Continued Captivity: Religion in Bartow County Georgia

Mark R. Bell/Oxford University 

This project was funded by a Chappell-Lougee Fellowship and is taken from a larger examination and discussion of religion in Bartow. In compliance with the Stanford University Protocol on Human subjects, the names of all persons and institutions are pseudonymous.

^{1. Introduction
"}So you've come to find out what real religion is all about?" asked a minister when I first arrived in Bartow County, Georgia.  Indeed, I had come to Bartow to find out what was "real religion" for the people there. That was in 1996, thirty years after Samuel Hill had written Southern Churches in Crisis. As the international spotlight turned toward Atlanta and  the Olympics, I headed for a county an hour's drive north to determine what was left of the "southern church" and to ascertain if it was still in crisis. Initially my research was confined to one humid summer among the churches of Bartow.  In the intervening time I have been back three times to gather more information and update my findings, but the following narrative comes primarily from three months of field work in 1996.

 

"Religious homogeneity does not mean the absolute absence of diversity, and few scholars argue that the 'solid South' was ever completely solidified."

My work was intentionally scheduled to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Samuel S. Hill Jr.'s Southern Churches in Crisis.  The aim of my research was to examine how southern religion had changed in the generation after Hill's book was first released in 1966. During the preparation for my fieldwork, I came across a book recently published by the Southern Anthropological Society. This anthropological society organized around the same time as the publication of Hill's seminal work, and on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of Southern Churches in Crisis, the society published a volume titled Religion in the Contemporary South: Diversity, Community, and Identity.  Editors Daryl White and O. Kendall White Jr. invoke Samuel Hill's name in the opening line of introduction. They note that when Hill wrote in 1966, he observed that "'no single feature' of the southern religious scene was 'more revealing than the absence of pluralism and diversity from popular denominations.'"¹  Homogeneity was one of the distinctive features of religion in the South. White and White's introduction makes it clear that they envision their collection as a challenge to Hill's picture of a homogenous South.  In their opinion, "today's South" is marked by ever "greater religious diversity."²    They further claim that "Hill is wrong" in his argument that Will Herberg's theory on how American society incorporates religious pluralism is not applicable to the South, since--in their opinion--the contemporary southern religious scene is becoming increasingly diverse. ³

Interestingly, in their effort to discuss diversity, the essays in White and White's collection actually point out the persistence of a high degree of homogeneity.  Religious homogeneity does not mean the absolute absence of diversity, and few scholars argue that the "solid South" was ever completely solidified.  Diversity, to some degree, is to be expected. As Hill himself commented, "needless to say, the South is no monolith. Variety prevails everywhere and on all levels."⁴   Moreover, some changes and increase in diversity are to be expected after thirty years.  What is surprising about the essays in White and White's collection is that they describe so little diversity in the region.  Their examination of small pockets of diversity and pluralism does not challenge Hill's thesis.  In fact, the isolated Hindu or Yorba temples in urban areas like Orlando and Atlanta touched on in White and White's collection serve only to highlight the extent to which diversity is absent in other areas.  By putting the spotlight on these rare examples of diversity, the essays in White and White's collection actually demonstrate how little things have changed since 1966.

In response to the urban focus found in the articles on diversity in White and White and among some contemporary scholars of American religion more generally, I decided to examine a rural area. A rural study seemed particularly important in light of the rural nature of traditional southern culture.  As Hill commented, "southern culture is essentially rural."⁵   In an effort to examine the roots of southern culture, I selected the rural county of Bartow Georgia as a case study.

2. The Setting: Bartow County

Small fundamentalist churches supplement the larger churches in rural Bartow.

Bartow is not a "pure" rural community for two reasons. First, it is only about an hour's drive from Atlanta and many of Bartow's residents journey into the city.  Second, approximately one fifth of Bartow's 70,000 residents live in the small city of Cartersville.  The presence of Cartersville was however part of the reason for the selection of Bartow County, since this large town allowed my study to incorporate a semi-urban area in addition to the predominately rural remainder of the county.  In many ways the presence of Cartersville makes Bartow representative of the urbanizing rural South in microcosm.  Bartow's position amidst the "ABC Triangle" (Atlanta, Birmingham, Chattanooga) has forced this once predominately farming and mining area to modernize in ways that many of its residents can still scarcely believe.  Bartow in general, and Cartersville in particular, has encountered the mixed blessing of industrialization and post-industrialization.  Today carpet and apparel industries are the largest employers where farming and mineral mining previously comprised most of the economic base.  Recently Anheuser-Busch opened a plant outside of Cartersville, bringing the first Fortune 500 company to Bartow. The arrival of this beer-maker in the heart of Baptist country has helped to place Bartow on the map of other large corporations, and plans for further development are underway.

