Religion Synthesis Essay

Announcements ■ Quiz #3

– Opens today, 4pm – Closes tomorrow, Friday night, at 11:59pm

■ Mini-Synthesis Essay A – All graded – Email questions or concerns

■ Mini-Synthesis Essay B – Due next Friday, July 19, at 11:59pm – Drafts due Wednesday, July 17, at 11:59pm – Email me to schedule individual meetings

Synthesis Essays: General Comments ■ SYNTHESIZE TWO JOURNAL ARTICLES

– Secondary source ■ Academic Journal Articles

– NOT primary source ■ May use, but does not count towards minimum 2

■ SYNTHESIZE TWO JOURNAL ARTICLES – Put into conversation with one another – How are they related? How do they overlap? – How do they enlighten, engage, or challenge each other? – How do they respond to the prompt? ■ Individually AND together

Synthesis Essays: General Comments ■ Acceptable Secondary Sources:

– Marcos, “Indigenous Eroticism and Colonial Morality in Mexico”

– Cooke, “Generations and Regeneration”

– Porterfield, “Witchcraft and Colonization”

– Silva, “Miraculous Plagues” – Davis, “Religion and the American

Revolution” – Grasso, ”Deist Monster” – Fluhman, “Anti-Mormonism” – Willsky, “The (Un)Plain Bible”

– Hall, “Beyond Self-Interest” – Minges, “Beneath the Underdog” – Poole, “Religion, Gender, and the

Lost Cause” – Cossen, “Catholic Gatekeepers” – Kil, “Fearing Yellow, Imagining

White” – Paddison, “Disorderly Doctrines” – McCartney, “Religion, the Spanish-

American War, and the Idea of American Mission”

– Kittelstrom, “The International Social Turn”

Synthesis Essays: General Comments ■ Outside Sources

– Must be approved by instructor – Essays CAN and SHOULD be completed

with only the use of course materials

■ Avoid Block Quotes – Block Quotes: quotes longer than 3 lines – ONLY when ABSOLUTELY necessary – Be more strategic with your citations – ENGAGE/ANALYZE with the text

Synthesis Essays: General Comments ■ Language

– Academic writing is professional writing ■ Requires degree of formality

– Avoid informal/colloquial phrases – Avoid 1st person plural (we/us) – Avoid 2nd person (you)

■ Citations – Journal articles = in quotes – Books = italicized or underlined

Synthesis Essays: General Comments ■ CITATIONS

– MUST be consistent and specific – Reference specific page numbers ■ Not just page on your pdf/document ■ Page number of the actual journal article

– E.g. ”blah blah blah” (Poole, 574).

– MUST use for both direct quotes AND paraphrasing – Plagiarism: any representation of someone else’s work, words, and/or ideas

without giving proper credit ■ I.e. claiming their work/words/ideas as your own ■ Anything not cited is assumed to be your own work/words/ideas

Mini-Synthesis Essay B Prompt ■ Throughout this class, we have discussed the many ways in which religion intersects with

power, especially when it comes to the definition and enforcement of Insider-Outsider identities. Religion has been an important factor in American history as a means of and motivation for the application, navigation, and resistance of power.

■ Discuss/Describe the ways in which religion is used to oppress and/or resist oppression. – Which has been more often the case in American religious history? – Which has been more successful in American religious history? – Significance: In what ways does religion intersect with power today?

■ Synthesize/Discuss at least TWO SECONDARY SOURCE JOURNAL ARTICLES to respond to the prompt

– You may NOT use the articles you used for the first essay

THE CIVIL WAR, RECONSTRUCTION, AND

THE RELIGION OF THE LOST CAUSE

REL2121 – July 11, 2019

Lecture Agenda

■ Civil War

■ History of Reconstruction

■ Religion of the Lost Cause

■ History of Jim Crow – To be continued…

■ Addendum

The Civil War ■ Fought from 1861-1865

■ Total military deaths: 620,000 – 750,000 – More than US military deaths in

all other wars combined

■ Slavery and States’ Rights – Southern fear of rising Northern

political influence – Southern fear of rising federal

government power – Southern fear of rising anti-slavery

rhetoric and movements

The Civil War ■ Denominational Splits

– Methodists – 1844 – Baptists – 1845 – Presbyterians – 1857 – Catholics – 1861 – Episcopalians – 1861

■ Leonidas Polk (1806-1864) – Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana – Confederate major general ■ “Sewanee’s Fighting Bishop”

The Civil War ■ Civil War Refugees

– More than 400,000 enslaved Blacks escaped to North

– Fought for Union army – “Largest slave rebellion in the

history of Atlantic slavery”

■ 10% of total Union soldier deaths were black

– 20% of black soldiers died – 35% higher mortality rate than

white Union soldiers

The Civil War ■ Emancipation Proclamation

– 1862-1863 – Declared all slaves in Confederate

states free

■ Thirteenth Amendment (1865) – Abolished slavery nationally*

■ Juneteenth – June 19, 1865 – Emancipation reaches Texas

The Civil War ■ Much like with the Revolutionary War, religion

did not necessarily initiate or motivate the war

■ Religion justified the Civil War – God’s providence – Righteousness of their cause – Religious fervor and patriotism – Just War

■ The Contestation of Liberty v. Tyranny – What does it mean to be American?

