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OPINION: Confederate Army helped create the Bible Belt

Posted by

Frank Gillispie

in Opinions

Tuesday, April 13. 2010

Comments (5)

War and religion have always been closely linked in the South. Someone once said that there are few atheists in the foxholes. Southerners have always led the nation in military service. Not only in the Confederate Army, but in all our nation’s conflicts. And these same returning service people often are the backbone of newly founded or revitalized churches.

This tendency first emerged as a part of “The Great Awakening” which began in England in the 1820s following the revolutions there that saw one king beheaded and a new form of government headed by Cromwell, only to return to royal rule after his death. This revival of faith in England was a contributing factor in the anti-slavery movement there.

As the war turned bad for the South, a series of revivals swept through the Confederate army. The scope of those revivals was described in the book “Christ in the Camp” by J. William Jones. The religious revivals were actually led by a number of key Confederate officers, including Generals Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall Jackson.” These commanding officers were well known for their devotion to matters of faith, often leading prayer services for their subordinates.

The South is blanketed by small rural churches that were founded by returning soldiers and their families. Nearly every community in the South has one or more churches with founding dates just after the war. There are so many of them still in existence, that the South is known as “The Bible Belt.”

Another wave of religious devotion swept the South following WWII as returning veterans sought relief from their emotional and physiological reactions to combat. My uncle, the Rev. Ben Sorrow, who saw combat in the South Pacific, devoted himself to Bible study that led to his ordination. Other relatives became more active in church affairs after the war.

Uncle Ben was ordained into the Pentecostal Holiness Church, but later moved his affiliation to the Methodist. He pastured a number of churches in Madison, Elbert, Franklin and other counties in Northeast Georgia. Many of you will remember him. He retired to Elberton to be near his daughter and her family. He passed on a few years ago. His wife, Lorene, still lives in Elberton.

Today, those warriors returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan are often heard giving thanks to God and the church for their safe return. Again, an inordinate number of those soldiers are from the South, and as before, they are contributing to the growth of community churches in the South.

So, when you drive through the rural South, and see all those little community churches with signs saying they were founded in the late 1800s, you can credit them to those Confederate soldiers who kept their faith in spite of their devastating defeats on the battlefield. When all else was lost, they turned to God and the church for support. May it always be so.

Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frank@frankgillispie.com. His website can be accessed at http://www.frankgillispie.com/gillispieonline.

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#1 Ben Had on 04/15/10 at 06:30 AM [Reply]

"War and religion have always been closely linked in the South"
The average man is not willing to die for cotton or oil,and religion is so popular in the south because that's where the highest concentration of poor people are.

Believing you will go to a better place with streets made of gold(or 76 virgins),etc,etc,makes dying for your cause alittle easier. No one would willingly die for the true reasons wars are fought.

I remember George Bush sr. referring to Saddam Hussein as the "Devil in the sand" to trump up hate before sending our troops to Iraq the first time. But, you can't just go on TV and say,"hey, Iraq has stopped the flow of oil through Kuwait, and the president of Exxon just called and told me to do something about it".

I remember my father telling me why we were fighting in Vietnam(circa 1967), "because the Russians don't believe in the good book, so we've got to stop them over there".
Was it really about religion?

The south was dirt poor after the war.
Poor people are attracted to the promise of a better life through religion.
Or,should I say,a better death.

#1.1 Ron Burgundy on 04/15/10 at 05:02 PM [Reply]

This comment is as ignorant as the supposed ignorance you decry.

#1.2 Sardonic Veracity on 04/16/10 at 12:14 AM [Reply]

This particular comment is a flawed argument based on one main sweeping generalization and helped along with a false analogy and ending on a play on ignorance and citations of false cause. Perhaps your hate for religion, and Christianity in particular, is based on your feelings about your father... how Freudian! Tell us, how do you feel about your mother... Oedipus much? An argument something like that.

Hussein was a devil int he sand. He was also "our" devil in the sand, put into power and propped up for years by the US Government. When he attempted to break his leash and go on an imperialistic venture instead of only inflicting his tyranny upon his own country, should we have done nothing? I would argue that in that first Gulf War we did not do nearly enough to rectify the situation.

Your father in the '60s was partially right. Communism is, by definition, anti-theistic. Vietman was one of the fires that kept the cold war warm. By 1967 it had been mismanaged and misprosecuted for far too long by inept executives and advisors. Was it about religion? Not entirely, but in the struggle between good and evil, religions do play some part.

The South was dirt poor after the war. I agree with that statement in its entirety.

Some poor people are attracted to a better life through religion. Some rich people are as well. Some believe in the social gospel. What I have found and what I believe to be true is that people who seek with a true heart and open mind find that better life.

As Jim Eliot wrote, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Perhaps, in these wartime conditions, real people came to realize this and felt burdened to share it with their people when they returned home. Perhaps it is still happeneing today. Because you don't understand the reationale, simeply refuse to believe, or scales have been placed before your eyes that obscure the simple truths of the world, why must you belittle the acts of true hearts?

I am thankful that, in the late 1800's, in my great grandfather's cottonseed house, one of these local churches took root. He wasn't a man who had been to war and neither had his father. He was not dirt poor but still he believed in the Lord. I believe in the Lord as well, and I will tell anyone who cares to listen that my life with Jesus in it is better by far than it ever was without him.

Everyting is not a political conspiracy. Some things just are.

Thank you, Mr. Gillespie, for drawing this correlation and reminding us from where we have come and where we are today. Let us hope that the trend continues because that rift in society, that Ben Had has warned us about in other postincs, is threatening.

#2 Joe Christmas on 04/17/10 at 03:24 PM [Reply]

The South has always been particularly religious. The main reason is because in the past it was primarily an agricultural society. People that depend on nature (rain, sun, etc,) are always going to be the most religious.

#3 MC taxpauyor on 04/19/10 at 06:14 PM [Reply]

many many great religious revival time periods in this country in the 1830s-1840s in all parts. many northerners feel the union troops did same thing for their area of the country. My view is honor to all of these men in that conflict and those that have served this country since.

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