14
OZARK RELIGION
HL. MENCKEN coined the term "Bible Belt" for much of the southern half of the United States, including the Appalachians and Ozarks. This term is too flippant and cynical for one raised in the Calvinistic tradition of the Scottish Covenanters and Dissenters (who had split from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland because it was considered too liberal). Coinage of the term "Literal Latitudes" was given a fleeting thought but the idea was abandoned as being almost as obnoxious as Mencken's.
Those who migrated to the Ozarks directly from Europe retained their ancestral faiths, namely Roman Catholic for the French, and Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and E&R (United Church of Christ) for the Germans. The southern Appalachians also have Germanic representation in the Moravians, but the predominant faiths of the first settlers were Scottish Presbyterian and Methodist, with the former in the majority.
The Presbyterians were destined to lose their majority for several
reasons:
(1) The individualism of the mountaineer rebelled against even the small amount of authoritarianism vested in the Calvinistic clergy.
(2) This individualism also resulted in an antipathy against any form of heirarchy, even one as flexible as the synod or presbytery.
(3) The requirement of seminary graduation for ordination created the problem of finding ministers willing to live in the remote Appalachians; furthermore, even the minister willing to endure the lonely life might not relate well to his unlettered flock.
(4) Calvinism is traditionally restrained in outward emotional expression, whereas to the mountaineer, the revival was a welcome emotional experience.
(5) The "Great Awakening" of 1735 and the second Great Awakening of about 1800 in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky resulted in a surge of evangelism and revivals. These movements produced tremendous growth of pre-existing churches such as the Baptists; others were outgrowths of Presbyterianism, with some doctrinal influence of the Puritan heritage, and still others started as completely new faiths.
Southern Appalachian theological characteristics carried into the Ozarks in the 1820s and 30s include fundamentalism, a significant proportion of lay ministers, strong or complete autonomy of each congregation, more emotionalism than in the majority of the old-line Protestant churches, an overwhelming variety of churches and splinter groups, a scarcity of some faiths common in New England (e.g., Congregational and Episcopal), and unfortunately in some cases, the tenet that confirmed reservations in heaven can be obtained only by membership in a particular denomination.
One might suspect a slight trend toward the worldly in some Ozark church music. Syncopation sometimes sneaks in, and three quarter time tends to have an accent on the first beat which hints of the waltz. Also, it is perhaps not well known that the Rev. Elijah
Craig (denomination not specified) made the first bourbon whiskey in 1780.
“to the
mountaineer, the revival was a welcome emotional experience”
Note variant spelling of arbor, and the “Lone survivor of 5 total massacres”!
“strong or
complete autonomy of each segregation”
Baptist Church east of Edgar Springs, Missouri. The gravestones besides this beautifully preserved little church are hand-made, and many date to the early 1800s.