Exiled: Voices of the Southern Baptist Convention Holy War.

Exiled: Voices of the Southern Baptist Convention Holy War. Edited by Carl L. Kell. Introduction by Samuel S. Hill. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006. Pp. xliv, 194. $25.95, ISBN 1-57233-448-7.)

In the preface to Exiled: Voices of the Southern Baptist Convention Holy War, Carl L. Kell writes, "[I]n the twenty-first century, the exiled have a new voice: a rhetoric of freedom and a spirit of hopefulness for the future" (p. xxxviii). With the editor's premise in mind, the reader is invited into a brief, narrative anthology composed entirely of disaffected Southern Baptist voices. What follows is a surprisingly poignant collection of stories that raise questions of identity in exile on nearly every page.

Perhaps what differentiates Kell's collection from the many volumes on Southern Baptist political machinations is its sole reliance on the stories of the "losers" of such ecclesiastical battles. Each chapter contains the voice of a professor, minister, or layperson who, after years of faithful service, found himself or herself pushed to the margins of his or her denominational home. These personal voices are deeply affecting, and reading through them offers one a sense of the undercurrent of grief that accompanies every changing tide in southern religion. What stands out alongside the grief, however, is each author's commitment to what she or he regards as the true principles of the Southern Baptist tradition. Holding fast to such ideas as the separation of church and state, the autonomy of the local church, and the priesthood of every conscientious believer, the voices in Exiled speak of a once proud denomination that they believe has forgotten its founding ideals. Listening to the stories in this book, it is difficult to disagree.

The anthology coheres as its narratives offer creative responses to living in exile. Readers learn how theological moderates who were forced from the Southern Baptist Convention have chosen to reorient, renew, and in some cases recreate elements of their religious identity. The tension inherent in this process is perhaps put best by Ronald D. Sisk in his chapter, "A Separate Peace." Sisk writes, "I'll always be a Southern Baptist. But I no longer think of myself as a Southern Baptist" (p. 101). The contribution that Exiled makes is in its rather precise offering of how those who did not prevail in Southern Baptist battles have begun to think of themselves anew. In most instances, the voices represented in this collection speak as travelers might, employing the apt religious metaphor of people on a journey. Kell's book offers not only the human face of suffering that is a part of cultural and institutional conflict but also the more inspiring ability to believe in and hope for a better future. Such a "rhetoric of freedom" emerges as the book's strong suit, and it leaves the reader with a deeper understanding of historic Baptist principles, the southern religious impulse, and the search of every exile for a true home.

JEREMY RUTLEDGE

Covenant Church, Houston, Texas