In From Mounds to Megachurches, David S. Williams offers a sweeping overview of the role religion has played in Georgia’s history from precolonial days to the modern era.
Williams, director of UGA’s Honors Program and Meigs Professor of Religion, shows that colonial Georgia was a remarkably diverse place, populated by mainline colonial congregations that included Anglicans, Roman Catholics, German- and Spanish-speaking Jews, Salzburg Lutherans and Scottish Presbyterians.
It wasn’t until much later that evangelicalism triumphed and Baptists became the overwhelmingly dominant denomination.
Recently, Georgians have seen racial, ethnic and religious diversity grow as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i and other communities have settled in the state.
Williams explores how Georgians have dealt with contemporary issues of tolerance and how, at times, the state has taken center stage in the nation’s culture wars.
Firmly rooting religious history in a social, cultural and political context, Williams presents a representative and balanced account of Georgia’s religious heritage.