Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt [Hardcover]

Christine Leigh Heyrman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1997

In an astonishing history, a work of strikingly original research and interpretation, Heyrman shows how the evangelical Protestants of the late-18th century affronted the Southern Baptist majority of the day, not only by their opposition to slaveholding, war, and class privilege, but also by their espousal of the rights of the poor and their encouragement of women's public involvement in the church.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It seems almost a given in the South these days that Christian conservatism is the rule rather than the exception. This part of the United States is, after all, the "buckle" of the Bible Belt. In her surprising history, Southern Cross, Professor Christine Leigh Heyrman shows that Evangelical Christianity was not always as popular in the South as it is today. In fact, the whole face of Evangelicalism has changed radically since its introduction in the 18th century. For example, early teaching and practice resoundingly opposed slavery, class privilege, and the traditional roles of men and women. Evangelicals encouraged women's involvement in church affairs and--even worse--spiritual intimacy with other races. These unpopular political and social stands combined with their unbending view of hellfire and damnation placed Evangelicals on the margins of Southern religious practice until they themselves were "converted" to a different set of traditional values.

Heyrman's book traces the evolution of Southern Evangelism from fringe movement to possessor of the Southern soul. In the span of a century, Evangelicalism began adopting Southern values, and a sect that had earlier preached against slavery and violence began defending both slaveholding and succession from the Union and the use of force in these ends, if necessary. The story of Christianity in the South is a fascinating one, and Southern Cross tells it well.

From Library Journal

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.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679446389
• ISBN-13: 978-0679446385
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #594,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adapting evangelicalism for a southern audience, September 24, 2001

By 

Sandra Parke Topolski (New Albany, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (Paperback)

In Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt, Christine Heyrman traces the difficulties encountered by 18th century evangelicals in spreading Baptist and Methodist beliefs to the South, and discusses the remedies they employed to make their faith more acceptable within southern culture. Heyrman argues that in philosophy and modes of worship, the evangelical message was often at odds with prevailing cultural norms in the South. To win converts, sects had to modify their message, in some ways rejecting important theological underpinnings in order to gain membership. While evangelical religion is now seen as one of the bastions of conservative southern values, Heyrman asserts that this was not always the case, and that only in the 19th century did the evangelicals take on the characteristics we now associate with them. To support her argument, Heyrman relies primarily on church records, the diaries and letters of itinerant preachers, and a number of secondary studies of southern culture.

Heyrman believes that a number of factors accounted for the slow growth of evangelicalism in the 18th century South, among them an unwillingness among the lower classes to upset the gentry by adopting preachers who publicly spoke out against slavery, fear of upsetting the social hierarchy, and a cultural unwillingness to accept such a deeply personal and introspective conversion process. Many potential converts were unwilling to submit to such a demanding moralism, or feared being overcome by the despondency that struck some converts. The evangelicalsuse of young and tactless itinerant preachers in a culture that placed value upon maturity and deference also contributed to their unpopularity. Itinerancy itself was also an issue, since Methodist preachers were responsible for disciplining members who they did not personally know well. Additionally, the deference accorded to women and blacks within the church was offensive to white males, the churches were seen as destabilizing to family values because members were encouraged to put the church before their families, and the preachers themselves struck many as unmanly in a society that placed premiums on masculinity.

To combat these problems, the churches began in the 19th century to tone down their attacks on slavery and immoral gentry behavior. They also reduced the roles of women and blacks within the churches, and encouraged preachers to have families and exhibit more masculine characteristics. However, while the changes Heyrman cites may have made evangelicals appear less objectionable to potential converts, she never considers ways in which the churches became more inviting. She does not question why anyone would be attracted to evangelicalism, only why they might oppose it less. Because of this, the phenomenal growth that the sects did eventually come to enjoy is never explained; rather than showing the reasons why evangelical religion did become such an important part of southern life, her study only explains how it avoided oblivion.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Solid South, April 22, 2000

By 

roger spence (Cleveland, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (Paperback)

How would you feel if a visiting preacher came along and told you that the way you had been "doing church" all your life was wrong and would be radically changed? Your reaction would probably be similar to that of many whose calm and quiet lives were caught up in the frenzy of the evangelical awakenings and revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this book Christine Heyrman, a Professor of History at the University of Delaware, looks with a somewhat jaundiced eye at "the beginnings of the Bible belt" in the South of the early 1800's. The legacy of the Awakenings there was a population, many of whom had made a transition from the old, established Episcopal Church into the Baptist Church. No sooner had the effects of this jolt subsided when the region was overrun with itinerant Methodist circuit riders who raged against cards, guns, dancing, and Calvinism; in short, everything which had made the South that bastion of macho chivalraic leisure which, among the upper classes, it had become. For good measure, a smattering of Scottish Presbyterianism is thrown in to complicate the mixture. As they usually do, the flames of revival had spawned a certain amount of hysteria and superstition as people sometimes fainted, raved, and saw unearthly visions when they came under conviction of sin. Church growth outstripped oversight and discipline as new, unshepherded converts often headed for the Quaker or Shaker communities or into bizarre churches of their own devising. Heyrman's main point, however, is to show how the Southern mindset and lifestyle of today were molded and shaped by the synthesis of pre-Revival Southern mores and the evangelical preaching and style of the revivalists, especially the Methodist circuit riders. These rough, bold pioneers were actually viewed as effete and effeminate by the plantation hedonocracy because of their distaste for hunting, shooting, duelling, riding to hounds, cursing, dancing, drinking, and gambling which were the pastimes of the leisure class. Eventually a synthesis emerged, in which these practices were recognized as undesirable, but were still indulged in, producing the South of the Confederate era, holding a Bible in one hand and a rifle and a bottle of Southern Comfort in the other, the image of which has persisted to the present day. Heyrman is to be commended for embarking on the exploration of a theme, if not an era, which has been little handled previously. The American reading public still awaits a treatment of this subject from an evangelical Christian perspective--a book waiting to be written.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heyrman is convincing., June 15, 1998

By 

M. Burgess (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (Hardcover)

Before I finished reading this book, someone asked me what it was about. Off the cuff, I said it was about how the South got religion. I have since discovered that I was not far off the mark.

Heyrman's concern is with the transformation that overcame the South during the 18th and 19th centuries as it encountered the onslaught of evangelical religion. It seems the South was not always that bastion of "old-time religion" as is sometimes thought. Heyrman's explanation for this is as captivating as it is convincing