Twainiacs;

Does Realism as a movement have roots in religion/Christianity?

In general I am interested in your thoughts on the religious or Christian
presuppositions of Realism, if any.  I have a strong sense that there are
some, but find little on this approach in the literature.  Perhaps some of
you know more, such as on Howells and his flirtation with social
Christianity etc.

There is a nice final chapter at the end of Joseph Coulombe's recent book,
_MT and the American West_, which describes Twain's influence on Willa
Cather.  To some extent Coulombe does begin to sketch out what I am after
here.  Cather was --like me-- very taken with Twain's use of sympathy, a
mostly Christian term (contextually) in the 19th-C.

Thanks for any ideas on this,

Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Saint Louis University