Southern Evangelicals and the Coming of the Civil War.

By Edward R. Crowther, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. 286 pp.

In Southern Evangelicals and the Coming of the Civil War, Edward R. Crowther argues for the importance of evangelical piety in providing moral justification for the establishment and defense of the southern way of life. Crowther uses two images in explaining this importance.

First, he defines a "moral vision" as "how religious values work in and animate members of society" (p. 8) and then claims that southern evangelicalism developed a moral vision, which would eventually allow southerners to affirm the morality and necessity of secession and war. The evangelical moral vision allowed southerners to see slavery as an acceptable part of God's ordained plan and to affirm that efforts toward the evangelization and proper treatment of slaves satisfied the expectations of God in relation to this issue. Crowther's point is that evangelicals defended slavery not as a way to preserve their place in the slave society; rather, their support was a natural consequence of their evangelical moral vision.

Second, Crowther uses the imagery of concentric circles to suggest the wider influence of that evangelical moral vision. He pictures southern society as the largest of the concentric circles, while the smallest circle within the larger concentric circles contains the most devout of evangelical ministers. The next largest circle contains active church members. As evangelical denominations grew, the innermost circles grew and began to take over a larger proportion of southern society. Thus, evangelical churches were able to expand their realm of influence, while also addressing social issues that existed in the larger circles of southern society. Crowther contends that southerners, who remained beyond the direct influence of the inner circles of evangelical religion, were nonetheless influenced by the evangelical moral vision through family and professional' relationships and common participation in social rituals, which tended to contain substantial doses of evangelical piety. By communicating this moral vision, evangelicals provided the common language that would unite southerners against the enemies to the southern way of life.

Crowther succeeds in presenting the importance of this moral vision within evangelical life. The book is important for the way it allows antebellum evangelical southerners to speak for themselves and considers the evangelical moral vision as more than an ad hoc accommodation to slave society.

Yet, the evangelical moral vision in the South developed in quite a different way than the evangelical moral vision in the North, which suggests that external factors, unique to the South, shaped this moral vision. Crowther does not speak much of these external factors, which leaves one wondering about the ultimate importance of the evangelical moral vision. Did other moral visions, informed perhaps by economics or social norms, play a larger part in unifying the people of the South? Did people in the inner circles of evangelical life utilize these alternative moral visions to sustain their support of secession and war? Was the use of language associated with the evangelical moral vision in the outer circles of southern society an essential part of what held southerners together, or did it serve as little more than window dressing?

Overall, Crowther does not let his argument outpace his evidence, although some means of relative comparison would have strengthened his case. Also, at several points, significant editorial problems interfere with Crowther's ability to argue his thesis.--Reviewed by Larry Frazier, assistant professor, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Chowan College, Murfreesboro, North Carolina.