Appalachian Mountain Religion: A History

"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.