By 1860, one in eight residents of Kentucky, age ten and older, was a Baptist, an ecclesiastical dynamic that Richard C. Traylor believes has been overlooked or understudied by scholars of American religion. Traylor, professor of history at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas, helps to remedy that situation in this fine volume that began as his doctoral dissertation at the University of Missouri–Columbia. His analysis centers around “the Baptist impulse,” a “holistic view” of the distinguishing marks of Baptist identity evident specifically in the region of Kentucky (7). This identity persisted in the public act of baptismal immersion and the idea of a believer's church, with membership that required direct encounter with God's grace through personal conversion. Such egalitarian religious experience proved foundational for Baptist antiestablishmentarian concerns for religious liberty. Yet individual experience was inseparable from membership in a specific congregation that validated conversion before administering baptism. This congregational impulse of Baptist life included a sense of a divine “call” for ministers, also confirmed by the congregation through licensing and ordination. This impulse, Traylor believes, reflects “the movement's fluid structure and democratic spirit” (7). Born of Water & Spirit makes Kentucky, 1776–1860, a demographic and ecclesiastical case study in the evolution of an American Protestant communion moving from sect to denomination.

Traylor identifies multiple elements that inform that Baptist impulse, beginning with conversion, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. He introduces those topics by recounting the spiritual trajectory of John Taylor, one of Kentucky Baptists’ most famous pastors, whose written works provide insight into nineteenth-century beliefs and practices. Taylor's religious experience reflected a common morphology, evident among Calvinist-oriented Baptists, whose theology of conversion received considerable modification in the revivalistic ethos of the frontier. Traylor documents the relationship between individual conversion and congregational assessment of that experience as essential requirements for all who sought baptism and church membership. Beyond those larger issues, Traylor touches on the logistics of outdoor baptism, debates regarding open and closed communion, and questions surrounding the “line of accountability” when young people became responsible for their own sinful nature.

Traylor provides valuable descriptions of processes for assessing ministerial call, “licensing” as a trial phase, and ordination as its congregational confirmation. He acknowledges the existence of the classic “farmer-preacher” model, but correctly identifies other bi-vocational options for nineteenth-century Kentucky reverends. He also gives attention to the impact of Baptist pro-revival “New Lights,” whose preaching was enthusiastic, but hesitated to give too much emphasis to “enthusiastical” outbursts and emotional excesses that fell upon sinners and converts alike.

Turning to church polity, the book focuses on Baptists’ democratic congregationalism and ecclesial organization. Traylor writes that “if populist religious movements require localized, institutional expressions of faith, then the early Baptists were preeminently populist” (70). He traces the growth of church associations, and the rise of Baptist denominational connectionalism, even as churches worked, often obsessively, to protect local autonomy. The book also explores the nature of church discipline, and the way it was meted out both to promote Christian discipleship and to protect the congregational reputation. Alas, the research from Kentucky suggests that such discipline often deteriorated into pettiness and could divide as readily as unite. Baptist polity meant that new congregations could be formed relatively easily from such divisions.

Chapters on women's roles in Baptist churches, and Baptists’ response to race and racism, are particularly insightful. Traylor explores the growth of the “cult of true womanhood,” that sphere that empowered women in areas of homemaking and piety, but demanded they remain “subject” to the “biblical” order of home and church. Influenced by the work of Christine Heyrman and other scholars, he describes and reflects upon the dichotomy between claims of conversionistic egalitarianism and boundaries set by the woman's sphere. His discussion of the person and work of Sallie R. Ford, a woman often overlooked by historians, is particularly important. Her novel, Grace Truman, or Love and Principle, illustrates the way in which one Kentucky woman asserted Baptist orthodoxy, implicitly pushing boundaries as best she could.

Boundaries also characterized Kentucky Baptists’ response to issues of race and the presence of slaves and free blacks in their midst. Traylor uncovers no surprises but surveys the issues, the problems, and the racism that prevailed amid conversionist language and shared religious experience. He details conversion stories from slaves; the calling and ordination of black preachers; the use of church discipline for and against enslaved church members; and the actions of Baptist abolitionists, particularly David Barrow and the “Baptized Licking Locust Association.” The book offers important information regarding the rise of separate black congregations, along with the enduring efforts to promote racial inferiority with “biblical” and “scientific” proofs.

Traylor concludes with observations on the movement of Kentucky Baptists into denominational and cultural respectability, through an emphasis on an educated ministry, formidable church buildings, and community status. Yet throughout much of the book, he is careful to note internal dissent and schism within the Baptist family, whether in Landmark efforts to distinguish Baptists as the “one true church,” or Stone-Campbell Restorationism that took many entire congregations into the “Christians only” camp. His study gives serious attention to “Primitivist” divisions regarding denominational systems, revivals, and deviations from strict Calvinist approaches to the infused grace of conversion for the elect. I am particularly grateful for his use of the term “primitivism” to describe such orthodox Calvinist-Baptists, rather than the pejorative “hyper-Calvinist” designation used by older histories and historians. He might have given a bit more attention to the idea of a Believers’ Church as central to Baptist identity—an uncoerced faith with implications for conscience and religious liberty. Well-documented and well written, Born of Water & Spirit provides valuable insights into the nature and message of the Baptist impulse in and beyond Kentucky.