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“The People Are Kind: A Religious History of Iowa,” the first book from Clutier author Bill Douglas, is out now and published through Wipf and Stock.
CLUTIER — Bill Douglas is a student of history, especially in Iowa, but as recently as seven years ago, he had never read a comprehensive account of the state’s religions and how they grew and spread. So, naturally, he set out to write one on his own.
The result is “The People Are Kind: A Religious History of Iowa,” which is published through Wipf and Stock and now widely available through major online booksellers. The son of an electrical engineer turned Presbyterian missionary, Douglas moved around the country — and even to Brazil — as a kid before finishing high school at Tri-County of Thornburg about an hour and a half south of here, and he eventually worked his way toward a master’s degree in history from the University of Iowa after finishing his undergraduate studies at Sterling College in Kansas.
“I think it was a combination of being curious about Iowa and growing up in a religious environment — but also, I think, growing up in an environment where we were not the majority religion, in Brazil and El Paso as well,” he said of his interest in the topic and the eventual inspiration for his book.
Post college, he spent about a decade working in political organizing before deciding he wanted to get back into history and supporting himself through jobs delivering phonebooks, newspapers and Meals on Wheels. Although he had spent most of his adult life in Des Moines, Douglas got involved with his now wife, Waterloo native and former Cedar Falls resident Barbara Morrison, several years ago, and as they looked for a town to live in between their two residences, they eventually settled on the Tama County community of around 200 people and moved there together in 2020.
Recalling a book he found in a college library, Douglas said he was surprised by the amount of religious diversity in Iowa and wanted to dive deeper into how it got that way. He did find books providing histories of individual denominations, but nothing was as comprehensive as what he set out to create.
“A lot of it is just culling secondary sources, but I tried to combine that with original research that I’d done in the past too,” he said. “But, you know, it’s 400 pages, it took some work.”
When Iowans think of the state’s unique religious traditions and proudest practitioners, obvious examples like the Dutch Reformed communities of Pella and Orange City, the Mennonites of Kalona and the Inspirationists of the Amana Colonies come to mind. But Douglas discovered other interesting factoids in his research, including that one of the only Norwegian Quaker churches in the U.S., the Stavanger Friends Church, lives on to this day in eastern Marshall County just south of Le Grand — those who started it, according to Douglas, were POWs in London during the Napoleonic Wars who converted after being visited by Quaker missionaries and found their new beliefs weren’t accepted back in Norway. Marshalltown was also home to the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church comprised of men and women who had moved north from Alabama.
Of course, due to the increasing ethnic diversity of places like Marshalltown and Tama-Toledo in the 21st century, new religions such as Theravada Dhamma Buddhism — largely due to the influx of refugees from Myanmar/Burma — have gained a foothold here, with one of the largest Buddha statues in the country situated east of Marshalltown just off of Highway 30.
“21st century Buddhists are a lot like 19th century Lutherans. They organize around different nationalities,” Douglas said. “I’m sure it’s separated some by theology too… but mostly by nationality.”
Because so many religious groups came to Iowa at the same time after white settlement, Douglas said it was difficult for one to gain a foothold, so worshippers of many stripes were forced to cooperate with each other. But there were also signs of future liberal-conservative splits based on which religion became popular in a given area.
When asked about the target audience for the book, Douglas, who describes himself as “basically a Presbyterian,” didn’t feel a reader needed to be pious to find value in “The People Are Kind” as long as they’re curious. The book is out now, and it will be available at the Des Moines Public Library with more to come in the future — because his wife is the president of the Clutier Public Library board, he thinks he has a pretty good chance there.
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