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are called to pray and work for the healing of those wounds, whether in "Protestant America" or Appalachia. McCauley is right that the missionary relationship between the two religious cultures has been far too one-directional from mainline to mountain. But this is a far cry from justifying the absence of missionary activity in the region. That sounds too much like my fellow Georgians' constant complaints about "outside agitators" making trouble during the civil rights struggle. Even though they were often arrogant, those outside agitators were not infrequently right. In addition, had not missionary Christians come to Appalachia throughout its history, McCauley would have nothing to write her book about. Regarding the work of my own organization, McCauley treats the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center as one more example of the recurring mainline condescension toward Appalachian mountain religion. Regrettably, her enthusiasm for her thesis and her limited knowledge of AMERC cause her to portray a program scarcely recognizable to its alumni and faculty. This is not to deny some accuracy to her critique. AMERC must own up to its arrogance and insensitivity . However, one of the most common testimonies of AMERC alumni/ae and visiting faculty is that they have been converted by the faith and courage of Applachian mountain Christians. Moreover, McCauley's contention that serious study of mountain religion is absent from our curricula is simply inaccurate. In spite of these problems and inaccuracies, McCauley's book is a very important addition to Appalachian studies, both as a study of religion and as a study of the region as a whole. It is an essential book for any scholar seriously studying the region and will be quite useful to thoughtful church people. AMERC has already made the book required reading during its extended summer course. —J. Stephen Rhodes A 'Tour de Force' of Historical and Religious Scholarship As a historian of religion who has focused upon South Asia for the past twenty-five years, I do not pretend to be a specialist in Appalachian religion. As a person who has chosen to focus on the education of Appalachian youth, I am deeply interested in this region, its people, and religious traditions. In any case, I hope these comments from an "outsider " to the debate might prove to be of some help to the conversation. Deborah McCauley's Appalachian Mountain Religion is clearly a tour de force of historical and religious scholarship. McCauley has pro52 vided her readers with an incredibly valuable resource on mountain religion in Appalachia. Her book offers readers access to historical documents , both published and unpublished, interviews with mountain preachers and church leaders, and a very engaging, if somewhat controversial , interpretive framework. The religious biographies she gives of various mountain preachers, scholars, and common folk provide a warm and human touch to her sometimes rather thick historical prose. Whatever else one says about this work, it is a voluminous resource that must be reckoned with by anyone who would talk or write about the people and religion of Appalachia. The primary thesis of McCauley's book is that by the mid-1820s, Appalachian mountain religion had essentially set itself apart from "the prevailing national religious culture," which she describes as American Protestantism in its denominational forms. McCauley explores this thesis by looking at the specific historical roots of various Appalachian traditions , observing the tensions that arose between burgeoning denominational Protestantism in America and the Appalachian churches, and describing the split between American Protestantism and mountain religion in the early nineteenth century. McCauley finds the roots of Appalachian mountain religion in German pietism, Scots-Irish Presbyterian sacramental revivalism, later Southern Baptist revivalism, and "plain folk" camp meetings (e.g., frontier Methodists) in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This dimension of her book is perhaps the strongest in weaving together many different resources to lay out a very convincing historical analysis of the roots and development of Appalachian mountain religion in historical and theological terms. A recurring subtext of the book is McCauley's description of American Protestant denominations' tendency to stereotype Appalachian mountain religion in the eighteen and nineteenth (and even late twentieth ) centuries. McCauley again and again provides negative stereotypic images of mountain religions...
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