The Appalachian region, rooted in millennia of unique and divergent folklore and religion, carries on the tradition of individualistic faith today.
In our last issue, one question that loomed above all others was: “What makes Appalachia unique, and does this ‘otherness’ prevent Appalachia from reaching its fullest potential?”
Yet, this question is far from new. From a religious approach, Appalachia is indeed unique. Whether this ethos of religious freedom works in the best interest of the regional peoples is up to the people themselves.
When it comes to the facts, Appalachia has the largest number of regional religious traditions in the whole of the United States, as seen in the Folk Religions, Independent Holiness Traditions, and Ancient faiths that still separate the area from the rest of the country.
We live in a time that gives us the freedom to search. What we choose to search for is up to each of us. During this time, regionally unique religions have been given more attention by worshippers, practitioners, and scholars alike.
People who live close to the land, as the Appalachians always have, are now left with the alone time to explore their identities and delve into the religions surrounding their homes.
With this time, Appalachians have changed, reviving some of the older ways that their forebears practiced their faiths.
How Did We Get Here?: Appalachian Religion and the “Culture of Poverty”
Individual identity has always been a critical component of Appalachian religion.
Driving down the road in any Appalachian town, glance at all the denominations and sects touted on the frequent church signs.
You will find an even vaster spectrum of faiths, officials, and members within those places of worship.
Yet, the peoples who practice their faith away from these urban street-front churches are more significant in number. They may hold beliefs passed down from their forebears, they may find their religion in doing mundane tasks, or they may practice imported and ancient varieties of religion, selecting the religious principles that align with their unique worldviews.
Although this variety is characteristic of most American states, the history behind the “homemade” and regional types of Appalachian faiths speaks to a much larger theory in the field of Appalachian religion and folklore: the stereotypical belief that Appalachian mountain people are uncultured, uneducated, poor, and isolated from greater communities.
Deborah McCauley, in a deconstruction of the imagined ‘culture of poverty’ of the Appalachian region, wrote that “the power of self-definition for individuals within their church communities, as well as for individual church communities and the church traditions of which they are a part, directly contradicts interpretations of Appalachian mountain religion rooted in functionalist notions of compensation for alienation and powerlessness.”
So much to say, Appalachians disprove the theory that the mountain region is characterized by poverty and isolation. Their unique spiritual beliefs and theological wisdom reveal that Appalachia is a distinct region populated by peoples who reject and accept religious beliefs on their own terms regardless of governmental interference.
Appalachian religious groups and individual practitioners of diverse faiths were never isolated from other religions. In fact, the beliefs that continue to make Appalachia unique and diverse still stand in opposition to the Protestant faiths that were imposed upon the people in the 1900s.
Although Protestant home missions had a prominent presence in Appalachia before the 1960s, when the Commission of Religion in Appalachia (CORA) was founded in 1965, the region saw a massive influx of Protestant Home Missions.
CORA worked with communities to provide the Appalachian region with infrastructure and governmental support. However, CORA’s founders stressed that “mission work was needed by emphasizing the economic conditions and isolation in rural Appalachia.” They saw the Appalachians as backward, poor, and in need of help.
These supposed conditions neglected the reality of Appalachia, and they belittled the people who had already developed their own religious practices and beliefs. Later scholars such as Loyal Jones and Howard Dorgan “concluded that Appalachians exhibited signs of theological intelligence that many missionaries did not attribute to them.”
CORA’s interference neglected the concept that many Appalachians wanted to preserve the culture and sovereignty that they had developed independently.
In addition, CORA’s methodologies were condescending at best, which ultimately led many Appalachian peoples to resist the Protestant Missionaries and continue to live their lives the way they always had.
And so, in the aftermath of this rejection, Appalachia has held onto its roots and the uniqueness that separates it from the rest of the USA.
Religions such as Appalachian Folk Religion, Granny Magic, Southern Baptist Christianity, and Independent Holiness Traditions continue to thrive, despite the largely uninvited Protestant Home Missions sent to “civilize” and “improve” the mountain regions in Appalachia in conjunction with the War on Poverty.
