Glory Bumps

This chapter provides an extended inquiry into the psychodynamics of southern gospel. It identifies a reciprocal process of sentimental exchange in the music that sustains a surreptitious modernity within a fundamentalist culture. This dynamic operates just beneath the surface of consensus about the music and about evangelicalism as a structure of belief. Methodologically, the chapter draws on literary critical readings of song lyrics in relation to analysis of live performance and the music's fan culture. It shows how the music allows the individual to confront feelings of doubt, insecurity, fear, isolation, and general spiritual discontent—even or especially when these feelings might contradict orthodox doctrine—without ever putting the individual in direct, public conflict with orthodoxy. Ultimately, this chapter demonstrates how a shaky but workable pluralism takes hold within evangelical fundamentalism.