History of Reconstruction ■ The South at Civil War’s End

– Widespread Death – Economic Depression – Political Surrender – Question of Identity

■ Freed Slaves – Hope for a better life – Fear of white retribution – Question of Identity

History of Reconstruction ■ Radical Reconstruction

– Northern military occupation – Political subjugation – Forced Racial Integration ■ MS & SC – Black representatives to Congress ■ Hiram Revels – Black senator from MS (1870)

■ 14th Amendment to the Constitution (1868) – Citizenship Clause ■ Overturn Dred Scott decision

– Slaves, former slaves, and descendants of slaves ineligible for citizenship

– Equal Protection Clause

History of Reconstruction ■ White Redemption

– Political reclamation – White Democrats back in power – Violence ■ White mobs and riots ■ Ku Klux Klan, White League,

Red Shirts, rifle clubs

– Voter Suppression ■ Literacy tests ■ Poll Taxes ■ Intimidation

■ By 1874, Democrats regained control of US House of Representatives

History of Reconstruction ■ The Compromise of 1877

– Rutherford B. Hayes ■ 19th President – Republican

– Granted Presidency after controversial 1876 election

– Removal of federal troops from former Confederate states

– Political autonomy for Southern Democrats ■ May legislate and control Southern

Blacks without Northern interference

■ The End/Failure of Reconstruction

History of Reconstruction ■ After the end of Reconstruction, violent

white uprisings unchecked by federal troops – Manifest White Redemption

■ Gradual changes of political power

■ Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws – State and local laws – Began in 1870s – Racial segregation – Black disenfranchisement

Religion of the Lost Cause ■ Southern shared experience of defeat nurtured

a tragic sense of life – A crisis of life’s meaning; increasing

poverty; shattered communities – Question of identity ■ Is the South still the South?

– Question of legitimacy/justice ■ Was the South right/justified in the War?

■ Religious reorientation for individuals facing disorder – Reaffirms identity and cosmology – Provides community and comfort

Religion of the Lost Cause ■ Mythologization of the Confederacy

– Creation myth ■ Attempt to create a free southern nation

– Southern/Christian values ■ Independence and Liberty

– Opposed to Northern tyranny ■ Faithfulness and Loyalty ■ Noble, Redemptive suffering

– Confederate soldiers as heroes and saints ■ Defending Southern honor

■ Memorialization of Confederate – Stained-glass windows, Bibles, and other “religious objects”

Religion of the Lost Cause ■ Civil Religion: Implicit religious values and nature of a nation

– Religio-political dogma, ritual, symbols, history, etc. ■ Dictates cosmology ■ Defines insider identity

– Institutionalizes state/culture as religion ■ Symbols emblematic of culture ■ Rites/Rituals initiating individuals

– Describes/Teaches loyalty and faithfulness ■ Belief/Faith in state ■ Necessary for citizenship

Religion of the Lost Cause ■ Southerners developed a civil religion, blending Christian and Southern values

– Stress moral virtue and orderly society – Emphasize cultural identity

■ Southern Christian values as foundation of society and government

– Jim Crow Laws – Paramilitary organizations

■ Refusal to let North dictate different civil religion – Religious reverence of Lincoln, Emancipation, etc. – Foreign civil religious cosmology

Religion of the Lost Cause

Religion of the Lost Cause

History of Jim Crow ■ Sharecropping

– Economic Slavery – Perpetual debt – Blacks and poor whites

■ Economic exploitation – Illiterate and uneducated – Often cheated ■ Wages/shares

History of Jim Crow ■ The New Slavery

– Criminalization – Incarceration – Exploitation

■ 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1865): – Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for

crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

■ Still in effect today: – Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of

Colorblindness

History of Jim Crow ■ Jim Crow characterized by more than laws

■ Culture of Fear and Subjugation – White Supremacy

■ Lynching – Often public spectacles ■ Postcards and souvenirs

– Not just killing ■ Torture and mutilation

– ~4,000 between 1877-1950 ■ Only counting Blacks in the South

– White Terrorism

History of Jim Crow

History of Jim Crow ■ White Justification for Terrorism

– Social Order ■ Blacks acting “uppity” ■ Disrespect of racial hierarchy

– White Nationalism ■ Southern identity ■ Defense of Confederate ideals ■ Defense of white women and children

– Criminalization of Blacks ■ Black men bestial

– Dangerous – Prone to rape and murder

■ Black women hypersexualized

Religion of the Lost Cause ■ Religion of the Lost Cause = a Religion of White Supremacy

– Divine racial hierarchy – Mythic nostalgia of antebellum South – Glorifies Confederate leaders – Demonizes outsiders ■ Northerners as threat ■ Northerners as heretics

– Faithfulness = Protection and Revival

■ Syncretized evangelical Protestantism with racist cultural ideologies

– Racial beliefs elevated to divine theology

Lecture Summary: ■ Civil War as slave rebellion

– Divided religious opinions – Theologization of War

■ Radical Reconstruction – Northern attempt to impose Northern

values, culture, and narrative

■ Religion of the Lost Cause – Southern resistance to those narratives – Syncretized Christianity with Confederacy – Civil and Cultural Religion ■ Jim Crow laws and culture of white terrorism

Addendum: Confederate Memorials ■ Narratives shape who we think we are

and how we think about ourselves – What we include; what we forget – What we value; what we hate – Who belongs; who doesn’t

■ What narrative do the memorials tell? – What do they imply? ■ Heritage, not hate?

– Especially as public monuments

■ Is this a good narrative? – One that we want to define us?

Discussion:

■ Poole, W. Scott. “Religion, Gender, and the Lost Cause in South Carolina’s 1876 Governor’s Race: ’Hampton or Hell!’” Journal of Southern History 68, no. 3 (Aug. 2002): 573-598.

– Professor of History ■ College of Charleston, SC

– This article became a book: ■ Never Surrender: Confederate Memory and

Conservatism in the South Carolina Upcountry

For Monday: ■ Topic: Catholic Immigration and Americanism

■ Required Reading: – Cossen, “Catholic Gatekeepers”

■ Optional Reading: – Religion in American Life, Chapter 14