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Author: Elder John Sparks
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813158397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
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Book Description
Appalachia's distinctive brand of Christianity has always been something of a puzzle to mainline American congregations. Often treated as pagan and unchurched, native Appalachian sects are labeled as ultraconservative, primitive, and fatalistic, and the actions of minority sub-groups such as "snake handlers" are associated with all worshippers in the region. Yet these churches that many regard as being outside the mainstream are living examples of America's own religious heritage. The emotional and experience-based religion that still thrives in Appalachia is very much at the heart of American worship. The lack of a recognizable "father figure" like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox compounds the mystery of Appalachia's religious origins. Ordained minister John Sparks determined that such a person must have existed, and his search turned up a man less literate, urbane, and well-known than Luther, Calvin, and Knox—but no less charismatic and influential. Shubal Stearns, a New England Baptist minister, led a group of sixteen Baptists—now dubbed "The Old Brethren" by Old School Baptists churches in Appalachia—from New England to North Carolina in the mid-eighteenth century. His musical "barking" preaching is still popular, and the association of churches that he established gave birth to many of the disparate denominations prospering in the region today. A man lacking in the scholarship of his peers but endowed with the eccentricities that would make their mark on Appalachian faith, Stearns has long been an object of shame among most Baptist historians. In The Roots of Appalachian Christianity, Sparks depicts an important religious figure in a new light. Poring over pages of out-of-print and little-used histories, Sparks discovered the complexity of Stearns's character and his impact on Appalachian Christianity. The result is a history not just of this leader but of the roots of a religious movement.
Author: Elder John Sparks
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813158397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Get Book Here
Book Description
Appalachia's distinctive brand of Christianity has always been something of a puzzle to mainline American congregations. Often treated as pagan and unchurched, native Appalachian sects are labeled as ultraconservative, primitive, and fatalistic, and the actions of minority sub-groups such as "snake handlers" are associated with all worshippers in the region. Yet these churches that many regard as being outside the mainstream are living examples of America's own religious heritage. The emotional and experience-based religion that still thrives in Appalachia is very much at the heart of American worship. The lack of a recognizable "father figure" like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox compounds the mystery of Appalachia's religious origins. Ordained minister John Sparks determined that such a person must have existed, and his search turned up a man less literate, urbane, and well-known than Luther, Calvin, and Knox—but no less charismatic and influential. Shubal Stearns, a New England Baptist minister, led a group of sixteen Baptists—now dubbed "The Old Brethren" by Old School Baptists churches in Appalachia—from New England to North Carolina in the mid-eighteenth century. His musical "barking" preaching is still popular, and the association of churches that he established gave birth to many of the disparate denominations prospering in the region today. A man lacking in the scholarship of his peers but endowed with the eccentricities that would make their mark on Appalachian faith, Stearns has long been an object of shame among most Baptist historians. In The Roots of Appalachian Christianity, Sparks depicts an important religious figure in a new light. Poring over pages of out-of-print and little-used histories, Sparks discovered the complexity of Stearns's character and his impact on Appalachian Christianity. The result is a history not just of this leader but of the roots of a religious movement.
Author: Deborah Vansau McCauley
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252064142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584
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Book Description
"A monumental achievement. . . . Certainly the best thing written on Appalachian Religion and one of the best works on the region itself. Deborah McCauley has made a winning argument that Appalachian religion is a true and authentic counter-stream to modern mainstream Protestant religion." -- Loyal Jones, founding director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College Appalachian Mountain Religion is much more than a narrowly focused look at the religion of a region. Within this largest regional and widely diverse religious tradition can be found the strings that tie it to all of American religious history. The fierce drama between American Protestantism and Appalachian mountain religion has been played out for nearly two hundred years; the struggle between piety and reason, between the heart and the head, has echoes reaching back even further--from Continental Pietism and the Scots-Irish of western Scotland and Ulster to Colonial Baptist revival culture and plain-folk camp-meeting religion. Deborah Vansau McCauley places Appalachian mountain religion squarely at the center of American religious history, depicting the interaction and dramatic conflicts between it and the denominations that comprise the Protestant "mainstream." She clarifies the tradition histories and symbol systems of the area's principally oral religious culture, its worship practices and beliefs, further illuminating the clash between mountain religion and the "dominant religious culture" of the United States. This clash has helped to shape the course of American religious history. The explorations in Appalachian Mountain Religion range from Puritan theology to liberation theology, from Calvinism to the Holiness-Pentecostal movements. Within that wide realm and in the ongoing contention over religious values, the many strains of American religious history can be heard.
Author: Richard C. Davids
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9780800612375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
This biography of Reverend Bob Childress of the Blue Ridge Mountains has been compared to the tales of Mark Twain and the Mississippi. Shows Childress' transforming effects on rough and wild mountain communities.
