{"product_id":"9781621900955","title":"Born of Water and Spirit: The Baptist Impulse in Kentucky, 1776-1860","description":"\u003cp\u003eBetween 1776 and the mid-1800s, the number of Baptists in the United States grew at a staggering\u003cbr\u003erate, rising from fifty thousand at the outbreak of revolution to more than a million as the nation\u003cbr\u003eedged toward civil war. As the Second Great Awakening swept through the Old Southwest, it generated\u003cbr\u003ereligious enthusiasm among Methodist and Baptist converts who were intent upon replacing\u003cbr\u003eold forms of Protestantism with an evangelical vibrancy that reflected and often contributed\u003cbr\u003eto the unsettled social relations of the new republic. No place was better suited to embrace this\u003cbr\u003eenthusiasm than Kentucky. In \u003ci\u003eBorn of Water and Spirit\u003c\/i\u003e, Richard C. Traylor explores the successes\u003cbr\u003eand failures of Baptists in this area, using it as a window into the elements of Baptist life\u003cbr\u003ethat transcended locale.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTraylor argues that the achievements of Baptists in Kentucky reflect, in many ways, their success\u003cbr\u003eand coming of age in the early national period of America. The factionalism that characterized\u003cbr\u003efrontier Baptists, he asserts, is an essential key to understanding who the colonial Baptists had\u003cbr\u003ebeen, who they were becoming in the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, and\u003cbr\u003ewho they would become after the Civil War.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this highly nuanced study, Traylor looks at the denomination in light of what he calls its\u003cbr\u003e“Baptist impulse”—the movement’s fluid structure and democratic spirit. These characteristics\u003cbr\u003ehave proven to be its greatest strength as well as the source of its most terrible struggles. Yet, confronting\u003cbr\u003etheological clashes, along with the challenges that come with growth, forged the Baptist\u003cbr\u003eidentity and shaped its future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe first three chapters examine the primary elements of the impulse: rituals of conversion,\u003cbr\u003ebaptism, and communion; the Baptist preacher; and the significance of the local church to the\u003cbr\u003esect. Following these chapters are explorations of the reformations and forces of change in the\u003cbr\u003eearly to mid-1800s, the role of women and African Americans in developing the group, and the\u003cbr\u003erefinement and reorientation of priorities from 1840 to 1860. This important denominational history\u003cbr\u003ewill be of great value to scholars of American religious history and the history of the early\u003cbr\u003eAmerican republic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Tennessee Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47056616456432,"sku":"9781621900955","price":47.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781621900955_p0.jpg?v=1769904942","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781621900955","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}