Shenandoah Religion asks why some Protestant denominations remained on the fringes of society while others sank slowly into the mainstream culture. By surveying the religiously pluralistic setting of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Shenandoah Valley, Longenecker reveals how the fabric of American pluralism was woven as different peoples with different cultural practices, economies, politics, and beliefs interacted and learned not only how to accommodate but also how to define more sharply their own identities. Calling worldliness the "mainstream" and otherworldliness, "outsiderness," Longenecker describes the transition certain denominations made in becoming mainstream and the resistance of others in maintaining distinctive dress, manners, social relations, economies, and apolitical viewpoints that separated members from the material world. Shenandoah Religion concludes that those faith communities that defined outsiderness so that it affected the daily lives of their followers stood the best chance of resisting the mainstream.
Longenecker's regional study will appeal to those interested in the fascinating quiltwork of cultures that made up the Shenandoah Valley region. His analysis of Protestant responses to the broader culture during this formative period in American history will be of interest to historians of the American South and scholars of American religion.