AHC: Make the Northern US a Bible Belt and the South similar to USA's North

The Battle of Chancellorsville goes even worse for the Union initially and when all seems lost a regiment rallies and turns around. Inspired some more regiments rally until a large Union force is able to smash into the left flank of the Confederate Army. It panics and runs which rallies more Union troops and panics Confederate troops. Overextended the Confederate Army is smashed to pieces. The regiment's religious and charismatic col claims to have seen a vision from God himself and it was God himself that saved the Union. This becomes a legend in the Union Army and many Union soldiers become more devout.

Meanwhile the idea that God has abandoned them or that God doesn't exist at all becomes more prevalent in the South. The idea is that the CSA ideals were righteous and that if God existed the CSA would have won with his help.
 
What POD could create this? Extra Points for a post-civil war POD.

It depends on what you mean by "Bible Belt." If you mean socially conservative and religious, then having a heavier and more wide-spread level of Catholic immigration in the North should achieve the first part.
 
It´s difficult cause it´s essentially a city/rural thing. Rural areas tend to me more conservative, and the south is more rural than the north.

You´d need to really screw up the north I think. And then find a way to bring the industries and commerce more south.
 

JoeMulk

Banned
It depends on what you mean by "Bible Belt." If you mean socially conservative and religious, then having a heavier and more wide-spread level of Catholic immigration in the North should achieve the first part.

Catholics would have been against that. It's the New England puritans that would make the region more bible thumping.
 
I think the answer here is more recent...do remember that the old trick to imply that something was scandalous was to get it banned in Boston, and that it was New York's Anthony Comstock for whom the Comstock Act was named.

Likewise, a lot of your "Bible belt" contains cases of people protesting a bit too much (a casual drive down I-95 in South Carolina tends to suggest this). Abortions were also illegal in almost all states until the 60s...outside the deep, deep South (IIRC, Mississippi had a fairly liberal abortion law well before Roe, while NY and CA had only just "jumped on the bandwagon").

I think a post-Civil War PoD is quite doable in many regards...but I think you have to peg at what point the old-line socially conservative strain really started collapsing in the Northeast (not to mention why it reversed so dramatically) and tweak that.
 
My high-school history book described how the Baptists became popular, especially in the South, during either the First or Second Great Awakenings.

(I really cannot remember which.)

Given how the Baptist churches are the ones most associated with the "Bible Belt" and are quite strong down here, you'll need a POD to get the Baptists rejected in the South or get them to go north instead.

IIRC many early Baptists were anti-slavery and this wasn't cool, but Baptists who were pro-slavery were accepted.

Keep the pro-slavery Baptists away or keep the anti-slavery Baptists from "selling out" and you might make it so the Baptist churches are too associated with the anti-slavery cause to be widely accepted in the South. The areas that were pro-Union in the Civil War might be strongly Baptist, as well as the slaves, but it wouldn't be accepted by the pro-slavery majority.

Heck, Baptists were actually persecuted in Virginia during the Colonial period. You might see persecutions of Baptists continuing on the grounds of them stirring up "servile insurrection" or some other nonsense.

Hmm...perhaps in response, the master class and the lower-class whites allied to them start rejecting Christianity entirely, claiming it's a slave religion.

However, just because the religiosity is toned down doesn't mean they'll be any more liberal on race or other issues than OTL--they could just as easily disdain homosexuality because's unmanly (well, for men at least) or disgusting rather than it being sinful.
 
Over the Venezuela crisis in 1895, the U.S. goes to war with Great Britain. A ludicrously unprepared U.S. gets invaded by the British in the north, leading to widespread destruction of industry. The democrats are humiliated for this defeat, leading to William Jennings Bryan and his populists starting a liberal new southern party. In the north, T.R. has been killed in the British invasion, leading the Republican party to become more isolationist, and over time religious. the Populists manage to get the U.S. to fight on Germany's side in an World War 1 analogue. The move is horribly unpopular, and with the second failed american invasion of Canada, New England turns even more conservative and religious. After the war, a line of puttering Republican presidents make the U.S. even more Christian, until with the great depression the Populists, under President Morgenthau, ensure that they are the great nonreligious party of the south. The north in turn becomes more and more religious.
 
I'd say its partially down to the rural-urban thing, as mentioned above, but also down to the differing amounts of immigration. Immigration has a tendency to make a place much more tolerant and less judgmental to other ideas, providing separate communities are not formed.
 
Over the Venezuela crisis in 1895, the U.S. goes to war with Great Britain. A ludicrously unprepared U.S. gets invaded by the British in the north, leading to widespread destruction of industry. The democrats are humiliated for this defeat, leading to William Jennings Bryan and his populists starting a liberal new southern party. In the north, T.R. has been killed in the British invasion, leading the Republican party to become more isolationist, and over time religious. the Populists manage to get the U.S. to fight on Germany's side in an World War 1 analogue. The move is horribly unpopular, and with the second failed american invasion of Canada, New England turns even more conservative and religious. After the war, a line of puttering Republican presidents make the U.S. even more Christian, until with the great depression the Populists, under President Morgenthau, ensure that they are the great nonreligious party of the south. The north in turn becomes more and more religious.

1895 is WAY too late for this. By this time the US is far too populous and built up. The British can not possibly afford such a war as it would be expensive beyond belief. Its very profitable trade is instantly cut off and all its valuable American assets seized by the US government and sold. You could NEVER get Parliament to sign off on this. It would cost FAR MORE than Venezuela is worth.
 

Jasen777

Donor
The North was the Bible Belt in most respects until the aftermath of the Civil War. After that a lot of the northern churches moderated a bit and the South got more considerably more religious.
 

Castlereagh

Banned
However, just because the religiosity is toned down doesn't mean they'll be any more liberal on race or other issues than OTL--they could just as easily disdain homosexuality because's unmanly (well, for men at least) or disgusting rather than it being sinful.

So basically the Draka in the South? :cool:
 

pnyckqx

Banned
What POD could create this? Extra Points for a post-civil war POD.
Have Charles Finney re-locate in the south for reasons of health. The burned over district moves with him.

Of course the Southern Presbyterians might not be as gullible as their Northern counterparts, and Finney's Lawyer BS doesn't get him through the examination for ministerial candidate.
 
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