The Coming Triumph of Southern Religion

Upon reading A Turn in the South by V.S. Naipaul, one could liken the essence of Southern Religion to that of a passionate young crusader knight who has been defeated and suffers a broken heart. This soldier, in his youthful zeal, made many blunders and suffered crushing defeats as a result. These defeats brought on bouts of depression, aimless confusion, and tortuous doubts. Yet, out of these defeats he has found a new courage to take up the cause again, though it’s not as defined as it once was. The cause is now a nebulous notion that, whatever the finer details may be, the righteousness of Southern Religion will dominate the global culture, whether by the butt of a rifle or the smile of a televangelist. In the view of southern religion, this is humanity’s last best hope; all other possible outcomes are wide paths which lead to destruction. Naipaul’s road trip through the south took place during the late eighties. During his time there, he found a culture haunted by the past, struggling in the present, yet hopeful for the future. Visiting many historical southern locales, such as Atlanta and Nashville, Naipaul paints a narrative picture of the American south which is not exactly focused and succinct. Much like the above mentioned nebulous cause, he encounters a people and a region which is multiple in its personalities and aspirations, yet all are working toward a better future for their region and their religion plays a vital role in this effort. After finishing this read, one finds that southern religion cannot easily be separated from southern history, present, or future.


Naipaul introduces his journey with an account of a visit to a small town called Peters, North Carolina. He likens much of its landscape to places he had visited in South America. While there, he finds himself visiting a town which is still heavily affected by the segregation of earlier decades. He attends a black worship service which is held as the same time as the white service down the street. Ruined farm homes and businesses dot the landscape. Yet, when Naipaul describes his project to a mother and son, they are disappointed at the prospect he may be writing an historical piece. The mother responds, “I hope you are not going to give us the gloom.” The son clarifies, “We’ve had too much of the past.” This is an appropriate conversation which sets the tone for the rest of the book. Southern culture is very much aware of its past, with all the pitfalls and failed aspirations. Indeed, the south is polka dotted with various monuments and decaying buildings which keep this memory alive. Yet, like this mother and son, they would sooner not think of it and focus on the present, focus on making the best of what is left over from the past. At the same time, however, the past is not to be completely ignored. The fact that this mother and son were black may have had much to do with their desire to forget the past. While in Atlanta, Naipaul encounters a white woman who explains to him that her and her friends, “… were raised to be Southern Belles… that the highest we could aspire to was capturing a husband who would then provide for us.” This phenomenon demonstrates one of the ways in which southern culture is attempting to maintain a part of its past alive. While the southern belle is primarily an idealized archetype, it is thought worthy enough to sustain. It is a relic of, “A pastoral or country society surviving in an industrial world.” This tension between forgetting the ugliness of the past and yet sustaining idealized visions of the romantic old south is one way in which southern religious culture seeks to win the future. If it can recreate the past into the image which it desires and then conform the culture to that idealized image, it would gain a potent weapon of conquest.


Southern religion is inseparable from the defeat suffered by the South during the Civil War, thus it is inseparable from Southern culture at large. While in Charleston, Naipaul comes to realize, “… that idea of the past as religion.” It is interesting to think of this notion. Religion in general rests upon human faith. Southern religion which is intertwined with southern cultural past, rests upon the faith in a history that never really existed, a history of southern belles, gallant plantation owners, and grateful slaves. While touring the city, he encounters many memorials to the civil war and begins to understand that southern grief “…was special and was like religion; it would last beyond the decline of the nineteenth century empires, beyond the idea of empire itself.”

