Featuring approximately 350 photographs, this book offers an intimate look at Holiness people and their worship practices in central Appalachia. Their small, independent churches have remained unrecognized by America's dominant religious cultures, but this book seeks to appreciate them in their own setting and in the context of American religious history.
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From the Inside Flap
"A remarkable achievement. Mountain Holiness combines Warren Brunner's poignant and sensitive photographs with a succinct narrative by Deborah McCauley, the preeminent authority on Appalachian mountain religion. This is a landmark study that sheds light on one of the most neglected subjects in American religion."
Randall Balmer
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion
Barnard College, Columbia University
From the Back Cover
Hidden deep in the hills of central Appalachia, tiny churches have quietly carried on their worship practices in an unbroken chain for two centuries. Harking back to the camp-meeting movement of the early nineteenth century, independent Holiness churches are considered by some to represent Appalachia's single largest religious tradition. Yet it is one that remains uncounted in any census of American church life because of the lack of formal institutions or written records. Through vivid images and perceptive words, this book documents this rich history, showing how these independent churches have sustained both faith and followers.
The authors spent five years interviewing and photographing Appalachia's Holiness people and participating in their services. From thousands of photographs, they have selected nearly three hundred fifty images for this large-format volume. Here are small one-room churches-many built to hold no more than a dozen people-scattered in the hills of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Yet Warren Brunner's striking images depict not only buildings but also the people and their faith practices: river baptisms and homecomings, serpent handling and tent evangelism, radio preaching and special holiday services.
Deborah McCauley and Laura Porter's text combines descriptions of the pictures with the history of the churches and interviews with members. They create a representative window into the material and oral culture of central Appalachia's independent Holiness heritage. Mountain Holiness is a book that will fascinate anyone who cares about these traditions, as well as anyone concerned with the preservation of America's most vital folkways.
"A remarkable achievement. Mountain Holiness combines Warren Brunner's poignant and sensitive photographs with a succinct narrative by Deborah McCauley, the preeminent authority on Appalachian mountain religion. This is a landmark study that sheds light on one of the most neglected subjects in American religion."
Randall Balmer
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion
Barnard College, Columbia University
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Red Hill Holiness Church,
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This review is from: Mountain Holiness: A Photographic Narrative (Paperback)
I came across this book when I worked at a seminary. One of our students was using it for a project.
What stood out to me is the section on the Red Hill Holiness Church in Pennington Gap, Va., as the building housing the church is the building where my mother's family lived until she was in 7th grade. It was then converted to a church building. How odd to come across such a thing is a book. We purchased this book to have as part of our family history. If you're unfamiliar with mountain holiness churches, I recommend you give it a try. Many small, even tiny, congregations are profiled giving insight into the practice of their faith.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed,
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This review is from: Mountain Holiness: A Photographic Narrative (Paperback)
I was really disappointed in the book. It did not dipict Holiness at all. While there were a few good pages about Holiness Serpent Handlers and such, a lot of the book was about Baptists and Methodists which is not what I was looking for.
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