Our southern Zion : a history of Calvinism in the South Carolina low country, 1690-1990 / Erskine Clarke.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-403) and index.

Print version record.

Use copy Restrictions unspecified star MiAaHDL

Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. MiAaHDL

Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. MiAaHDL

http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212

digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL

1. The Tradition Established: A European Prologue -- 2. The Context: The Colony of South Carolina -- 3. The Tradition Transplanted: The Reformed Communites -- 4. The Tradition Articulated: A Carolina Accent -- 5. The Tradition Expanded: The Great Awakening -- 6. Competing Impulses: Tories, Whigs, and the Revolution -- 7. Institutional Developments: "Our Southern Zion" -- 8. A Church Both African American and Reformed -- 9. An Antebellum Social Profile in Black and White: "Our Kind of People" -- 10. An Intellectual Tradition: The Quest for a Middle Way -- 11. Slavery: "That Course Indicated by Stern Necessity" -- 12. Secession and Civil War: The End of Moderation -- 13. The Challenge of an Almost New Order: "Hold Your Ground, Sir!" -- 14. The African American Reformed Community: Between Two Worlds -- 15. The African American Reformed Community: "Two Warring Ideals in One Dark Body" -- 16. The White Reformed Community, 1876-1941: A "Little World" in Travail and Transition -- 17. From "Our Little World" to the Sun Belt -- App. A. Three Centuries of Reformed Congregations in the Carolina Low Country (1685-1985) -- App. B. Known Pastors in Colonial Presbyterian and Congregational Churches -- App. C. Presbyterian and Congregational Ministers, 1783-1861 -- App. D. Pastors of Black Presbyterian and Congregational Churches and Principals of Black Institutions -- App. E. Leading White Presbyterian and Congregational Ministers or Those with five or More Years in the Low Country.

The South Carolina low country has long been regarded - not only in popular imagination and paperback novels but also by respected scholars - as a region dominated by what earlier historians called "a cavalier spirit" and by what later historians have simply described as "a whole-hearted devotion to amusement and the neglect of religion and intellectual pursuits." Extravagance and not frugality has been regarded as at the heart of this culture, while paternalism, racism, and hierarchical structures have been seen to rule the region, resisting the democratic impulses and business practices of the modern world. Whatever ideological purposes may have been served by such images of the low country, the images themselves have been powerful interpreters of the region because they have had some foundation in social and cultural realities. It is a thesis of this study, however, that there has been a strong Calvinist community in the Carolina low country since its establishment as a British colony and that this community (including in its membership both whites and, after the 1740s, significant numbers of African Americans) contradicts many of the images of the "received version" of the region. Rather than showing a devotion to amusement and neglect of religion and intellectual interests, this community has been marked throughout most of its history by its disciplined religious life, its intellectual pursuits, and its work ethic.

The complex character of this Calvinist community guides Clarke to an exploration of the ways a particular religious tradition and a distinct social context have interacted over a 300-year period, including the unique story of the oldest and largest African American Calvinist community in America.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide