In the Hands of A Happy God: The "No-Hellers" of Central Appalachia by Howard Dorgan (review)

free will savagesbride's bed full of blood a satisfied minda vow to bear naught and griefblack bark in winter footsteps in the snowthe far side of trouble spirits of crows, dancing —suggestive and meaningful in the ambiguous style of haiku, but nevertheless continually pointing beyond themselves. Perhaps metaphor is resisted in Cold Mountain precisely because it is so strong. Finally, I can say how the novel exercised its power over my imagination ; it was exactly here in its battle between general meaning and precise focus, between the metaphoric and the absolutely unrepeatable specific that Cold Mountain achieved its originality, an appeal and a burden all its own. —Richard Sears Howard Dorgan. In the Hands ofA Happy God: The "No-Hellers" of Central Appalachia. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997. 208 pages. $34.00. Paper, $17.00 Howard Dorgan's In the Hands ofa Happy God: The "No Hellers" of CentralAppalachia extends his contributions to the study ofAppalachian mountain religion that began in 1987 with his Giving Glory to God in Appalachia. Not only does this newest work fill in a niche, historically and theologically, in the increasingly complex story of Appalachian religious traditions, but Dorgan also charms and fascinates friends ofmountain religion with a stardingly unexpected gift: his scrutiny of this very different kind of faith community. We learn anew that mountain religion is certainly not homogeneous! Dorgan introduces us to a Universalist faith tradition among the Primitive Baptists. This small, yet theologically surprising group of churches affirms that God's ultimate goal for history is not the division of humankind into two groups—reprobates and redeemed—but that allwill be reclaimed and redeemed. There are no ultimate rejects. The "NoHellers " ofAppalachia, i.e., the Primitive Baptist Universalists, are a subdenomination within the rich cluster of Old Time Baptists in central Appalachia. (Dorgan provides a helpful survey in the first chapter; Old Regular, Regular, United, Primitive, and other traditional Calvinist Baptists draw the larger circle for his research.) Church leaders have 61 explained to him that the "No-Heller" name is really not appropriate. There is a hell on earth, in this present life, where sin is punished and purged; but there is no eternal punishment. Dorgan quotes Elder Roy McGothlin: "We're happy that everybody escapes that kind ofeternity." Christ's atonement not only offers eternal salvation to all; resurrection into eternity brings that restoration to all. "Happy" is a repeated term throughout the book; their goal is—delightful phrase—to "happify God." So much for the dour Appalachian Calvinist. There is a great deal of detective work in this book. Not much is avail- able in writing for the researcher, either concerning Primitive Baptist Universalist history or their theological beliefs. Dorgan undertakes to recon- struct the historical and theological origins ofUniversalist beliefs in Appalachia and trace their journey geographically from New England to central Appalachia. Ultimately Dorgan has to show how two wholly disparate traditions could and did come together. The main issue facing him is how to graft the rationalistic and urbane New England Universalist tradition onto the impassioned, ecstatic, rural Calvinist tradition of Appalachia, and this joining is difficult. At the crucial juncture in the book the author has to signal his hesitancy and caution, suggesting the links with phrases such as "it is possible," "happenings may have taken place," "there may have been a string of circumstances ..." Yet Dorgan does show how the connections could have been made. He gives us not only a map but a genealogy with specific names filled in as he traces Universalist ideas from the coast to the frontier. At the crucial point his narrative contracts into the oral tradition of one family; the "family story" of Dr. William Hale—physician, farmer, and preacher—who was persuaded by a Universalist tract "out of Kentucky." I am not, however, persuaded that Dorgan has here made the graft (could there not have been two parallel tracks which simply touched each other in this incident?) but I do now see how it might have happened, which is what I think Dorgan wanted to accomplish. He also reconstructs the framework of theological beliefs into ten tenets developed largely from conversations which articulate the...