"Religion and the Making of Nat Turner's Virginia" provides a
new interpretation of the rise of evangelical Christianity in the
early American South by reconstructing the complex, biracial
history of the Baptist movement in southeastern Virginia. This
region and its religious history became a subject of intense
national scrutiny in the wake of the 1831 revolt led by the
enslaved preacher and prophet Nat Turner. But by the time Turner
led his fellow slaves on their deadly march across the fields and
swamps of Southampton County, Virginia's religious landscape had
already been shaped by more than eighty years of conflict about the
implications of evangelical faith for the evolving cluster of
interrelated ideas about race, slavery, household, family, and
patriarchy that constituted the state's social order.
For both black and white Virginians, evangelical discourses of
authority, community, and meaning provided the material for a wide
variety of interpretations of Christianity's social and spiritual
message during the Revolutionary and early national eras. Even as
some white church leaders sought to institutionalize a white,
paternalist vision of evangelicalism's meanings, rapidly increasing
black participation in Baptist congregations in the early
nineteenth century provided fertile ground for new, alternative
interpretations of Baptist concepts and practices. The Turner
rebellion brought these diverse subterranean currents of dissent to
the surface in ways that upset the delicate balance between white
institutional authority and black spiritual independence that had
evolved in the previous decades. Reaction to the uprising
intensified the trend toward separation and segregation of black
and white religion in the antebellum period and had powerful,
lasting effects on race relations and religious culture in
America.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!