Brings various important topics and groups in American religious history the rigor of scholarly assessment of the current literature

Fruitful questions that are posed by the positions and experiences of the various groups are carefully examined. American Denominational History points the way for the next decade of scholarly effort.

As the story goes, an itinerant preacher once visited the Bluegrass region and proclaimed heaven to be “a mere Kentucky of a place.” The Commonwealth’s first Baptists certainly thought so as they began settling the region a decade before statehood. By 1785 a group of pioneering preachers formed the Elkhorn Association, widely regarded as the oldest Baptist association west of the Alleghenies. Often portrayed in the historiography as the vanguard of a new frontier democracy, the Elkhorn Association, on closer inspection, reveals itself to be far more complex. In A Mere Kentucky of a Place, Keith Harper argues that the association’s Baptist ministers were neither full-fledged frontier egalitarians nor radical religionists but simply a people in transition. These ministers formed their identities in the crucible of the early national period, challenged by competing impulses, including their religious convictions, Jeffersonian Republicanism, and a rigid honor code—with mixed results.

With a keen eye for human interest, Harper brings familiar historical figures such as John Gano and Elijah Craig to life as he analyzes leadership in the Elkhorn Association during the early republic. Mining the wealth of documents left by the association, Harper details the self-aware struggle of these leaders to achieve economic wealth, status, and full social and cultural acceptance, demonstrating that the Elkhorn Association holds a unique place in the story of Baptists in the “New Eden” of Kentucky.

Ideal for course adoption in religious studies and students of Kentucky history, this readable work is sure to become a standard source on the history of religion on the Kentucky frontier.

In 1993, sociologist Nancy Ammerman published an edited collection, Southern Baptists Observed, that assayed the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) as the conservative takeover of the denomination was triumphant and expanding. This volume examines the state of the SBC now that it has been under conservative control for a generation. Rather than asking where that change in leadership came from, the question here is what has happened since.
 
The sweeping success of the conservative takeover—based on enforcing doctrinal fidelity, especially on issues like biblical inerrancy and so-called complementarianism, a rejection of modern, secular values, and advanced international missionary work—veiled a weakness at its very heart. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the conservative resurgence failed to attract new members and, even worse, the younger generation who had grown up in the SBC were fleeing the denomination—nearly half of them are leaving the church as adults and never coming back. The contributors to this volume all offer insights into the question of why. While conservatives dominate the SBC’s governance, they have failed to resolve issues that preoccupy its members and the larger society, including those related to gender, homosexuality, race, and abuse.
 
The essays are grouped under four broad categories: Truth and Freedom: Baptist Institutions and Contentious Issues; Defining and Defending Biblical Truth: Staking the Boundaries; Apologies, Reconciliation, and Continuing Reality; and the View from Outside. With an introduction by editor Keith Harper contextualizing the history of the movement and the issues it faces today, this collection is sure to add new insight into this influential denomination.