Cartersville is large enough to support its own daily newspaper, and the headlines during the summer of 1996 revealed the process by which a large town was developing into a small city. Articles about new services, such as garbage collection, frequently appeared on the paper's front-page.  Other articles discussed the need for revisions in Cartersville's civil administration. Still others announced the arrival of new shopping centers and new school buildings.  Piece by piece, new water and electric facilities were being built and additional infrastructure debated. The title of one front-page article on new property taxes succinctly expressed the impact of these changes: "Residents Feel Pinch of City Lifestyle." ⁶

Nevertheless, outside of Cartersville, Bartow is rural. The majority of Bartow's residents live outside of the six towns of Adairsville, Cartersville, Emerson, Eurharlee, Kingston and White. When one arrives in Bartow it seems hard to imagine that the metropolis of Atlanta is so close.  Ironically, a growing number of former miners and farmers are making a living by joining Bartow's fastest growing service industry, tourism, which caters primarily to Atlantans who want to escape the city for a taste of country life.  The motto of the Cartersville/Bartow County Convention and Visitors Bureau is "Just 45 minutes north, but 100 years away from Atlanta."⁷

"In the intervening thirty years the southern church has not radically changed, but it also has not suffered as Hill predicted it would if change was not forthcoming."

About 10% of Bartow's population are African Americans and another 2% are Hispanic and Native peoples.  Bartow is relatively young with 20% of its population below the age of 18 and only 10% over the age of 65.  The median white person in Bartow is 32 years old and the median African American in Bartow is 29.  The county is almost fifty-fifty male/female.⁸   There are approximately 120 registered religious institutions (i.e. churches) in Bartow.  In the course of my research I encountered a number of home-style churches that did not appear to be registered, so the total number of churches is somewhat higher.  For the purposes of the study, Bartow was divided into six sections corresponding to the locations of the six towns.  A minimum of a dozen churches were slated for examination in each of these sections. Cartersville received special consideration since it had a disproportionately greater number of churches.  The study relied on participant observation at church worship services and revivals. In addition, I solicited information through questionnaires, interviews (including formal interviews with church leaders and informal interviews with members of their congregations), and in general by living in Bartow, reading Bartow's newspaper, and visiting Bartow's schools, factories and shopping areas. In this way, I hoped to gain a sense of the religious and cultural life in Bartow as it was experienced by the residents in 1996.⁹

3. The "Southernization" of American Religion

Thirty years earlier Hill had identified the central characteristics of southern religion in Southern Churches in Crisis.  Based on his observations, Hill warned that the "southern church" had become largely irrelevant to the broader culture around it.  The crisis that Hill saw in the southern churches was that the old-time religion had encountered a new time in which it was woefully out of date.  He maintained that historical forces had shaped southern evangelicalism in such a way that it was incapable of transcending and critiquing itself.  Consequently, there was little possibility for innovation and little hope that the church in its current form would be able to make the changes necessary to speak with relevance to the culture which it had helped to engender.  Hill feared that any form of Christianity that failed to innovate would fail to grow and thus stagnate, wither and die.

The accelerated rate of social change in the 1960s forced this crisis. The time had "come when the southern church must either reconceive its ministry in terms of the social change swirling all about it, or abdicate its responsibility, except in terms of limited short-run tasks.  The relationship of the southern church to the persons and society it aspires to serve is being drastically recast."¹⁰   Hill believed that even as modernity was ending, the southern church was still essentially "medieval."  If southern churches did not awaken from their slumber, he argued they would be relegated to the periphery of southern society.

