"Up From Methodism. A Memoir of a Man Gone to the Devil"

It's hard not to like Up From Methodism. Well, for me it is easy. Yes, it was written in the 1920s (and recently reprinted in paperback), and yes there is a tinge of vernacular than would fall on the political incorrect list (and others certainly fell on the same list back then). But when you grow up in a strong, strong Christan community - that is Christian with a emblazoned "C" - he had some standing to counter his up-bringing, fraught with bigotry, hypocrisy, and irrationality - all of the religious kind. "I became increasingly annoyed not only by the mental mannerisms of these people" he twanged in that southern intellect, "but their physical mannerisms as well. Not only did they walk as if their soles were greased, sliding and slipping about, but they talked as if their tongues were greased also. Their language was oily; they poured out their words unctuously, with much roundabout phrasing and unnecessary language."

Growing up in small town Missouri was trying for many people. Jobs were hard to come by, communities harder to fit in. There were rules to living here or there, even if they weren't written. And if you didn't believe,...I mean BELIEVE...well, there was no hope for you; but not for want of trying. "Religion poured down my throat in dose that strangled me and made me sick of the soul" Asbury laments. What ever religion he had was soon choked out of him. Old time Methodism was at the fore for prim and proper to the nth degree. An atmosphere today we would describe as not only strict, but cultish as well.

Up From Methodism is a knee-slappingly painful (if those two descriptors can be slapped together) picture of a struggle for being. One full of preaching, sin governed by mere mortals, or hell fire damnation. With a smile and a twinkle, Asbury triumphs: "Without religion I thoroughly enjoy the business of living". And in that all so rare slap-stick repertoire familiar to readers of H. L. Menchken (commentator, among other trophy's, of the Scopes trial, another southern, rural debacle), Up From Methodism at least - the very least - provides the last laugh of irrationality. "[F]ew things can destroy religion quicker than a hearty giggle." Amen.
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