Author: Bill J. Leonard
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572330405
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Religion has long been a source of identity for many Southerners, and the Appalachian areas in particular have proven to be a virtual fortress protecting faith and culture. Yet, in a region popularly thought to be religiously homogeneous, congregations reflect a wide range of doctrinal differences over such issues as conversion, ministerial leadership, and the authority on which a church bases its core beliefs. Profiling the prominent Christian traditions in southern Appalachia, this book brings together contributions by twenty scholars who have long studied the religious practices found in the region's cities, small towns, and rural communities. These authors provide insights into not only the independent mountain churches that are strongly linked to local customs but also the mainline and other religious bodies that have a significant presence in Appalachia but are not strictly associated with it. The essays explore the nature of ministry within these various churches, show the impact of broader culture on religion in the region, and consider the question of whether previously isolated, tradition-based churches can retain their distinctiveness in a changing world. One group of chapters focuses on elements of mountain religion as seen in the beliefs and practices of mountain Holiness folk, serpent handlers, and various Baptist traditions. Later chapters review the history and activities of other denominations, including Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Wesleyan/Holiness, Church of God, and Roman Catholic. Also considered are the economic history of the region, popular religiosity, and the role of church-affiliated colleges. Taken together, these essays offer a richly nuanced understanding of Christianity in Appalachia. The Editor: Bill J. Leonard is dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. His other books include Out of One, Many: American Religion and American Pluralism and God's Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Contributors: Monica Kelly Appleby, Donald N. Bowdle, Mary Lee Daugherty, Melvin E. Dieter, Howard Dorgan, Anthony Dunnavant, Gary Farley, Samuel S. Hill, Loyal Jones, Helen Lewis, Charles H. Lippy, Bill J. Leonard, Deborah Vansau McCauley, Lou F. McNeil, Marcia Clark Myers, Bennett Poage, Ira Read, James Sessions, Barbara Ellen Smith, H. Davis Yeuell.
Author: Paul Stutzman
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 0800720539
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
With breathtaking descriptions and humorous anecdotes from his 2,176-mile journey along the Appalachian Trail, Paul Stutzman reveals how immersing himself in nature and befriending fellow hikers helped him recover from a devastating loss.
Author: Loyal Jones
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252067594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
Jones attacks what he sees as the historical dismissal of mountain religious life, as supported by nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionary movements bent on changing mountain life through better religion. He explores the creation and perpetuation of negative stereotypes as mainline Christians contended that "Upland Christians" had to be saved from themselves.
Author: Mary Ella Engel
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820355240
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
In 1878, Elder Joseph Standing traveled into the Appalachian mountains of North Georgia, seeking converts for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sixteen months later, he was dead, murdered by a group of twelve men. The church refused to bury the missionary in Georgia soil; instead, he was laid to rest in Salt Lake City beneath a monument that declared, “There is no law in Georgia for the Mormons.” Most accounts of this event have linked Standing’s murder to the virulent nineteenth-century anti-Mormonism that also took the life of prophet Joseph Smith and to an enduring southern tradition of extralegal violence. In these writings, the stories of the men who took Standing’s life are largely ignored, and they are treated as significant only as vigilantes who escaped justice. Historian Mary Ella Engel adopts a different approach, arguing that the mob violence against Standing was a local event, best understood at the local level. Her examination of Standing’s murder carefully situates it in the disquiet created by missionaries’ successes in the North Georgia community. As Georgia converts typically abandoned the state for Mormon colonies in the West, a disquiet situated within a wider narrative of post-Reconstruction Mormon outmigration to colonies in the West. In this rich context, the murder reveals the complex social relationships that linked North Georgians—families, kin, neighbors, and coreligionists—and illuminates how mob violence attempted to resolve the psychological dissonance and gender anxieties created by Mormon missionaries. In laying bare the bonds linking Georgia converts to the mob, Engel reveals Standing’s murder as more than simply mountain lawlessness or religious persecution. Rather, the murder responds to the challenges posed by the separation of converts from their loved ones, especially the separation of women and their dependents from heads of households.
Author: Charles Anderson
Publisher: Winepress Pub
ISBN: 9781606150207
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
Here is the story of a 5,000,000-step journey of faith and determination! Beyond My Limits is not only the story of Charles Anderson's mission to section-hike the entire Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine, but also to share Christ with his fellow hikers in hostels, shelters, on the trail, or wherever he found them. As he touched others' lives along the way with a message of hope and salvation, a personal inner journey took place. Trusting, obeying, believing, and worshiping God in the beauty and challenges of the wilderness rewarded him with moments of astounding joy and a deepened relationship with his Creator. The overriding message of our culture is to take the easy road, stay within our comfort zones, and avoid risk. But God calls Christians to venture by faith beyond comfort and ease so that they can experience the amazing purposes God has for their lives. This exciting account of the author's epic 2,160-mile journey of determination and faith will introduce readers to a world of adventure on the Appalachian Trail. It will inspire them to take up that challenging mission to which God is calling them -- "beyond their limits." - Publisher.
Author: Rhoda B. Warren
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 0897335368
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
In the compelling memoir, Rhoda Warren, whose father was a miner, introduces us to Letcher, KY in 1930. She takes us inside this isolated community, whose denizens lived difficult, poverty-stricken lives. This is the story of the Bailey family's escape from the grueling Corbin Glow mines to find a better life in Letcher--"The prettiest place in the world." Rhoda Warren's account is three-dimensional: with humor and warmth, but without sentimentality. She recounts the lives of these mining people whose religion and "family values" buttressed and sustained them.
Author: Catherine Marshall
Publisher: Evergreen Farm
ISBN: 1683701275
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
The train taking nineteen-year-old teacher Christy Huddleston from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, might as well be transporting her to another world. The Smoky Mountain community of Cutter Gap feels suspended in time, trapped by poverty, superstitions, and century-old traditions. But as Christy struggles to find acceptance in her new home, some see her — and her one-room school — as a threat to their way of life. Her faith is challenged and her heart is torn between two strong men with conflicting views about how to care for the families of the Cove. Yearning to make a difference, will Christy’s determination and devotion be enough?
