Bio

Camille finished a Ph.D. in Rhetorical Studies with a minor in American Studies from Indiana University in 2001. In 2006, Baylor University Press published her dissertation describing how the most conservative of Evangelicals negotiate their cultural separation with their involvement in the civic sphere. After teaching for nearly 20 years on the undergrad and graduate level, Camille is now a work-at-home-mom and independent scholar, researching the intersection of Evangelicalism, conservative politics, and white supremacy in the South in the twentieth century. After leaving a lifetime in fundamentalism, Camille and her husband are now thankful members of Mitchell Road Presbyterian in Greenville, South Carolina raising their two Covenant children, Isaac and Gavin. On any given evening, you will probably catch her knitting, cooking, or Lego-ing.

Workshop Description

As American as Chewing Gum: How Early Evangelicalism Meddled with American Exceptionalism

The most American and most effective expression of Anglo-Protestantism is not, in hindsight, its finest hour. The Lutherans were not welcome in this parachurch enterprise because they seemed Catholic, they drank beer, and they were not native-born. The bulk of the membership came from ordained "Nordic" ministers in Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopalian churches with Presbyterians trailing last. Ministers in the North and South, on the East Coast and West, promoted this patriotic organization as a way to save America from the onslaught of cultural immorality and ecclesiastical ecumenism. Members, in their "uniforms," would march into revivals to show their community strength and to support the visiting evangelist. Local groups put flags and Bibles in public school classrooms, held elaborate community picnics, and opened orphanages and hospitals. Under their socio-cultural authority and with religious-ish language, they baptized babies, performed weddings, and conducted funerals. In the 1920s in small towns and large cities across America this seemingly apple-pie organization perpetuated homegrown terrorism and controlled elections from the local to the national level.

Called as "absolutely American as chewing gum, crooked District Attorneys, and chautauquas," the Ku Klux Klan is part of our religious history as American Evangelicals. Its story is ours. And by unpacking its words, we can learn about our own pride and limitations and how we can more wisely enact our faith in the civic sphere.