In the intervening thirty years the southern church has not radically changed, but it also has not suffered as Hill predicted it would if change was not forthcoming.  Therefore, Hill's prediction that southern evangelicalism would become irrelevant if it failed to change was misguided.  Hill wanted southern evangelicalism to change so that it could continue to flourish.  Yet the style of evangelicalism that Hill saw as out of place in 1966 has continued to flourish despite limited change.  Hill's dire prediction was partly predicated on his desire for the southern church to "do well," that is to continue to thrive.  As a result, Hill underestimated southern conservative evangelicalism's ability to make cosmetic changes bringing it in line with society.  At the same time, Hill overestimated the progressiveness of the nation as a whole.  While conservative evangelicalism in the South made rhetorical concessions to progressive elements in the larger culture, American culture itself became more conservative.

"[W]hen I asked one Methodist churchgoer about his opinions of Catholics in Bartow, he replied thoughtfully, 'well, we certainly do have enough of them around here now a-days, don't we? . . . '"

The conservative trend which Hill failed to see in 1966 was partly engendered by the very forms of conservative evangelicalism which Hill believed to be obsolete.  As communication and migration increased, the southern-style of conservative evangelicalism spread beyond the Mason-Dixon to such an extent that today it has become central to many aspects of American religion outside of the South.  Several scholars have observed this "southernization of American religion."  In his 1993 dissertation and subsequent book, Mark Shibley argued that "the most visible development in American religion over the past two decades has been the resurgence of born-again Christianity,"  and moreover, that "the kind of Protestantism on the rise nationally is precisely the style of Christianity that has dominated the American South for almost two centuries."¹¹  Shibley's work builds on John Egerton's observations on American religion in the mid-1970s.  Egerton described Billy Graham as the central figure who transferred southern-style religion into mainstream America.  In Egerton's opinion, Billy Graham took "the old-time religion of his native South out into the nation and the world, in doing so, he has firmly established himself as the single most influential figure in what can fairly be called the Southernization of American religion."¹²    Similarly, D. E. Harrell Jr. offered a concise explanation of this process when he observed that the "southernization of American religion," by explaining that "the South was a reservoir where the old-time message had remained intact amid the challenges of the twentieth century.  Threatened by an intensified modernity in the postwar years, Americans looked for religious answers and Southerners had them."¹³    As a result of a growing conservative climate in America during the 1970s and 1980s and this "southernization of American religion," southern evangelicalism found itself in a much more comfortable environment than Hill had predicted in 1966.

"Revival structures" are a common feature of the churches in Bartow County.

Hill himself was one of the first to recognize the new climate of the 1970s.  He later commented that, "I think about what I wrote in the mid-1960s.  I was carried along by the prevailing tide.  The prevailing tide was that a 'new world is coming, it's just around the bend,' and that new world never got here, in many respects anyway, and that mood certainly did not prevail very long."¹⁴    Since writing Southern Churches in Crisis, Hill has displayed fearless self-criticism and has continuously revised his assessment of southern religion.  Consequently, he continues to be one of the foremost observers of religion in the South.  Hill's primary mistake was not his assessment of southern religion, but rather his understanding of American culture.  Therefore, while it is necessary to recognize the shortcomings of Hill's thesis, too much should not be made of his failed prediction concerning the southern church's possible irrelevance.  For despite this failure, Hill's description of the nature of southern evangelicalism remains highly relevant.  My research in Bartow county concluded that Hill's initial observations on the nature of southern religion were still applicable a generation later.  Thus, thirty years later, Hill's Southern Churches in Crisis remains highly useful for understanding religion in places like Bartow County, Georgia.

Hill observed that at the foundation of southern religion is the "central theme" of individual salvation.  Historical circumstances had placed the individual's salvation at the center of the southerner's cosmology.  Hill saw this central theme permeating every aspect of southern Christianity.  "The Southern Church 'makes all of individual Christianity' and regards conversion of men as virtually the whole task of the church . . . Affirmations of popular southern Protestantism grew out of one concern, the salvation of the individual . . . this is the very foundation upon which assumptions are made, doctrinal systems are constructed, and church programs are based . . . Overriding everything else is consideration of the ancient question, 'What must I do to be saved?'" ¹⁵ 

Closely related to the idea of being saved is the idea of assurance. "It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of assurance to popular southern theology," Hill explained. "Whereas this concern has never lain far from the center of Christianity as practiced, perhaps it has nowhere been so determinative for faith and life as in the southern Protestant community."¹⁶    The southern Protestant knows that he or she is saved because of an emotional individual experience of being born again.  Since in the southern cosmology the individual has direct access to the divine, the experience of salvation provides its own assurance.  In an instant the individual is saved and knows it for a lifetime.  As a result, southern religion has a distinctively vertical (God to individual, individual to God) theology.

