" Winner of the Chaffin Award 2004 for Celebration of
Appalachian Writings 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.
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