The American tragedy of slavery and the Civil War provides the backdrop for the exemplary spirituality of Atticus Haygood (1839–1896). The son of a Georgia slaveholder, Haygood served as a chaplain in the Confederate army. At the War’s end, he returned to Atlanta to suffer poverty and humiliation under the martial law of conquerors. His spirituality developed as a positive response to the chaos of Reconstruction. Following a mid-life transformation, he earned a national reputation as a progressive Southerner and crusader for the rights and education of former slaves. As a Southern Methodist clergyman, Haygood blended the ideals of evangelism and the social gospel, envisioning an America in which Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites joined together to build the Kingdom of God. His spirituality evolved to the “universalizing” pinnacle of James Fowler’s stages of faith, a perspective from which all persons—regardless of race, status, and place of birth—participate as equals in fellowship with a just and loving deity.
References
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[2]
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[3]
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[10]
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[11]
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[12]
A.G. Haygood. The Man of Galilee. Nashville, TN, USA: Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South, 1889.
[13]
A.G. Haygood. Go or Send: A Plea for Missions. Nashville, TN, USA: Publishing House of the M.E. Church South, 1874.
[14]
H.R. Niebuhr. The Kingdom of God in America. New York, NY, USA: Harper & Row, 1959. originally published in 1937.
[15]
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[16]
A.G. Haygood. Pleas for Progress. New York, NY, USA: Phillips & Hunt, 1889. reprinted by Book Renaissance, n. d..
[17]
J.W. Fowler. Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. San Francisco, CA, USA: Harper & Row, 1981.