After the individual's primary goal of salvation in a born again experience, the secondary concern is evangelizing society at large.  Once the individual is converted, the goal is to turn to the conversion of others.  This focus on soul winning allows for a nineteenth-century style revivalism to persist in the churches of the South.  But saving one's neighbor is often the extent of the southern Protestant's social ethic.  Particularly disturbing to Hill was what he observed to be a lack of social concern among southern Protestants.  Hill argued that the individual focus and the vertical theology stemming from the central theme prevented a social ethic from developing in the southern church.  This was one of the greatest obstacles to change and at the same time it was the very thing which Hill believed most urgently needed changing.  Related to this lack of a social ethic, and again growing out of the central theme, was the lack of concern the southern church exhibited toward changes occurring in the South in the 1960s, especially in terms of racial structures.

Another characteristic that Hill identified in the southern evangelical was a bible-centeredness that generally prevented critical thinking about the nature of the divine.  This bible-centeredness also gave southern evangelicals the impression that their rituals reflected the original, and therefore the only acceptable, form of worship.  The result was that there was little urgency to innovate and little space for acceptance and integration of alternative perspectives.  Hill observed that southern evangelicals displayed yet another peculiarity in their bible-centeredness inasmuch as the Old Testament received the greater emphasis.  Consequently, the New Testament message of Christian love was by-passed in favor of an emphasis on the tribal image of the more judging and jealous God of the ancient Israelites.

4. Religion in Bartow: A Profile

These observations are useful in examining Bartow County.  Overall, Bartow is today as Hill might have expected to find it in 1966.  Overwhelmingly, the churches of Bartow are Baptist, and taken together the Baptist and Methodist churches account for over 60% of the places of worship in Bartow.  A number of non-denominational conservative evangelical churches of a fierce fundamentalist variety make up another 15%.  Pentecostal and Holiness churches represent an additional 10%.   There is some diversity in the remaining dozen or so churches. There are two Lutheran and four Presbyterian churches as well as an Episcopal church.  There are also two Catholic churches, two Mormon chapels and two Jehovah's Witness Kindom Halls in Bartow.  In downtown Cartersville there is also a Seventh-Day Adventist Church and a chapter of the Salvation Army.  Some Bartow residents greeted the arrival of these non-Baptists/Methodist churches with suspicion and regret.  One interviewee told me that she remembered when there was "nothing but Baptists here, but now it seems to have all changed."

The small churches that punctuate the Bartow County landscape offer an intimate environment.

This apparent diversity is, however, deceptive.  A conservative style of evangelicalism resides even within the Lutheran and Presbyterian churches of Cartersville.  The tone and flavor of religion in these places of worship matched many aspects of Hill's description, including bible-centeredness, an emphasis on the "Old Testament" God, a primarily vertical theology, a revivalist and emotional form of worship, and a deep concern with assurance.  Even the Episcopal church retains certain aspects of the old-time religion.  Thus, these half dozen churches could be characterized more by their similarity than their variance with those churches surrounding them.  The two Catholic churches certainly present a different form of worship from most of the other churches in Bartow;  nevertheless, one homily I attended presented a theology that bore striking similarities to Hill's description of the southern church's ethics of influence.  The services were also characterized by a degree of informality and "hospitality" often absent from urban Catholic masses.  Most of Bartow's Catholics are among the thousand plus Hispanics who reside in the county.  As a result of both their Catholicism and their non-Caucasian origins, many Hispanics are the object of a residual naivism.  For example, when I asked one Methodist churchgoer about his opinions of Catholics in Bartow, he replied thoughtfully, "well, we certainly do have enough of them around here now a-days, don't we? . . . Folks no longer think that the Pope is Antichrist, like we did when I was younger . . . [But] I do believe that they are idol worshipers, with their saints and their praying to Mary . . ."  While such opinions are not often so overt, Catholics did not appear to be well integrated into society in Bartow.

"The Baptists have the best cooking, the Methodists are a close second [but] I never knew a Presbyterian [who] could cook."

