The Beauty of Holiness

“This masterful study clearly demonstrates how the understanding of religious experience is enriched by moving beyond analysis of belief systems to explore the added dimenisons of material culture and lived religion. Highly recommended.” — CHOICE

“Drawing on extensive field notes, appropriating useful insights from interdisciplinary perspectives, commanding the primary and secondary literatures, and displaying verve in style, Nelson’s volume should become a standard point of reference for anyone interested in South Carolina Anglicanism and its material culture.” — South Carolina Historical Magazine

“The Beauty of Holiness is an ambitiously conceived, richly imagined study that places South Carolina’s colonial churches at the intersection of formal theology and popular culture. Louis Nelson shows us memorable buildings filled with communion silver, textiles, furnishings, and books, surrounded by tombs and gravestones and animated by formal liturgy, personal devotional practices, interdenominational debate, and social rivalry. This is the best history of American churches yet written.” — Dell Upton, University of California, Los Angeles

“Bringing together architectural, social, and religious history with equal fluency, Nelson reconstructs the life of the Church of England in colonial South Carolina. His scholarship is remarkable. He has mined archives in the American South, the West Indies, and Great Britain, and illustrates his analysis with an extensive array of his own high quality photographs. The Beauty of Holiness is a work of both historical value and captivating visual interest.” — Peter W. Williams, author of Houses of God: Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States