The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South, 1790–1860 by Robert Elder

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South, 1790–1860 by Robert Elder Scott Stephan The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South, 1790–1860. By Robert Elder. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 273. $34.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-2756-4.) In this thought-provoking study of evangelicals in Georgia and South Carolina, Robert Elder argues that honor and evangelicalism were never truly adversarial. Rather, these two ideas ran parallel to one another, and they increasingly overlapped in the antebellum South. With this configuration, Elder concludes, "evangelicals were never as radical as some have hoped" (p. 209). Elder's capacious definition of Christian honor, which he uses to argue that believers looked to God as the "only true judge of both honor and shame," anchors his analysis and his approach (p. 18). Rather than using the familiar refrain of individual conversion to frame the study of southern evangelicalism, Elder uses honor to focus on the community of believers who remained uniquely qualified to judge their neighbors. In the wake of the American Revolution, Christian honor [End Page 666] put evangelicals at odds with their secular neighbors, allowing evangelicals to embrace secular scorn as proof of their faith. But the "rhetorical foothold" of religious honor became a shared platform with non-evangelical southerners sometime around the Nullification Revivals of the early 1830s, when "it was increasingly difficult to distinguish between worldly honor and Christian honor," as Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians cooperated to bring unprecedented numbers of converts into their meetinghouses (pp. 27, 29). This synergy upends the usual formulation of evangelicalism and honor as antagonistic, but it never forecloses subtle differences between the two value systems. Elder reinforces other studies that have illustrated the frequency of evangelical discipline, particularly among Baptists, and how such discipline reinforced gendered norms: men ran afoul of regulations more frequently than women, but women often received more severe punishments. Exploring a rich series of cases, including everything from fisticuffs to adultery, Elder offers fresh insights. While believers might restore the penitent member, the larger community might have a longer memory, especially on issues of women's sexual mores. Ultimately, the general reinforcement of secular and sacred gendered norms, according to Elder, may explain why southern men frequently "offered no opposition to their wives' entry into the evangelical community," creating membership rolls skewed toward women (p. 111). One outgrowth of membership—letters of dismissal for members seeking to transfer churches—showcased the everyday world of evangelical communities. Elder contends that the shift from reliance on an individual's reputation to a formal exchange of letters and character references illuminates an early transition from honor's emphasis on a good name to the "rise of the contractual, official, and commercial community" that validated reputation (p. 75). Membership shifts from regulation to initiation in a chapter on religion and slave communities. With attention to the baptism of enslaved people, Elder concludes that membership in evangelical churches brought a "recognition of their [the slaves'] authenticity as individuals and a space where they could communally and individually articulate an identity that held the threat of social death at bay" (p. 139). Concluding chapters on clerical oratory cement Elder's emphasis on the construction of professionalizing denominations that branded the evangelical clergy as honorable men. In his attempt to fashion an interpretive model, one that Elder hopes will explain a broader shift from premodern communal notions of honor to "modern individuality" over the span of the nineteenth century, Elder necessarily crafts thematic chapters that raise many questions along the way (p. 204). Christian honor could use more contextualization, especially how its emergence and application in the South differed from other regions and eras. While the Nullification Revivals signal the merger of secular and sacred honor in chapter 1, such neat periodization does not recur throughout the book. But Elder's claim srun much broader than a case study of evangelical denominations in the Deep South. Rather, Elder has crafted an engaging and brisk interpretation that connects individual evangelicals to the broader community of believers and to the culture of the South. [End Page 667] Scott Stephan Ball State...