Beyond these dozen churches, diversity rapidly evaporates.  A striking similarity is present in the overwhelming majority of Bartow's religious institutions.  I asked one man to explain the differences between the churches in his area of Bartow County. "Cooking," he replied.  "The Baptists have the best cooking, the Methodists are a close second, [but] I never knew a Presbyterian [who] could cook. That's about the only difference."  The churches are in general strongly resistant to change. When I asked one preacher about the possibilities of changing the service, he responded, "We worship the Lord in the way they have since the earliest times." "Since the first Christians?" I asked. "Since Adam and Eve" he replied.  This comment  indicates much about the intellectual climate in Bartow.  The conservative evangelicals consider their style of worship as "primitive" and in every respect superior to rituals found in more formal urban churches.  If Adam and Eve worshiped God in such a manner in the Garden of Eden, why change?  When I suggested to another pastor that his apparent decline in members might be an indication of a need for change, he was not convinced. "No, the Bible says there will be a great falling away.  I feel bad for those that have fallen away, but that is the way God has planned it. We are now entering that time."¹⁷

There is, however, a strong impression among a minority of church leaders that their message is not reaching the younger generation, and that increasing numbers of middle-aged people (largely males) are attending church less frequently.  A few churches have responded by updating and modernizing their Sunday service.  The Good Life non-denominational church has started adding guitars and other instruments to accompany the singing in their worship service in an effort to make it more appealing for teens.  The church also decided to push back its worship time in the hopes that more would attend if they could have the morning to sleep.  One Methodist church in central Cartersville began a new "style" of worship near the end of the summer of 1996.  The idea was to have an "upbeat, lively, [and] causal worship celebration" where the whole community was invited to "come as you are."  The minister in charge of organizing this "9 AWAKE!" campaign explained that it was conceived primarily to encourage middle-aged people to come back to church.  Too many people, he explained, had complained that they were "not comfortable with the formality and ritual of church worship services." At the same time it was hoped that the "casual and contemporary" atmosphere would appeal to teenagers as well.  It quickly became apparent, however, that "9 AWAKE" was a new wrapping for the old-time religion.  While the congregates were causal in their dress (no ties and a few pairs of jeans) the service was a high-energy version of the usual Bartow fare.  A few upbeat songs were followed by a discursive sermon emphasizing humanity's fallen state and the need for salvation, rounded out by a call for those to come forward who needed prayers and healing.  While many of the attendants may have previously complained that they were "not comfortable with the . . . ritual" of some services, they were undoubtedly participating in a ritual all the same.

Besides a revivalist tone, the common element that ties the churches of Bartow together is a continued focus on the "central theme" of salvation.  In Bartow (and increasingly in other parts of America) the question "Are you a Christian?" is specifically concerned with the concept of personal salvation.  The most important thing is to be a Christian, that is, to be saved, to be born again.  Only then does it matter if the person is "churched" or not; there is little concern for what type of church the Christian attended as long as he or she is born again.   For most churchgoers in Bartow, salvation is still considered to take place in a single datable experience.  One respondent, in reply to my questions about salvation and assurance, explained to me that "some of my cousins that live in Atlanta don't believe 'once saved, always saved,' but we do."    The individual explained her born-again experience and remarked that once you are saved "you just know that you are for life."  Most interviewees gave similar responses, and many also experienced salvation early in life.  The exception was largely confined to those who had stayed away from or "shunned" the church for most of their life.  Few adults had attended church for more than eighteen months without being saved.  The salvation experience is independent of church or community.  Once it is experienced, it is portable in that the individual can move from one denomination to another without questioning the validity of his or her born-again experience.  At best, scripture, life's blessings, good works, self-reform, spiritual gifts, repentance, piety or proximity to spiritual leaders can only confirm salvation, but such things can never bestow it.

"On the other hand, the black Christians of Bartow are not eager for membership in the white churches, and there is consensus that the two groups should worship separately."

