read for a graduate history course on religion in the American south. Although I was born and grew up in the south, I nevertheless was a foreigner there. There was much in the psychology of southerners which made no sense to me. Reading Baptized in Blood was an extraordinary eye-opener! Though I am yet and always will be a stranger in the land of my birth, through the cogent narrative Wilson provides, I understand more deeply now the mythic, psychological origins of the many peculiar and bizarre thoughts, feelings and behaviours of southerners. Southerners REALLY and TRULY BELIEVED that GOD was on their side, in the prosecution of the civil war, and have had to reconcile their defeat as best they could. The inability to let go of that loss goes far in making southerners what they are.
Baptized in Blood is well worth the reading of anyone who seeks to understand the post-civil war period, and/or the social and political psychology of the American south.

This book discusses the theological basis of southern slave society. Anyone who questions the religious self-righteousness of the southerners should read this book because it highlights the contradictions inherent in the hateful southern society and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I have acquired a much greater understanding of the history of the religious right, and, being a southern black trying to understand the hatred around which I live, this book enlightens my perspective.