James Hudnut-Beumler remembers taking road trips to visit his father’s family in southern Ohio. On the ride home to Michigan, he and his brother would imitate the unfamiliar “twanging accents” of their relatives. Today Hudnut-Beumler teaches American religious history at Vanderbilt University and considers himself “a student of southern religion and culture.”
Based on a decade of interviews and observations, the book gives an overview of contemporary southern Christianity. Hudnut-Beumler profiles several dozen ministries, movements, and churches. He begins by revisiting a tradition familiar to the South: celebrated southern hospitality.