This individualism is much as Hill would have expected in 1966. However, the observer of religion in Bartow quickly becomes aware that religious practice is not solely about individuality.  For while the theology of the Protestants in Bartow is vertical, the function of religion in Bartow has a further social purpose.  The terms of public piety are generally respected and, consequently, individuals can easily enter into the wider community through religion.  At the same time, long-time members of the community derive self-worth from continued participation in expected acts of public piety.  Bartow's summer revivals also provide space for the communities problems to be aired and resolved.  During a late-night revival, one man stood up and explained, "I don't need to tell any of you what it is that I have done to Mr. Smith, you all know it.  But I do need to say before you all and before the Lord that I am always a sinner and that I am always in need of forgiveness . . . While I know the Lord forgives me, I hope that [all of] you will too." Similar comments and testimonials made it clear that the seasonal revivals offered an environment in which social tension could be resolved.  And while individuals go forward at the altar call, they always return to a congregation ready to embrace and accept them.

Modern roads now connect many of the churches of Bartow, a number of which are older than the county itself.

Within this community there is still very little concern for theological education.  Only two pastors had reservations about the questionnaire statement that "A minister who is called is better than a minister who is trained." A "Paul didn't go to seminary" attitude is common.  This is true despite the fact that some 30% of Bartow's ministers and pastors have received some theological education--defined as at least three months of structured instruction. (Such individuals were primarily concentrated in Cartersville).  Such instruction is, however, understood as an ancillary benefit by most and outright dangerous by some.  Many congregations frown upon the use of Bible commentaries or preaching guides because such materials may present a "hindrance to the Spirit."   The aim is to have the message come to the preacher directly from God without the interference of "earthly aides."  Too often, however, the result is that the preacher returns to a handful of familiar verses and themes.  Nevertheless, it is the Spirit that moves most Bartow preachers to preach.  Three times in the course of my research preachers declined to preach because the Spirit failed to move them.  The congregations sang songs, listened to announcements, but never received a sermon.  On several occasions I arrived at a preacher's home for an interview before an evening revival.  When I asked how they intended to prepare for the night's event, they frequently commented that they would "meditate," "listen to the Lord," or "think through this week's events."  Most often preachers seemed content to wait and see what the Lord would say to them when they arrived at church.

During such church services it becomes clear that the God of Bartow is the stereotypical God of the Old Testament.  God is male, jealous, and judging.  Sermons focus on passages from the Old Testament that illustrate God's dread and reinforce the need for obedience and salvation.  The primary emphasis in these sermons is soteriological rather than ethical; that is their message is that the individual needs to be saved by Christ rather than strive to emulate the historical Jesus.  The God of Bartow is described in patriarchal terms, and the style of ministry that fills the churches is likewise patriarchal.  In many of the churches of the Baptist variety, women are not allowed to speak during the business part of congregational meetings.  There is wide agreement with the statement that "it is not right for a women to be a preacher/pastor."  Women can testify, bear witness, shout amen, but not preach.  "No," a leading Bartow Baptist preacher explained,  "scripture teaches us that it should be a man.  It says that no woman should be head over a man, or should teach over a man."  The minister's wife agreed.

5. Religion, Race, and Social Ethics

The Protestant churches of Bartow are almost completely divided along racial lines.  My research indicates that the majority of whites feel that "they got their church, we got our church."  Whites universally agree that blacks are people and that Jesus died for them too. "The Christian message is available to all that have ears and will come to hear it," one preacher responded in regards to my questioning about race.  Every single survey returned affirmed the statement that "qualified people should be allowed into the church of their choice regardless of race." Nevertheless, one is hard pressed to find a mixed congregation.  When a large group of revival attendants were asked before the evening's events if they believed that African American people were their equals and worthy of inclusion in their church and in their ministry, they responded almost immediately in the affirmative.  But when asked if there were any minorities in their own congregations, an awkward silence followed.  On another occasion a man eagerly answered that his congregation did in fact have a black member.  His wife, however, corrected him and said that a member of their congregation was a foster parent for a black girl, but the girl did not come to church.

On the other hand, the black Christians of Bartow are not eager for membership in the white churches, and there is consensus that the two groups should worship separately.  "Why would we want to go over there to their church anyway?" one African American Baptist responded. Blacks are generally well aware that the whites do not welcome them in their congregations.  One African-American preacher summed up this sentiment when he observed, "They would have us, but they don't want us."  A casual observer would not expect to find the de facto segregation that persists in the churches of Bartow.  People of different races seem to mix causally in most common spaces.  They go in and out of the offices and factories together and can be seen sharing tables at the restaurants and bars in Cartersville.  My first impression was that Bartow--or at least Cartersville--was well integrated.  A discussion with some local residents about real-estate prices, however, informed me that there were separate "black and white" neighborhoods.  Thus, while segregation is not publicly supported, it nevertheless persists in Bartow County, both inside and outside of the churches.¹⁹ 

