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The investigation of Primitive Baptist Universalists -- Calvinist
'No-Hellers, ' which sounds for all the world like an oxymoron --
requires the exact type of seasoned and comprehensive field
experience which Dorgan has brought to it with meticulous care and
insight. -- Deborah Vansau McCauley, author of Appalachian Mountain
ReligionAmong the many forms of religious practice found in the
ridges and hollows of Central Appalachia, one of the most
intriguing -- and least understood -- is that of the Primitive
Baptist Universalists (PBUs). Popularly known as the No-Hellers,
this small Baptist sub-denomination rejects the notion of an angry
God bent on punishment and retribution and instead embraces the
concept of a happy God who consigns no one to eternal damnation.
This book is the first in-depth study of the PBUs and their
beliefs.As Howard Dorgan points out, the designation No-Heller is
something of a misnomer. Primitive Baptist Universalists, he notes,
believe in hell -- but they see it as something that exists in this
life, in the temporal world, rather than in an afterlife. For a
PBU, sinfulness is the given state of natural man, and hell a
reality of earthly life -- the absence-from-God's-blessing torment
that sin generates. PBUs further believe that, at the moment of
Resurrection, all temporal existence will end as all human-kind
joins in a wholly egalitarian heaven, the culmination of Christ's
universal atonement.In researching this book, Dorgan spent
considerable time with PBU congregations, interviewing their
members and observing their emotionally charged and joyous worship
services. He deftly combines lucid descriptions of PBU beliefs with
richly texturedvignettes portraying the people and how they live
their faith on a daily basis. He also explores a fascinating
possibility concerning PBU origins: that a strain of early-
nineteenth-century American Universalism reached the mountains of
Appalachia and there fused with Primitive Baptist theology to form
this subdenomination, which barely exists outside a handful of
counties in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia.Like
Dorgan's earlier books, In the Hands of a Happy God offers an
insightful blend of ethnography, history, and theological analysis
that will appeal to both Appalachian scholars and all students of
American religion.
In Giving Glory to God in Appalachia, Howard Dorgan explores the
worship practices of Primitive, Regular, Old Regular, Union,
Missionary, and Free Will Baptists. The worship practices of the
denominations under consideration are varied and often exuberant,
and Dorgan's writing is highly evocative, conveying in rich detail
the joy and pathos of worship in these mountain churches.As Dorgan
states in the introduction, he is less concerned with academic
theorizing and more concerned with presenting a vivid, first-hand
account of all that he has seen and heard. And in the nearly
fifteen years he spent researching his book, Dorgan saw quite a
lot: spirited, vociferous sermons, creek baptisms, foot washings,
home comings, dinners on the ground, and evangelistic radio
broadcasts. Dorgan's prose is at its most enchaining when he
presents tableaus of these phenomena: a foot washing precipitates
the erasure of interpersonal turmoil between two women; a preacher
uses his lively mode of sermonic delivery to orchestrate the
rapturous shouts and "hollers" of a group of women; a radio
evangelist exhorts a recent widower to except salvation. The
wonderful pictures interspersed throughout the book and the
transcription of sermons help to further reify the worship scenes
that Dorgan describes.At times, Dorgan's prose is intensely
personal. Dorgan is always aware that he is writing about sets of
shared values and worship practices that mean a great deal to the
congregations he is studying, and Dorgan treats his subjects and
their beliefs with tremendous sensitivity and respect. Ultimately,
Dorgan is writing about people and the ways in which they invest
their lives with meaning and purpose. This gives Giving Glory to
God in Appalachia a universal appeal: even readers who find the
religious settings in the book completely alien will be able to
sympathize with the congregations' search for meaning.To sum up:
Dorgan has written a beautiful, enthralling book. Don't think--just
buy. And while you're at it, you might want to consider Airwaves Of
Zion: Radio Religion In Appalachia(ISBN-10: 0870497979), also by
Dorgan.
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