Clergy Dissent in the Old South 1830-1865

[LincolnToddFan]

(03-08-2015 12:43 PM)Wild Bill Wrote:  No, on the arch bishop. He was advancing in class status from low church to high church. The episcopal church was considered more upper classy.

This is absolutely true. I was reading the memoirs of one of Lena Horne's daughters and she was discussing the religious attitudes of the "high yellow" bourgeois class of African-Americans who are her ancestors and of which she herself is a member. Her exact statement was that these people "wouldn't be caught dead" in a Baptist or Pentecostal church. Those were the denominations most associated with the lower caste of Blacks and newly freed slaves. Upwardly mobile Blacks attended the Episcopal Church or converted to Catholicism.

As repugnant as I found it, I appreciated her honesty.

Yet how sad it all makes me, that anyone tailor their church attendance to their desire for social acceptance.