A01=Erskine Clarke
African American Calvinists
Author_Erskine Clarke
Calvinism in the South
Category=QRAX
Category=QRM
Category=QRMB33
church history
colonial religion
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Erskine Clarke
faith and culture
Presbyterianism
Reformed theology
religious history
religious resilience
South Carolina low country
Southern intellectual life
Southern Zion
spiritual identity
theological tradition
Product details
- ISBN 9780817357887
- Weight: 716g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 15 Aug 2014
- Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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 wholehearted devotion to amusement and the neglect of religion and intellectual pursuits."" Such images of the low country 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 a devotion to amusement and a 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 300year period, including the unique story of the oldest and largest African American Calvinist community in America.
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 300year period, including the unique story of the oldest and largest African American Calvinist community in America.
Erskine Clarke is a Professor of American Religious History at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.
