2009 Abbeville Institute Scholars' Conference

Forty seven scholars and friends assembled to explore the following questions: How has religion shaped Southern culture, and how has Southern culture shaped the conduct of religion in the South; in America generally; and in missionary work? Why did Southern Protestant churches split from their Northern counterparts in the antebellum period? What is the status of Southern religion today?

Two of the greatest antebellum Southern theologians R. L. Dabney and James Henley Thornwell were discussed. Prof. Roger Shultz explored Dabney’s “Old School Presbyterianism,” and Prof. Bill Wilson examined the prophetic “Lost Cause Theology” of Thornwell. Prof. Glen Spann explained the role of the Methodist Episcopal Church in shaping Southern identity, and Prof. Robert Valentine revealed the Protestant Episcopal Church’s relation to Southern identity. Prof. Jay Langdale uncovered the older Southern religious consciousness in the secular literature of Allen Tate, Richard Weaver, and Walker Percy. Prof. Brad Green showed that the Gospel message embedded in the Southern tradition inherited by Weaver controls his vision of the restoration of culture. Prof. Clark Carlton examined Allen Tate’s view that the South had maintained a medieval religious consciousness in a modern context. This sparked a discussion whether what is sometimes identified as “Southern religion” (mega-churches, television evangelists, etc.) resembles more the ideological enthusiasms of antebellum northern revivalists than the older religious consciousness of the antebellum South which survived to some degree into Tate’s time. If so, what effect did the War and Reconstruction have in changing religion in the South?

It is well known that America is, by far, the most religious of all western industrial states. Prof Jason Berggren, using statistical data, showed that this American exceptionalism, as it is called, is due primarily to the strength and influence of religion in the South, i.e., to Southern exceptionalism in the United States. The northeast and California are becoming very much like Europe. The difference between Southern and Northern religious sensibilities was presented by Dr. Stephen Linton is a quite different light. Dr. Linton’s Presbyterian ancestors left the South after Reconstruction along with Northern Presbyterians to become missionaries in Korea. His family has done missionary work there for over a century; he was raised in Korea and heads the Eugene Bell Foundation, a humanitarian organization operating in North Korea. He told a fascinating story of how his family, through generations of living in Korea, have retained their Southern identity in manners, customs, food, theology, and in how they view American history. In time the difference between the Southern and Northern missionary groups, operating in different sections of Korea, grew wider and wider. The latter eventually merged the Gospel with liberation politics; whereas the Southerners preached the word, eschewed politics, and built face to face communities. Northerners became progressively liberal and secular, the political doctrine of human rights replacing the Gospel in importance, and in doing so lost influence; whereas Southerners and their section remained orthodox and flourished in Christian and humanitarian influence.

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