But this opposition was never rooted in Appalachians’ desires to react rebelliously to the religions imposed upon them.
Instead, the unique religious culture of Appalachia had existed before CORA and other religiopolitical missions came in. The regional faiths of Appalachia continue to thrive on their own, regardless of the Protestant interference sent to save the supposedly poor and uneducated people of the Appalachian mountains starting in the early 1900s.
The Appalachian cultural identity, then, “shifts the locus of power in religious self-definition directly into the hands of mountain people themselves, creating a status order that embodies a different system of values (and moral obligations) and a different worldview
from that of the nation’s dominant religious culture and its prevailing power structure.”
So, one factor that makes Appalachia different from the rest of the United States is its historical resistance to Protestant and Governmental influence.
Because the Appalachian peoples resisted this interference, they still cling to the religious roots that have always made the mountain region diverse and divergent from the prevalent morals and beliefs of other areas on the East Coast.
In addition, Appalachia has not lost its self-definition, which continues to make it a distinct region today.
Religious Self-Definition Today: Appalachia’s Diverse Religiosity
Although all regional Appalachian religions can be grouped into one category for ease of study, Appalachian self-definition and status power dictate that the faiths from the area are highly diverse.
Historically, this self-definition may have resulted in the creation of Baptist Revival and Independent Holiness Traditions, but today, it shows itself in a varied and fully fleshed color.
Nowadays, Appalachians have the resources to discover and share their foreign, ancient, and seemingly forgotten religions in a way that prevents social rejection.
Using the uniqueness of Appalachian self-definition, these religions have found a more permanent home in the mountains as technology has provided Appalachian people more access to larger communities.
Such religions include many that seem foreign to America at first glance, but many practitioners see their faiths as inherently tied to the land and its inhabitants.
These religions have taken on local and regional hues that represent the individuality of their practitioners.
Practitioners of these religions may not advertise their religious beliefs to others from their localities for fear of discrimination. Still, their solitary practice is only a characteristic of their unique self-definition and determination to be true to their faiths.
Some practitioners of these more solitary and seldom publicly recognized traditions, such as Clyde, a practicing Roman Polytheist, use their religion to honor their American ancestors.
Clyde shared that he devotes offerings such as incense, wine, or whiskey to his forebears, such as “the Confederates, Texas Rangers, American Revolution soldiers, and the ancestors that came over on the Mayflower.”
But Clyde is not the only one who uses his religion to pay respect to his forebears.
Destiny, a 4th generation Celtic Pagan from West Virginia, also pays respect to her forebears through her religion since her ancestors were among the Scotto-Irish who settled in the Appalachian Mountains.
“I wanted to get closer to the roots that tie me to this area,” she told me. “I may not feel like I can tell people about my religion, because I live in the bible belt after all, but that’s okay because I know my ancestors practiced this religion here many years ago, and I’m carrying on the family tradition.”
Clyde and Destiny see their religions as distinctly American, and the ways they practice their faiths are directly related to their American heritage.
Other people create sacred spaces in rural areas where people from various traditions can meet and connect with each other.
One spectacular example of these religious gatekeepers of Appalachian communities is Rick Bunn, the builder and caretaker of the Ura shrine in Tennessee.
Rick’s largely Shintoist shrine is a sacred hub for religious communities that oft have no other place of worship. Such visitors include Cherokee groups, Wiccans, Witches, Druids, Nordics, Necromancers, Vodouists, Hoodouists, paranormal research teams, Catholics, and many more.
As a host, Rick is charismatic and accepting of people from various faiths. However, people like Rick are hard to find in rural Appalachian communities since most practitioners of non-Christian religions in Appalachia are not generally accepted in society.
However, you might be surprised by how many people you meet day-to-day are practitioners of self-defined faiths that diverge from the popular mainstream.
Whether we choose to accept and nurture the religious diversity of the Appalachian region or choose to tailor it to national standards is ultimately up to each of us.
However, religious differences and variety have long given Appalachia a distinct cultural identity that expresses its peoples’ determination, independence, diversity, and wisdom. Encouraging the long-lived self-definition of the region will continue to keep Appalachia different from the rest of the nation.
