Bishops, Bourbons, and Big Mules: A History of the Episcopal Church in Alabama By J. Barry Vaughn. 2013. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press. A Review by The Rev. Mark LaGory This book is a well written and researched social history of the Episcopal Church in Alabama, from the organization of its first churches in Tuscaloosa and Mobile in 1828 to the present day. While the span of time covered is long, and the book is rich with detail, it is a good read and should be relevant not only to those interested in Diocesan history, but to a broader audience interested in Southern history and the role of the church in society. This is not a dry history of the bishops who governed our diocese, but a lively analysis of the living church. Bishops face a daunting challenge—sustaining and growing an organization whose very ideology is countercultural. How do you speak gospel truth to power, while still keeping the powerful in the pews? Undoubtedly that question underlies the complex history of the Episcopal Church in Alabama. The title of the book is also its thesis: While bishops governed the Episcopal Church, the elite also dominated its history in Alabama. The “Bourbons” referred to in the book’s title are the agricultural elite while “big mules” are the industrialists. Episcopalians have disproportionately been wealthy and powerful people. While the Church’s numbers have always been small, it contained a significant number of Alabama’s economic and political elite. In spite of that fact, however, Vaughn notes that while the national Episcopal Church produced an “institutional legacy” of schools, universities, and hospitals, the Alabama diocese failed, with a few exceptions, to do so. The church was less a change agent in this region, and more an institution that sought to soften the worst consequences of southern institutions and culture. This seemed to be the case from the Diocese’s first bishop through Bishop Carpenter. It took 14 years for the diocese to elect and secure its first bishop, Nicholas Hamner Cobbs. The Diocese chose well, for Cobbs proved to be a pious and industrious leader who grew the church and offered strong spiritual direction. The care of African Americans, slave and free, was a major theme of his episcopate. While he was committed to the spiritual welfare of African Americans throughout the Diocese, he seemed to have no moral qualms about the institution of slavery, holding slaves himself. He was perhaps the most outspoken opponent of secession among Alabama’s leadership, so much so, that some claimed that he died of a broken heart when the South seceded from the Union. Cobbs was succeeded by Richard Hooker Wilmer, a man who held a very different view of secession. Wilmer was convinced of the justice of the Southern cause, and saw no conflict between slavery and Christianity. At this time, the Episcopal Church in Alabama was the church of “slave owners” and the Confederate leadership. St. John’s, Montgomery became a “virtual chapel for the Confederate leadership.” This led to great difficulties after the war. Most of Alabama’s African Americans left the Episcopal Church. Wilmer was a beloved figure in Alabama, but his contribution to the Church was mixed. As Vaughn suggests, “[he] deserves praise for his ability to raise money and establish an order of deaconesses to care for the afflicted, but he also helped to … mislead Southerners about the real nature of the Civil War for generations to come.” In the postwar years Alabama’s Episcopalians were even less responsive to the spiritual needs of African Americans than they had been before the War. According to Vaughn, one of the great challenges that Alabama church leaders faced was the ability to step out of the cultural and social context of the South. Well loved figures such as Wilmer, McDowell and Carpenter all had that difficulty. Perhaps there has been no more loved a bishop in the history of the Alabama Diocese than Charles Colcock Jones Carpenter. For many reasons, the chapter on Bishop Carpenter may be the most important for all of us to read. It is also the most challenging. The conclusion of this chapter on the Civil Rights period summarizes Vaughn’s central message well. “By most standards, Carpenter must be judged an effective and successful bishop. But unlike his friends and colleagues [elsewhere in the South] Carpenter did not clearly and forcefully address the fear and anger that kept his white communicants from tearing down the walls that separated them from black people…. When Carpenter retired he left not only a heritage of growth, but also a legacy of unfinished business in the area of racial reconciliation…” While there were many church heroes during this period, for a variety of reasons, Carpenter chose to stay in the background rather than to serve as a clear voice for justice and change during this period of deep struggle. That is the real challenge for leadership in a church disproportionately representing Alabama’s economic and political elite. In some sense, Vaughn claims, the Episcopal Church, more than others, produced Alabama. Because of that, it shares some responsibility for what Alabama is, with both its problems and its blessings. What we have contributed is a matter for more discussion, but Vaughn’s book offers much insight and much to think about. I appreciated the historical scholarship that went into its production. Vaughn has produced a fine book worthy of a range of readership. It’s good to finally associate real historical detail with the portraits that hang in Carpenter House. My sole regret is that the period from 1968 to the present was only thinly reviewed in the book. But this is a valuable contribution to our understanding of church and society in Alabama; and it is a fine volume on the history of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 16:40:47 +0000
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