The personal ethics of influence discussed by Hill in Southern Churches in Crisis is still dominant in the churches of Bartow.  For example, in one sermon in a church outside of Taylorsville, the preacher said, "Now Tim Smith said to me the other day, he said, 'preacher, I ain't coming down to your church no more. Y'all lying and cursing just as bad as the rest of 'em, and I can get all of that I need elsewhere.'  And do you know what?  I think sometimes he's right.  We have got to do better, we have got to, or ain't no one gonna be coming to the knowledge of the Lord."  The comments of this preacher and numerous others throughout Bartow reveals that the motivation for behaving in a certain way is because of the influence that such behavior has on others--namely those who are not saved.  The ultimate goal of such influence is soul winning.  Visitors to Bartow churches will soon encounter countless similar instances of this pragmatic social ethic.  For example, one pastor preached on how the congregation needed to improve the appearance of the church, not for the sake of the members, but in the hopes that visitors might stop in and find the Lord.

Churchgoers arrive early on a summer morning at a Methodist church in Bartow.

A glance at Bartow's daily newspaper, The Daily Tribune News, reveals the continued homogeneity of religion in Bartow.  No issue is published without some talk of religious matters.  But the religion that is discussed is always the same.  The numerous articles on religious themes assume that the reader and the author have a common understanding of religion.  There is never the need to justify or explain their religious paradigm, and diversity is conspicuously absent.  One article in the "Bartow Profile" section highlighting local musical talent begins: "Bartow's Steve Hilton began playing bluegrass in his teens, years before he became born-again. After he was saved, Hilton quit bluegrass and began playing gospel. . . ."

Overall, my research concluded that the taste, the essence of religion in Bartow County remains similar to the style of evangelicalism that Hill described thirty years ago.  The diversity described by other observers of religion in America is absent from Bartow, which is a county characterized more by its homogeneity than its religious pluralism.  The "central theme" still dominates, often with the same results that Hill saw in 1966, namely a personal ethic prevailing over a wider social concern.  Just outside the perimeter of Atlanta, rural Bartow retains the homogeneity and style of religion in such a fashion that Hill's description of the southern church is still applicable.

Signs point the traveller to the churches of Bartow.

In the concluding essay of White and White's collection, Scott Lee Thumma affirms that in the South "a regional church does still exist," but questions whether "its now-deceased relatives recognize it."

This article was researched and written primarily in 1996 to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Southern Churches in Crisis. Earlier this year Southern Churches in Crisis was republished along with two new essays by Samuel S. Hill Jr. under the title Southern Churches in Crisis Revisited. This republication also contains a bibliography of some of the works in the field since 1990. Thanks to the University of Alabama Press, I received a copy of this book prior to its UK release and just before the publication of the above article. As is to be expected Hill’s new essays are provocative and insightful. A full review of this republished book, however, is not within the scope of this article. I hope that the Journal of Southern Religion will use the re-issuing of this classic as an opportunity to widen the discussion of the meaning and significance of Hill’s work over the past three decades. I can think of no better place to publish such a debate than within the frames of this journal. That said, there are some brief comments that I would like to make with regard to Southern Churches in Crisis Revisited. The most distinctive feature within Hill’s two new essays is the discussion of a new “central theme.” Under the heading “Doctrinal Purity as Today’s Central Theme” Hill explains:

If earlier the test of legitimacy had to do with the claim of having God’s presence and forgiveness known with certainty to be in one’s life, the evaluation now pertains to a claim of orthodoxy.²⁸ 

^{1.  Daryl White and O. Kendall White,  Religion in the Contemporary South: Diversity, Community and Identity. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1995.  1  Samuel S. Hill's Southern Churches in Crisis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966, p. xvii. Return}

8.  These demographic statistics are for 1996 and are taken from the Housing and Demographic Research Center at the University of Georgia. These figures compare well with the U.S. census data and statistics from Georgia Institute of Technology. Grateful thanks to these institutions for their assistance. Information from the Housing and Demographic Research Center at the University Georgia can now be received on the internet at http://hdrc.fcs.uga.edu/. ^Return