Joe Creech. Righteous Indignation: Religion and The Populist Revolution. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. xxx + 183pp. ISBN: 0-252-07315-0. Reviewed by Andrew J. Wood, for the Journal of Southern Religion.
The late nineteenth century agrarian revolt has long
captivated American historians. Students of southern populism have suggested
various explanations for its development and varied characterizations of its
core values and legacy. C. Vann Woodward and Lawrence Goodwyn envisioned Populists as economically minded progressives seeking government
regulation of industry. Such reformers' nascent working-class consciousness
provided a potent challenge to American capitalists. In contrast, Richard
Hofstadter portrayed Populists as narrow-minded small-town reactionaries
resentful of their declining political status. While many historians have
affirmed the importance of producerist economic
ideals and republican political values for southern Populism, few have
considered the importance of religion in fostering the movement. Even as
historians note that Populist and Farmers' Alliance gatherings were similar to revival
meetings, they often overlook the ways evangelical theology (e.g.,
eschatological judgment, moral earnestness, the humility of Jesus, and
universal atonement) influenced southern Populists' political, economic, and
social claims.
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| "As Creech shows, the Populist uprising in North Carolina was not merely a political revolt with religious overtones, but the political manifestation of restorationist Christians' righteous indignation." |
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With Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist
Revolution, Joe Creech has masterfully filled this void in southern historical
scholarship while providing a "via media" between viewing populists as "liberal
progressives or paranoid reactionaries" (xxiv). Creech, Professor of Humanities
and History at Valparaiso
University, tells the
story of 1890s North Carolina Populists. His thesis runs counter to the usual
assumption that separation of church and state dominated in the South during
this period. He argues that "like the evangelicals
that filled Populism's ranks, Populists can best be understood as part of a restorationist movement" (xxiii). Populists were neither
reactionaries nor progressives; rather, taking their cues from the past as a
means to reform or "restore" the present, they were advocates for changes
steeped in tradition. The restorationist brand of
evangelical Christianity that fueled Populists' protest provides the key to
understanding their worldview. Creech's interpretation stresses religious and
political motivations over economic concerns. For Populists, economic
stagnation both evidenced and resulted from a more serious religious and
political declension. As Creech shows, the Populist uprising in North Carolina was not
merely a political revolt with religious overtones, but the political
manifestation of restorationist Christians' righteous
indignation. For these Populists, what was "at stake in the political battles
of the 1890s was the nature of North Carolina's
soul—the future viability not only of American liberty but of the Kingdom of God itself" (viii).
Creech interprets nineteenth century North Carolina
Populists in the context of producerist republicanism
and the doctrines and polity of Protestant evangelicalism. Populists did more
than integrate these streams of thought; they understood them as a whole cloth
consisting of the divine principles upon which moral, religious, and civic
governments must be built. Their restorationist message combined a biblical anthropology with Jeffersonian ideals and decried "the forces of tyranny and centralization: corporate capitalism,
denominationalism, and party plutocracy" (vii). God's polity, in church and
state, was democratic. Oligarchies—whether economic, political, or
ecclesiastical—signaled tyranny and were inherently sinful and destructive of
political and spiritual liberty. Thus these Populists
embraced the mantra vox populi,
vox dei and venerated the
ballot as symbolic of the conscience of a free people, heirs to the liberty
born of the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution. The 1890s
political revolt was thus a sacred movement infused with religious zeal.
Populists merged the themes of democracy and divine rule—republicanism and
righteousness—into a movement of considerable strength if not longevity.
Reading southern evangelicalism as a multifaceted movement
with inherent tensions between its countercultural and conservative roles,
Creech argues that North Carolina evangelicalism was "an established antiestablishmentarianism" (7). He sees three different strands of evangelical Protestantism in North Carolina: the leaders of the predominant groups (e.g.,
Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians), the reclusive countercultural groups
(e.g., Primitive Baptists, various sects, and holiness groups), and the
activist countercultural groups (e.g., Methodist Protestant
Church, Free Will
Baptists, Disciples, O'Kelleyites, and
Quakers). North Carolina Populists mostly came from the third group, which
Creech describes as "something of a restorationist coalition" (13). Together they affirmed and participated in the public sphere
and traditions of the state while engaging in restorationist
or separationist religious protests against the
Protestant establishment ("churchianity"). Strongest
in the rural areas of the state, these bodies shared founding myths that
stressed ecclesiastical reform, spiritual independence, the language of
jeremiad with its attending fear of creeping corruption, opposition to
episcopacy and state-churches, and a "decentralized ecclesiology" (144).
Informed by such religious tenets, these evangelicals expected that maintaining
"purity," however defined, would often require a revolt and a new organization
devoted to those pure ideals. They were ready for the People's Party.
Once convinced that the same forces of centralization and
tyranny at work among Republicans now corrupted Democrats as well, many
middle-class rural white farmers joined the People's Party. Though perceived by
white North Carolinians as largely an intra-Democratic spat, many Black
Republicans from eastern North
Carolina similarly frustrated with their Party's
false promises became Populists. Yet despite some successes their movement would not overcome the state's Democratic establishment, as the
common opponents of Populism saw the threat it posed to one party and one race
rule. Whether motivated by simple racism or fear of the Populists' growing
power (or the double threat of thousands of black Populists), the Democratic
backlash between 1898 and 1900 was violent, severe, and complete.
In many ways, Creech tells the story of a heroic revolt that
ended in failure; a dream not merely deferred but defeated: the "loss of a
uniquely democratic vision of America" (183). Creech suggests that after this defeat (and with it the end of
nineteenth century style evangelicalism), ex-Populists chose to embrace
apolitical premillenialism or Pentecostalism, or
simply leave politics to others. For many, America was past saving; saving a
few individuals before the rapture was the only mission left. In Creech's
narrative, widespread premillenialism and uniformly
apolitical conservative evangelicalism resulted from disenfranchisement.
Creech's concise and lucid study provides remarkable
evidence that serious attention to religious history can richly inform social
and political history. It seems likely that Righteous Indignation will be
influential with a wide range of scholars from various disciplines. His
arguments for restorationism as the key to Populism
are convincing, as is his vision of nineteenth century southern evangelicalism
as more complex, diverse, and political than many interpreters have imagined.
Creech helps us envision the wide range of options southern evangelical
Protestants had until the retrenchments of the turn of the century. At times,
his analysis seems incomplete. As with many similar works, African American
sources appear underrepresented. His portrait of the holiness movement as
countercultural and reclusive is confusing considering the strong connections
he found between the People's Party and holiness leaders and membership. Yet,
Righteous Indignation is a timely reminder to contemporary political observers
that southern evangelicals' engagement with American politics did not begin
with Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell. Righteous
Indignation should be of interest to scholars researching North Carolina, Populism, rural-urban
tensions in southern religion, restorationist and separatist traditions of American religion, and religion and politics in
American life.
Andrew J. Wood, Auburn
University
.
