Review by Choice Review
Only a few academic specialists know the name of Alexander Garden, the rector of Charles Town's St. Phillips Church and the commissary for the Church of England in South Carolina from the 1720s to the 1750s. His career mattered, and not simply because of his angry opposition to the Great Awakening and George Whitefield. Rather, as an ambitious man of faith, Garden secured ecclesiastical success and social respectability in the polite society of pre-Revolutionary Charles Town. And the secret of his success mattered greatly. Latitudinarian in his theology, Gardner defended the slaveholding social order dominated by genteel society, earning its trust and respect. He successfully obtained access to their enslaved people, founding and operating a school for them in which African Americans did the teaching. He achieved this by marrying the tenets of the Anglican faith to the practices of the gentry-dominated society, not demanding a change of social institutions but insisting on humane practices within them. After the Great Stono Rebellion, especially, he positioned his church as a bulwark against insurrection from slaves and enthusiastic common whites. Tragically, this marriage nurtured and justified a pro-slavery society. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Edward R. Crowther, emeritus, Adams State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
