Heart and Soul

The rough-edged faith of America’s Appalachia.

Foxfire 7, edited by Paul Gillespie (Anchor Books, 1982, 510 pp.; $9.95 pb). Reviewed by Daniel Pawley, a regular contributor to CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

As a Northerner who grew up in the South, I must confess to a certain disdain for “unsophisticated” Bible-belt ways. That said, however, I must also confess to an appreciation and admiration for the honesty of Appalachian Christians—those hard mountain folk whose religious simplicity stands anachronistically against today’s Sunday morning sophistication. Thus my fascination with this contemporary freeze-frame of America’s past, the three-year-old Foxfire 7: Ministers, Church Members, Revivals, Baptisms, Shaped-note and Gospel Singing, Faith Healing, Camp Meetings, Footwashing, Snake Handling, and other traditions of mountain religious heritage.

The book, part of an ongoing series looking at forgotten traditions and American life before fast food, depicts a heritage beautiful in its simple ways of faith, yet often “unbeautiful” in its ritualistic crudeness and denominational rivalry. Under “beautiful” come the countless testimonies of the transformed heart, recountings that carry even the most sophisticated of us back to our spiritual beginnings. “I was down under a bench when I was saved,” said the Reverend Ben Cook. “I had to give up everything.… When I was born of the Holy Spirit of God, it shone all over me and through me. It made me love everyone. That’s my beginning.”

Cook, who died in 1979, spent most of his life as a Southern Baptist preacher near Caney Fork, North Carolina. He was pastor of more than 20 churches over five decades, and was at one point a circuit rider. Not known for his timidity, he told the Foxfire staff: “I believe in shouting. I think pride has just almost killed the Spirit of God.… David said, ‘Let them shout from the tops of the mountains.’ I think we’ve got something to shout about if we’re born of the Holy Spirit of God.”

This is raw faith—attractive but not pretty.

The “Call”

Foxfire 7 often touches on the theme of God’s personal call to ministers: a call that begins before birth, according to some of those interviewed. The Reverend Joe Bishop talks about his call this way: “Preachers are not trained into being ministers, although we need all the schooling we can get. God told the old prophet, ‘I called you in your mother’s womb.’ There’re born preachers with a gift, a talent.… A man’s got a natural talent just like singing or anything else.”

According to Bishop, knowing oneself and one’s talents makes for being a good pastor. Over 80 years old, he still speaks as clearly about purpose and fulfillment as he did when he rode the circuits on cold mornings long ago. What provided his greatest joy as a minister? “Seeing people saved,” he says. “Going to them personally, talking with them, praying with them; then watching them live it.”

The editors withhold judgment on denominationalism and such practices as foot washing, faith healing, and snake handling. Their point here is simply to depict these manifestations of belief as they have existed for generations.

An Excerpt

“Lord have mercy; I didn’t decide nothing. I’d rather had my head cut off than to turn out to preach. But one night on that bed right there, I felt my calling. Well, I had blood poison shoot up from my wisdom tooth and run down here and it got to my collar bone. My brother-in-law went after old big Doc Nichols. He came to me and said, ‘Bly, if it would have been thirty minutes later, there wouldn’t have been a doctor in the world that could have saved you.’ But before he got there, it was just as plain to me as—well, it was a calling. God had laid his hand on me and said, ‘Bly, go into the world and warn people of the great wrath of God.’ ”

—Reverend Bly Owens on when he decided to become a preacher.

Thus, we learn about the “Primitive Baptists,” a group that expresses its faith through adherence to the doctrine of predestination; and the Free Will Baptists, who are shown to be as broad as the Primitive Baptists are narrow. They believe that individuals have a free will, the right to accept Christ, and the right to worship. A member clarifies: “There is nobody to dictate or tell you that you’ve got to do this, that, or the other.” However, as might be expected, the Free Will Baptists do not believe in eternal security. “A person can be saved, then live a riotous life, and in the end be lost,” a member adds.

Ecumenism has never been in vogue here, and “family” rivalries are a way of religious life. About denominational rivalry, the editors quote a familiar mountain quip: “We had a revival meetin’ last week and no one was saved. The Baptists down the road had a meeting the same week and, thank God, they didn’t save anybody either.”

In a peculiar but not unfamiliar way, each denomination believes it has correctly interpreted the Scriptures as a basis for its existence. According to a Church of Christ minister: “All of these [denominations] cannot be right. Somebody has got to be wrong, so I will take my stand on the Word of God.… If everyone would go back to the Bible, everyone would be a member of the Body of Christ which is the church. There would be no denominational religions whatsoever. Anywhere.”

So each group goes “back to the Bible” to justify itself. In one chapter, the song, “I Know the Bible’s Right, Somebody’s Wrong” is sung amid the clatter of live rattlesnakes by those mountain folk who believe the Bible enjoins them to “take up serpents.” They sing:

Well, I know a lot of preachers who had druther be dead,

Than to preach to their people what the Bible said.

I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong,

I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong.

The snake-handling services last for hours, building in volume and emotion. According to the editors: “Over the music and the rhythmic clapping of a hundred pairs of hands, people begin to speak in tongues, to jerk involuntarily, to raise their arms high and cry out the name of Jesus. And if the spirit is true.… suddenly a long flat box slides out from under a pew and serpents are everywhere.”

A middle-aged man, with neatly combed hair and pen in pocket, holds two thick rattlers in one hand and says: “Th’ Lord told us what we could do and that’s exactly what we’re doing.” Another man holds three snakes in one hand and raises up the other hand. He says: “If you believe that [they] ain’t gonna bite you, then you got power. That gives you faith.” A while later, the snakes are put away as the entire congregation retires to subdued fellowship around a table spread with food—all in a day’s activities.

Rough-Edged Lessons For And From The Heart

Such unsophisticated theology has always tainted the gospel in this country, and one could certainly find fault with much that appears in Foxfire 7. Yet, as the editors point out, Appalachian Christianity, be it crude, loud, and many times divisive, expresses an abiding concern for “heart religion.” And here can be found the rough-edged lessons for us moderns.

We can learn from a 94-year-old Pentecostal, Granny Reed, who reminds once again about the simple yet profound mystery of personal conversion: “God,” she prayed, “if you don’t save me now, I’m going to die. I’ve done everything I know how to do and I don’t know anything else to do.” She felt an “awful feeling” as if she were being “mashed” to the ground. She adds: “All at once … everything was as bright as sunshine. I jumped as high as I could.… I know I was born again.”

And most certainly we can learn from a Presbyterian minister, L. B. Gibbs, who recognizes the elements that divide Appalachian believers but prefers to emphasize those things that bind them together. He says: “Where we agree is on those things that I believe are essential: the existence of God as a personal God; the Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the coming of Christ into the world as the Son of God; His giving Himself for our sins; the necessity of our repentance and faith in Him. If we agree on these things, I would say that there is much more that ties us together than there is that separates us.”

The editors of Foxfire 7 point out that Appalachian Christianity is in transition. As young people reinterpret or repudiate the ways of their forebears, past traditions are slowly dying out. One hopes that all the foolishness dies with them—but that the emphasis on honesty, simplicity, and heart-centered worship remain.

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