The Denominational Diversity within early America, I stumbled across a fascinating article about the sect of Radical Pietism within the Backcountry of South Carolina, known as Weberites. Written from a secularist viewpoint, nonetheless Professor Moore does a decent job of maintaining objectivity.  In the article he is building upon previous research into the death of William Richardson, where Moore makes an interesting discovery from investigating personal accounts written by notable ministers of the post Seven Years Wars period (1760-1775). In the article, Moore delves into the relationship between the isolation of Backcountry colonists, the mental stressors, and the influence of Radical Christian sects that found a following along the fringes of more established coastal regions. Moore makes a compelling case that the Backcountry was not isolated from the evangelical trends developing within the colonies and these sects had their roots firmly planted within radical European Christian movements, in the Weberite case dating back to the middle ages. Thus, Moore’s scholarly observations call into question the isolation narrative argued by Mark Noll and others.

Bibliography

Lambert, Robert Stansbury. South Carolina Loyalists in the American Revolution. Clemson, SC: Clemson University Digital Press, 2010.

Moore, Peter N. “The Mysterious Death of William Richardson: Kinship, Female Vulnerability, and the Myth of Supernaturalism in the Southern Backcountry.” The North Carolina Historical Review 80, no. 3 (July 2003): 279–96. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23522870?seq=1.

__________ “‘Religious Radicalism in the Colonial Southern Backcountry.” Journal of Backcountry Studies 1, no. 2 (October 2006). http://libjournal.uncg.edu/jbc/issue/view/14.

Noll, Mark A. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019.