Not only does he recognize that sanctity of the civil war defeat to southerners, but he also recognizes its staying power. He sees that the effort by the south to preserve the past transcends mere geographical and national bounds. It has become a spiritual cause. Though, while these sepulchers of stylized glory are revered by the residents and tourists of Charleston, Naipaul encounters a Mississippi politician who confesses to him that he must be an optimist about the future because, “It’s been dawning on everybody that a disaster is occurring in the black community… If we can’t get together we are lost.” This is the true past of the south showing through the cracks of the romantic facade, the past which many try to ignore and gloss over, the past which gave the North Carolina mother the gloom. There is a stark racial disunity in the southern landscape which Naipaul visits, left over from slavery and segregation. It still festers and affects the lives of everyone in Dixie every day. This is also the true defeat which the south had suffered; they failed to win the struggle against their own cultural demons. This ties in with southern religion, because southerners claim to be followers of a man who represents a oneness in humanity and with God which transcends all Earthly bounds, neither Jew nor Greek. Though, progress has been made in this area and southern religion will yet play a part. The true faith which will outlast Earthly empires is the one built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ. As that message of love and unity seeps through the cracks of the romanticized façade of southern history, southern culture will gradually heal. It would heal much faster if its people willingly demolished that façade, but until then there will be, “Optimism in the foreground, irrationality in the background.”


In Nashville, Naipaul has conversation with several people who clue him in to how the traditional southern churches are changing in the modern era. One “back-slidden” member of the Church of Christ, Melvin, discusses how many younger people are becoming bored with church in general and are leaving the congregations, causing their numbers to shrink. He attributes this to a wider cultural phenomenon stating, “The South is losing its identity…” He blames the south’s cultural stuffiness for driving creative thinkers away to places like California and declares that his generation will be the one which breaks apart that stuffiness. In another conversation with Baptist minister, Will Campbell, he laments about the way in which the Southern Baptist church is becoming more dogmatic in their theology in reaction to cultural trends. He claims, “…what depressed me was doctrine, doctrine, and its defense. I heard little about discipleship… No great religion can give all the answers to everything…” These conversations hint at the crumbling of this façade as well, and how it is expressing itself within the southern religious framework. Melvin describes the stifling nature of southern religion and culture, how it drives creative people away. This is the desperately maintained and defended façade of the romanticized past, it is a white-washed tomb. As more and more of the culture realizes the deadness of this façade, they go searching for something else. Instead of seeking to find ways to reinvigorate their ministry, the southern Baptist church, and most other southern churches, put an extra coat of white-wash on the tomb and become more strict and dogmatic about what is inside. This game cannot go on forever. As Melvin indicated, he felt that his generation would be the one to “break the link” to the stifling past. While most southerners might see this as the death of something sacred, it will actually be a great step toward the nebulous goal mentioned in the introduction. It will be a vibrant reawakening of the passion and intensity which caused the rapid growth of Baptists and Methodists throughout the South in the first place. This time though, they will emerge with much of the racial and political baggage sloughed off, making it much easier to run the race.


Southern Religion began with a noble purpose. It sought to save as many souls from eternal damnation as was possible. Over time, it became weighted down with cultural chains like racial prejudice and partisan politics, the religion began mixing with the rest of southern society until it was difficult to tell them apart. With the loss of the Civil war, southern religion being intertwined with southern culture, many felt that it was a spiritual defeat and that Southern Religion’s great purpose in this world had been severely hampered. While there was definitely a defeat, it was not the North which wrought it. Southern Religion defeated itself with entangling alliances made with the worldly culture it wanted to transform. It has since languished in a sea of various hypocrisies that it still struggles to maintain to this day. That’s not to say that Southern Religion has not made great strides in the twentieth century. It has swept the world through Billy Graham and The 700 Club. Phillip Jenkins in his book, The Next Christendom, notes, “…today, fascists or Nazis are not easy to find, and Communists are becoming an endangered species, while charismatics and Pentecostals are flourishing around the globe.” It seems that this noble crusader may be successful in his goal yet, even though he is still not quite sure what it is.

Sam Bolton - March 14th, 2012

Sources:

• Naipaul, V. S. A Turn in the South.  New York: Knopf, 1989.
• Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.