Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century by Wayne Flynt

Abstract

Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century. By Wayne Flynt. Religion and American Culture. (Tuscaloosa: University Alabama Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 386. $39.95, ISBN 978-0-8173-1908-3.) Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century is a compilation previously published articles and recent lectures by Wayne Flynt, historian southern religion and professor emeritus at Auburn University. Flynt began his lengthy career focused on poor white southerners but soon became a chief contributor to the emerging field southern religious history, concentrating primarily on his home state, Alabama, and his natal denomination, Southern Baptist. He published his first article on these topics in 1968, and they remain the central focus his scholarship. The title, like many, is deceptively general. The works here rarely engage southern Christianity broadly or examine diversity. Although southern Methodists and Presbyterians are treated, they appear in dedicated chapters, and only one essay addresses white southern evangelicals as a distinct group. Flynt admits in the preface that the volume does not treat non-evangelicals or African American churches. Thus, his consideration Christian diversity is not comprehensive and is instead limited to a few pages in the later chapters where recent demographic changes are briefly mentioned. Flynt states that his central thesis is one of religious diversity embedded within seemingly impervious religious orthodoxy (p. xi). But the fifteen essays, only two fail to include or focus on Southern Baptists, and nine explore the Social Gospel movement and Progressive reform in the South. It seems Flynt's focus is twofold: how white southern evangelicals, primarily Southern Baptists, worked out their own version the Social Gospel in the early twentieth century and how the denomination moved from its traditional stance on the separation church and state to engage politically and establish its values in the public realm. In his introduction to the second article, Flynt explains that his disagreement with historians religion and C. Vann Woodward on the limits the Social Gospel in the South heavily influenced his own scholarly interests. This focus is clearly visible in the essays he has chosen to highlight his career. Scholars interested in southern religion will find rich material conveniently included here. Flynt is a meticulous researcher interested in biographical narratives. The essays reveal the intertwined relationship politics, reform, and evangelical religion in detail. Flynt uses his autobiography combined with the life story Rev. Charles Bell to highlight the risks and limitations fighting racial discrimination in twentieth-century Alabama. …