John Hayes. Hard, Hard Religion: Interracial Faith in the Poor South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. pgs. (paperback), ISBN 978-1-4696-3532-3.
Reviewed by Colin Chapell (The University of Memphis)
Published on H-SHGAPE (July, 2018)
Commissioned by William S. Cossen (The Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology)
Religion in the American South has inspired a host of studies. From Sam Hill’s Southern Churches in Crisis (1966) and Charles Reagan Wilson’s Baptized in Blood (1980) to Anthea Butler’s Women in the Church of God in Christ (2007) and, most recently, Alison Greene’s No Depression in Heaven (2017), the breadth of scholarship on religious expression and belief in the South is hard to match. Indeed, even while the perspectives and methodologies of the books in the previous sentence are widely varied, they all touch only on southern Protestants and ignore the plethora of other religions. Yet, inspired scholars continue to push the boundaries and demonstrate how much is left undone.
John Hayes’s Hard, Hard Religion: Interracial Faith in the Poor South is one of those books that push back the boundaries and reveal just how large the gaps are between scholarly history and the lived experiences of many individuals. Through the examination of underutilized sources, comparisons of lyric and story form, and analysis of material culture, Hayes deftly argues that the experiences of poor southerners, both black and white, have been vastly overlooked. Through chapters ranging from lyrical analysis of folk gospel songs to conversion stories, from a discussion on the materiality of death and graves to an examination of an ethic of neighborliness (perhaps known in other places as a lived theology), Hayes's study engages the reader with fresh perspectives and challenging insights into the lives of those living on the edge in the turn-of-the-century South.
The first two body chapters of Hard, Hard Religion examine oral culture through both song and story. In the first of these, Hayes tracks down variant versions of the same songs to demonstrate how a shared oral culture of Christianity spread throughout the region despite having virtually no written links. It is not often that a simple formatting choice helps to demonstrate a scholar’s argument, but by putting verses of songs (and sometimes tales of conversion in the next chapter) in a double-columned layout, readers are able to see the similarities and changes themselves. This simple formatting choice demonstrates how carefully Hayes puts together arguments and works through them with the reader. Simply by putting song stanzas side by side, Hayes not only makes the arguments more accessible to graduate and even undergraduate students, but also signals to other scholars the depth of research that has gone into this work.
Following the discussions on song and story is a chapter on death and the material culture of poor cemeteries, folk sermons, and baptism itself. Here, Hayes drives home the point that the folk Christianity of the poorest people in the South was not about escaping this world, was not about a delayed reward someday. Rather, it was about sacralizing the world they lived in. It was a religion of the here-and-now, of survival, and of a very tangible transformation.
This point about the sacralization of survival is further driven home in the final chapter on what Hayes calls the ethic of neighborliness. While acknowledging that some scholars seem frustrated with the nonpolitical nature of poor folk Christianity, Hayes makes the point that political action presumes a margin and most of the people to whom Hayes introduces the reader have no margin in their lives. Nonetheless, the ethic of neighborliness could be a dramatic transformation, for as Hayes mentions, this marked a turning point from “care of self into concern for neighbor; and … seeking to foster life” (p. 176). In a world where any day might bring untold sorrows, such concern for others could be a significant change for them that believe.
The sheer variety of sources makes this work a valuable tool for graduate methodology courses as well as undergraduate thesis courses. Hayes uses photographs of graves to discuss the materiality of death and transformation, folklorist records to examine story and song transformation and transmission, and, of course, more traditional archival sources. By asking different questions, and comparing sources against each other, Hayes demonstrates how it is possible, though difficult, to study oral cultures in American history.
While it is clear that this reviewer was thoroughly impressed with the work, there are minor quibbles. Perhaps the most significant of these is one of emphasis. Both in the title and introduction an emphasis is placed on how this poor and folk Christianity crossed racial lines. While Hayes does remind the reader of that throughout the book, this argument seems, at times, based more on indirect than direct evidence. Yes, many of the practices, songs, and stories were similar across racial lines, but there is not significant evidence of interracial cooperation. Said differently, Hayes demonstrates transracial culture without clearly demonstrating interracial practice. Yet, even with this hesitation, this reviewer understands that the entire work is based on a largely oral culture whose few written sources are mostly from white folklorists who may have had their own reasons for downplaying interracial practices.
Overall, Hard, Hard Religion presents a unique vision of the faith in the poor South. Hayes documents a folk Christianity that did not offer a pie-in-the-sky someday, but rather infused sacred meaning into the all-too-real world of the downtrodden. Hayes does so using fascinating sources and empathy for his subjects.
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-shgape.
Citation:
Colin Chapell. Review of Hayes, John, Hard, Hard Religion: Interracial Faith in the Poor South.
H-SHGAPE, H-Net Reviews.
July, 2018.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=51836
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. |