Alabama Baptists are a fancy humans. even supposing considered as conservative in either politics and theology, many Baptists turned leaders of the Nineties agrarian rebel, dedicated partisans of the social gospel early within the twentieth century, and ardent advocates of the hot Deal. Complexity has additionally characterised the denomination's race family. for almost 5 a long time part its participants have been slaves, whereas many different individuals owned slaves. hence, interplay of black and white Baptists created a different spiritual atmosphere during which those that have been individuals of an analogous church buildings interpreted the gospel of liberation in dramatically alternative ways. After the Civil conflict, Baptist church buildings within the South divided into white and black congregations. purely white congregations remained a part of the Southern Baptist conference, whose contributors are often called Southern Baptists. Black congregations turned a part of the nationwide Baptist conference, and their background is a separate tale deserving destiny study.

Despite social and cultural clash Alabama Baptists helped tame a chaotic frontier, sustained a feeling of group, created possibilities no longer to be had in secular society, formed Alabama politics, and got spiritual dominance seldom matched in U.S. history.

Wayne Flynt's balanced, exhaustively researched ebook is the 1st approximately Alabama Baptists to be written through a certified historian.