AHC: Anti-Slavery Baptists, Anti-Christian South

In the whole "Make the South the North and Vice Versa" in terms of religion thread, I suggested that based on some reading I did a while back, there were many anti-slavery Baptists whose views were not widely accepted in the antebellum South but there were pro-slavery Baptists who were.

So how can we make it so the Baptist churches, rather than being widespread in the South per OTL, remain anti-slavery and are consequently restricted to the slaves and poor whites when they're not driven out entirely? Bonus points if most of the South reacts to that by viewing the Baptist churches--and ultimately Christianity itself--as a slave religion.

(I imagine they'd remain Episcopalian and Presbyterian for longer, but if their attitudes harden, it might become very nominal.)

Making things go as far as the world of the Draka where the master class becomes overtly atheist and Christianity is viewed as something suspicious and subversive might be tricky in the 18th/19th Century U.S., but if the POD goes back to the Great Awakening(s), that might be surprisingly doable.
 
Near ASB as Christianity is WAY too ingrained in Western Culture by this late date. Southerners would merely choose a different Protestant sect to follow or create their own.
 

Jasen777

Donor
A large segment of the upper class was deist or Unitarian at one point, and it could be possible for that to be even more the case and for that to turn into atheism eventually. But the majority of the population would likely be low church protestant of some type.
 
A large segment of the upper class was deist or Unitarian at one point, and it could be possible for that to be even more the case and for that to turn into atheism eventually. But the majority of the population would likely be low church protestant of some type.

Not in the South.....unless you mean Virginia.
 

Jasen777

Donor
Not in the South.....unless you mean Virginia.

I was thinking quite early, like the Revolutionary period. It's true it was more the case in Virginia than the rest of the South (if you don't count Maryland), but Virginia had more population than the rest of the South together and likely at least a similar share of the upper class. And of course it isn't easy to tell who's a deist and who's merely a disinterested Anglican.
 
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