GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION

What emerged from all of the input from the “outside world” as it encountered the folk based Christianity in the mountains, was a form of Evangelism that has become storied for its emotionalism, its music, and its sentiment. Like so many things that are a part of the world of the mountain pioneer, the outside world often laughs at it; yet there is something refreshingly honest in the still current belief that becoming a “Christian” is an ongoing personal struggle with attaining perfection, and not something you establish as an identity once, and then rest on it.

Wiki, of course, has something to say about this: