1.1 introduction to "hidden work: baptist women in texas 1880-192

CHAPTER I

Introduction

To say that Baptists believe the Bible is a truism. But to say that in the late twentieth century the largest and most vigorous Protestant body in the United States still affirmed that the "Bible is word-for-word God's message without scientific or historical error" Jim Asker, "Baptists Hear Graham," The Houston Post , June 14, 1979, p. 38. Quoting Reverend Adrian Rogers, newly-elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. raised significant social and intellectual issues. This position, of course, was not limited to Baptists. In a 1977-78 Gallup opinion index, 83 percent of the general population—not just religious conservatives—stated that they believed the Bible to be the inspired word of God, The Gallup Opinion Index, Religion in America: 1977-78 (Princeton, N. J.: The American Institute of Public Opinion, 1978), p. 44. and six in ten affirmed that their religious beliefs were "very important” in their lives. Ibid., p. 17. The respect and admiration accorded Billy Graham in poll after poll, the steady growth of evangelical religion in all parts of the nation in the 1970s, the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 on the barest of past records save his personal faith and integrity, and the evangelical caucus that emerged in the political campaign of 1980 testified that the old-time religion was still "good enough" for many Americans. These facts suggest that despite the disdain in which intellectuals had held biblical inerrancy for a century, the Scriptures, interpreted literally, were still authoritative for a large segment of the nation.

Historians have often acknowledged a conservative religious tradition to be characteristic of the South. C. Vann Woodward stated:

Neither learning nor literature of the secular sort could compare with religion in power and influence over the mind and spirit of the South. The exuberant religiosity of the Southern people, the conservative orthodoxy of the dominant sects, and the overwhelming Protestantism of all but a few parts of the region were forces that persisted powerfully in the twentieth century. C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), p. 448.

And, a later scholar, Eugene Genovese asserted that a simple Christian faith, albeit one combined with African traditions, was an asset to American blacks, providing them with joy and community in the midst of an otherwise abusive system. Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Press, 1974). Generally speaking, however, conservative Christianity as an ideology was discounted in scholarly circles after the last quarter of the nineteenth century when modern critical methods cast the Bible as a literal, historical document in a dubious light.

Intellectuals and liberals erroneously assumed that since the Bible could not stand up to scientific standards, the evangelical Christian religion that was based on its literal interpretation would gradually be discredited. Especially after the struggle between progressives and the forces of orthodoxy over Darwinian theory that culminated in the Scopes trial in 1925, most academicians considered the case closed. They convinced themselves that the general population would eventually share their skepticism, and rarely, since then, did historians and social scientists assign biblical literalism a causative role beyond that of a conservative, restrictive impediment or a nostalgic gesture. The resurgence of interest in spiritual and emotional experiences that accompanied the cultural ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the emergence of evangelicals as a political force in the late 1970s has initiated a revival of interest in conservative Christianity and a reinterpretation of its influence in twentieth-century America. A few examples are: David F. Wells and John D. Woodbridge, eds., The Evangelicals (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975); Charles Y. Clock and Robert N. Bellah, The New Religious Consciousness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976); and Martin E. Marty, A Nation of Behavers (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976). [Author’s note, 2010: Following the rise of the religious right in the national elections of 1979 and that movement’s considerable influence on American politics in the decades since, a large body of scholarship on the influence of conservative Protestant religion in contemporary culture has been produced.]