1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910461099103321

Autore

Harvey Paul <1961->

Titolo

Moses, Jesus, and the trickster in the evangelical South [[electronic resource] /] / Paul Harvey

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Athens, : University of Georgia Press, c2012

ISBN

1-280-49171-X

9786613586940

0-8203-4374-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (198 p.)

Collana

Mercer University Lamar memorial lectures ; ; no. 52

Disciplina

280/.40975

Soggetti

Evangelicalism - Southern States - History

Christianity and culture - Southern States - History

Race relations - Religious aspects - Protestant churches - History

Tricksters - Southern States

Electronic books.

Southern States Church history

Southern States Race relations History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Illustrations and Endnotes -- INTRODUCTION. What Is the Soul of Man? -- CHAPTER ONE. Moses, Jesus, Absalom, and the Trickster: Narratives of the Evangelical South -- CHAPTER TWO. "'Because I Was a Master'": Religion, Race, and Southern Ideas of Freedom -- CHAPTER THREE. Suffering Saint: Jesus in the South -- Notes -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

Paul Harvey uses four characters that are important symbols of religious expression in the American South to survey major themes of religion, race, and southern history.The figure of Moses helps us better understand how whites saw themselves as a chosen people in situations of suffering and war and how Africans and African Americans reworked certain stories in the Bible to suit their own purposes. By applying the figure of Jesus to the central concerns of life, Harvey argues, southern evangelicals were instrumental in turning him into an



American figure. The ghostly presence of the Trickster, hovering at the edges of the sacred world, sheds light on the Euro-American and African American folk religions that existed alongside Christianity. Finally, Harvey explores twentieth-century renderings of the biblical story of Absalom in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom and in works from Toni Morrison and Edward P. Jones.Harvey uses not only biblical and religious sources but also draws on literature, mythology, and art. He ponders the troubling meaning of "religious freedom" for slaves and later for blacks in the segregated South. Through his cast of four central characters, Harvey reveals diverse facets of the southern religious experience, including conceptions of ambiguity, darkness, evil, and death.