Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists and American Culture by Joshua Guthman (review)

A curious variety of Baptist churches long ago filled the hills of Central and Southern Appalachia. There are Southern Baptists, American Baptists, Free-Will Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Old Time Missionary Baptists, Regular Baptists, “No Hellers” (Primitive Baptist Universalists), and “Hardshell” Baptists (the soubriquet frequently bestowed on Primitive Baptists), among others. Despite all falling under the general heading of “Baptist,” these denominations and sects share only two common beliefs: congregational autonomy and believer’s baptism by immersion. Otherwise, disagreements about theology and praxis have resulted in a plethora of schisms, some local, others regional or national. Their diversity sometimes makes it difficult for scholars—let alone their neighbors—to ascertain and comprehend the subtleties of all things Baptist and write effective histories that appropriately account for the full Baptist array. Thus, more often than not, the small, staunchly Calvinist Primitive Baptists rarely garner little more than a footnote or a sidebar in Baptist historiography. Joshua Guthman sets out to remedy this oversight in Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists and American Culture.

Guthman became curious about the Primitive Baptists while working at the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He stumbled onto a recording of Hardshells singing the hymn, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” and realized he had no idea who they were, why they were “primitive,” and why they sang in their distinctive high-pitched, slow-tempo, nasal style. He does an excellent job recounting the group’s formation during the late stages of the Second Great Awakening, as they became increasingly distressed by the Methodist-influenced “new measures” revivalism that, they believed, undermined Baptist predestinarian theology and caused their fellow believers to “drift toward an Arminianized faith” (14). Those who formed the Primitive Baptists—so called for their claimed association with the primitive church of the New Testament—were even more horrified by insistent fund-raising appeals for foreign and domestic missions, for the construction of colleges, and for other benevolent organizations. Evangelism and institutionalization, in their view, should be entirely unnecessary if salvation is entirely and only by God’s inscrutable will, and cannot be influenced by any human effort or activity. “Primitive Baptists spied deception and error,” Guthman points out, “where others had found glory and progress” (23).

The author’s discussion of the pessimism and uncertainty of the Primitives is deeply moving; it has almost certainly stoked the deep fatalism that can be found in pockets of Appalachia. He describes his subjects as “men and women of constant sorrow, lonely pilgrims whose hopes of a heavenly reward are tempered by the most severe doubts about their own worthiness” (141). Their withdrawal from the warmth of Baptist fellowship and their unyielding defense of five-point Calvinism also made them an easy target for cultural stereotyping. Missionary Baptists regarded—and much of American society still regards—Hardshell Baptists as ignorant, impoverished, or worse. They are a veritable collection plate for the biases of those would-be “sophisticates.”

Guthman is on somewhat less steady ground in his discussion of the African American–founded and –led National Primitive Baptist Convention of America, whom he characterizes as unique guardians of West African religious traditions that were carried by the slaves who converted to Christianity. African-influenced praxis can be found in nearly all black Protestant denominations.

The book concludes with a flawed chapter arguing that the “high lonesome” sound of Appalachian roots musicians, such as Roscoe Holcomb and Ralph Stanley, has preserved the Primitive Baptist ethos and reintroduced it to wider American culture. Unfortunately, Guthman undermines his own argument. Holcomb is a problematic representative of the Primitive Baptists; although he was raised Old Regular Baptist (a close cousin to the Primitives), as an adult he joined a Holiness church, whose theological ancestors are the Arminian-influenced Methodists. The case of Ralph Stanley almost fits Guthman’s model. Stanley is a lifelong “No Heller,” a member of the six hundred or so Primitive Baptist Universalist group that broke away from the...