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Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. "The Presbyterian and Orthodox Idiosyncrasy of Mind"; 2. Navigating by the "Pole-Star": The Engagement with Modernity; 3. A "New and Frisky Science": Race, Religion, and the Response to Anthropology; 4. The Fidelity of a "Handmaid": Genesis and Geology in the Presbyterian South; 5. "A Revolution in Our Church": Founding and Filling the Perkins Professorship; 6. "The Serpent-Trail of Rationalism"; 7. "A Crown Pure and Bright": The Southern Presbyterian Evolution Controversy; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Storm of Words is a study of the ways that southern Presbyterians in the wake of the Civil War contended with a host of cultural and theological questions, chief among them developments in natural history and evolution. Southern Presbyterian theologians enjoyed a prominent position in antebellum southern culture. Respected for both their erudition and elite constituency, these theologians identified the southern society as representing a divine, Biblically ordained order. Beginning in the 1840s, however, this facile identification became more difficult to maintain, colliding.

Includes bibliographical references and index.