As Mathews recounts, most historians have neglected theology and religion to explain the causes of lynching. White's fundamental idea is to see the determining importance of white supremacy which views lynching not only as a defense of gender and social norms, but also as a divinely certified act. While Orlando Patterson, in Rituals of Blood, initially extended White's connection between theology and violence by asserting that white southerners attempted to atone for their sins by lynching African Americans, Mathews provides a better extension of White reinforcing its connection to how revivalist fanaticism itself worked. in sacrifice and