Cynthia Lynn Lyerly Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770-1810 (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Pp. 1-238. $45.00.
Lynn Lyerly's new monograph peels back two centuries of time to
reveal an upstart Methodist movement that directly challenged the power
structure and values of southern society. Anyone who became a Methodist
in America before 1800 was entering alien social territory and aligning
themselves with a group that was "ridiculed, feared, and harassed" (p.
101). This self-styled "peculiar people" appealed to the legally powerless and
the oddballs in society, especially to white women, free blacks, and slaves.
Lyerly's story opens in 1770, as Methodist preachers took their message
from the Delmarva Peninsula into Virginia and North Carolina, establishing
a dense network of house churches and local class meetings. Within four
decades Methodism had mushroomed into a national phenomenon--arguably the
largest and most influential social movement in the early republic.
Although not a separate church until 1844, Methodism in the South
"Lyerly has read widely on the subject of slave religion,
but the reader misses a more explicit discussion of slaves' spiritual
experiences-- experiences that revealed common ground between African folk
religion and Christianity."
took on a distinctive regional character, shaped by the institution of
slavery. Lyerly's primary sources support a declension theory of southern
Methodism: as the church grew in size and acceptance by the
dominant culture, it sacrificed the moral high ground on the altar of
progress. Specifically, with increasing pressure from members and
outsiders
alike, the church abandoned its original antislavery witness to try to
Christianize the institution it could not abolish. Lyerly argues that
later church historians shaped the Methodist past to fit this pro-slavery
ideology by omitting references to the early testimonies against slavery.
Finally, white women and black men lost their prominence among the lay
leadership as house churches gave way to church buildings; as southerners
dug in to defend slavery; and as domesticity became a middle class
ideal. Lyerly's analysis focuses on the pre-declension phase, when, for a
few brief decades a rag-tag collection of socially marginal religious
enthusiasts did nothing less than turn the world upside down.
Lyerly's account of such world-inverters breaks new and very
important ground. Her approach is unique for offering two perspectives at
once--of those people inside the Methodist fold, and of those looking in
from the
outside. In each discussion of Methodist beliefs and practices, she
offers parallel examples of how outsiders viewed the same things. For
example, other scholars have documented the Methodist challenge to
southern definitions of manhood. But Lyerly's evidence helps readers
understand why Methodism aroused such ire in many white southern men.
This dual perspective requires a conceptual juggling act of no mean
proportions. And Lyerly makes the juggling look easy with a creative
structural framework. After two introductory chapters, the succeeding
four chapters showcase the ways that Methodist doctrines, values, and
practices inverted the power structures in relations between the sexes,
races, and classes. And even when focusing on one of these elements, she
never loses track of the others. For example, white southern men
frequently reacted violently to defiant wives, children, and slaves who
attended Methodist preaching against their orders. Lyerly argues that
Methodism threatened such men not only because it distracted their
labor
force and made social subordinates into spiritual equals, but because it
tried to strip white southern men of their moral authority by branding
their values and behavior as sinful. This brilliant
conceptual approach unlocks the "psychological, social, and intellectual
changes Methodism wrought," on its adherents and on southern society
(p.4).
Lyerly's success is even more remarkable given the difficulty of
her task. Anyone who sets out to examine the conceptual fiction of a
monolithic "mind" is entering problematic territory. The reader
immediately
wonders whose mind the author is talking about. Surely there was no one
southern or Methodist "mind." But Lyerly dodges the pitfalls and
transcends
the problems. Unlike Perry Miller, she does not posit a paradigmatic
value system based on the ideas of elite men. And unlike W. J. Cash, she
does not analyze southern "types" of her own making. Instead of defining
"mind," she simply uses the synonyms mindset and world view, terms that
educated readers will understand. Although aware of the diversity within
Methodism, she focuses on the common ground. And she
introduces readers to a cast of characters from almost every
representative
group--from the formerly unheard-of Sarah Jones, to the venerable Bishop
Francis Asbury--a large enough sampling to make the reader trust her
portrayal of clashing world views. Lyerly is up to this daunting task
because her research is creative and exhaustive, and because she
incorporates concepts from the Annales School, from cultural
anthropology, and from literary criticism's emphasis on language.
Thankfully, she does not explain these concepts; she just uses them
to help the analysis unfold.
Although the monograph is clear and convincing, it may be too
brief. Several topics needed more attention. Although she makes clear
the pragmatic reasons--respect for their spiritual talents and
unprecedented leadership
opportunities--that drew blacks and women into the Methodist fold, she
stops short of delving into the religious experience that fueled the
courage to face resistance from their
masters and husbands. One wonders whether her sources included such
testimony from, for example, the spiritually gifted and passionate Sarah
Jones. Likewise, Lyerly has read widely on the subject of slave religion,
but the reader misses a more explicit discussion of slaves' spiritual
experiences--experiences that revealed common ground between African folk
religion and Christianity. The central Methodist doctrine of holiness,
and the subject of Methodist mysticism also needed further development.
This gap signals a larger problem for historians of religion.
Both Lyerly and John Wigger, who provided an earlier addition to Oxford's "Religion in
America" series with his Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular
Christianity in America, acknowledge that Wesley's "scriptural holiness" was a
defining Methodist doctrine. But that is as far as either goes. Without
delving
into holiness, Methodism in the early republic can seem, as it does to
both scholars, like an individualistic religion without a clear social
agenda. And free will seems to be the agent of salvation. But for truly
devout Methodists, holiness and grace went hand in hand. One's will was
not
free to choose salvation. Only the Holy Spirit's grace could implant that
desire in the human heart. And the drive to perfect both the self and
society fueled Methodist reformist visions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lyerly and Wigger also fail to develop the subject of mysticism, a
defining element in Lyerly's discussion of Methodist style. Neither scholar
cites the classic works on the subject, and both
mistakenly equate it with paranormal experiences such as dreams and
visions. True, mystics throughout history have seen visions and dreamed
prophetic dreams. But these things are only symptoms of a deeper
desire for union with the ineffable common to all true mystics. The
reluctance of scholars such as Lyerly and Wigger to touch
the "hot potatoes" of holiness and mysticism signals the need for
further study.
Lyerly's story ends as it began, with individual Methodists
combatting a sinful world. Fittingly, these two anecdotes are
about
women, the people most responsible for the success of Methodism in America.
In the 1770s, Mary Hinde and her daughters had defied her husband Thomas's
attempts to stop them from going to Methodist services, until he finally
had a change of heart and converted--a well-chosen metaphor for the gulf
between Methodist and secular southern world views. Forty years later, in
1810, Sarah Jones bemoaned the fact that she could not prevent her girls
from conforming to fashion in dress, nor persuade her violent husband to
emancipate his slaves--an equally apt metaphor for the dilemmas Methodists
still faced. Sarah Jones knew that the world was a seductive place, and
she feared the worst. After forty years, Methodists had begun to change
sides in their struggle with the world. In 1770, they had been the
challengers. But by 1810, they were the force being challenged.
Cheryl F. Junk, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
