BOOKS BY BRUCE T. GOURLEY
Yellowstone National Park / Montana
Historic Yellowstone National Park: The Stories Behind the World’s First National Park (Rowman & Littlefield / Globe Pequot / Lyons Press, December 2021).
From ancient times to the present-day, an all-new history of America’s first national park. Shaped by primordial geological forces, a remote land of intrigue for thousands of years, and for more than a century-and-a-half one of Earth’s greatest natural marvels, the history of Wonderland is an inspiring story of wilderness and human spirit alike. Order your copy here.
Images of America: Belgrade, Manhattan, Amsterdam and Churchill (Montana). “To Gallatin County they came, entrepreneurs and immigrant families alike, lured by new opportunities and abundant land west of Bozeman.” Written in conjunction with the Gallatin History Museum (formerly Pioneer Museum of Bozeman), Montana. Published in 2011 by Arcadia Publishing. Order your copy of Images of America: Belgrade, Manhattan, Amsterdam and Churchill (Montana).
American Civil War
Crucible of Faith and Freedom: Baptists and the American Civil War is a “skillfully rendered” month-to-month war-time examination of “the diverse experiences of black and white denominationalists buffeted by the winds of war yet moored by their faith to any number of local, state, and regional loyalties.” (Journal of Southern Religion) Published by Nurturing Faith, 2015. Order your copy of Crucible of Faith and Freedom: Baptists and the American Civil War.
Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the American Civil War “succeeds on every level” (Journal of Southern History) and “is an engrossing, enlightening exploration of our nation’s greatest trauma, as seen through the eyes of a unique source: that is, the Baptist community of one southern state.” (Civil War Monitor) “[T]his is essential reading for scholars interested in religion and the Civil War, southern religious history, and Baptist history.” (Journal of Southern Religion) Published by Mercer University Press, 2011. Order your copy of Diverging Loyalties.
Southern Religion
A Journey of Faith and Community: The Story of the First Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia (recipient of the Georgia Archives/University of Georgia Award for Local History Advocacy) is a cultural, social and religious history of the church that hosted the formative meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination devoted to the cause of African slavery. “The strength of the book rests in the author’s ability to weave the church’s story into larger local and national narratives” while it also “serves as an introduction to those interested in the history of Baptists in America, particularly to those interested in southern religious history.” (Journal of Southern History) Published by Mercer University Press, 2017. Order your copy of A Journey of Faith and Community.
Baptists Today at 30: Enabling, Recording and Shaping a Baptist Movement is the story of a national, independent, autonomous progressive news publication founded in reaction to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Baptists Today (now Nurturing Faith) represents the historic progressive and freedom principles of the Baptist community. Published by Baptists Today, 2013.
Leading the Way for 200 Years: The Story of the First Baptist Church of Huntsville, Alabama, 1809-2009 is an examination of a pioneering church in the Deep South. This volume was runner-up for the 2010 Clinton Jackson Coley Book Award of the Alabama Historical Association. Published by the Baptist History and Heritage Society and Fields Publishing, 2009. Purchase a copy.
The Godmakers: A Legacy of the Southern Baptist Convention is an early examination of the politicization and decline of the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination of Baptists taken over by fundamentalists in the 1980s and 1990s. Purchase a copy.
Colonial Religion
Witnesses to the Baptist Heritage: Thirty Baptists Every Christian Should Know is a biographical compilation of significant Baptist figures in the history of the Baptist denomination. Bruce contributed the chapter on John Clarke, co-founder of the Rhode Island colony, author of Rhode Island’s 1663 charter establishing religious liberty for all and church state separation, and Baptist minister. Published by Mercer University Press, 2016. Order your copy of Witnesses to the Baptist Heritage.
A Capsule History of Baptists is a brief accounting of the four-century story of the Baptist denomination, with particular emphasis on Baptists of America. Early Baptists were leading advocates of freedom of conscience for all, equal religious liberty for all, and church state separation. Over time, however, some Baptists strayed from their historical principles. Order you copy of A Capsule History of Baptists.