The man they call "the conscience of Alabama" is at a moral crossroads.

Wayne Flynt, the Alabama historian and author, knows his home state as well as any doctor knows a patient. And yet he is as perplexed as anyone by the fury over bingo - a raging debate in Alabama that has dominated the political landscape and gripped the state at its highest levels of government.

"The ferocity of it is amusing, given our history," he said. "Gambling has always been popular - perhaps even universal - in Alabama, just as it is in other parts of the South."

Flynt, a retired Auburn University history professor, said riverboat gambling was prevalent in Alabama in the antebellum era.

Gambling proceeds, he said, provided early funding for state schools, including Mobile's Barton Academy, the first public school in Alabama. When construction of the Government Street landmark stalled for lack of money in 1836, the state Legislature approved a lottery that helped pay for its completion.

But like so many issues in Alabama, the roots of the current debate trace back to the Civil War, according to Flynt. Southerners, he said, agonized to understand why the Confederacy was defeated.

"They truly believed that God was on their side. And so when they lost, they asked 'Why, God? What did we do to anger You?'" Flynt said. "They came up with vices - gambling, alcohol, prostitution. And they developed a religion based on all these things we shouldn't be doing."

That fundamentalist seed, he said, sprouted into the modern Alabama Baptist church that today claims one in four Alabamians and nearly two out of every three church members.

"Baptists dominate Alabama as few religious groups do in any state," Flynt wrote in Alabama Baptists, his 1998 history of the denomination.

While Gov. Bob Riley and Attorney General Troy King - a pair of devout Baptists - debate the legality of the electronic bingo machines that have proliferated across the state, it is religion - not the law - that is at the heart of the crisis, Flynt said.

Flynt himself is a longtime member of Auburn First Baptist Church. He said he's discussed the gambling issue in his Sunday school class and that he recently reached a conclusion that put him at odds with most of the church's congregation.

Flynt said he agrees with religious leaders who say casinos prey on the poor, contribute to political corruption and discourage the values of hard work and thrift.

"For all those reasons and many more, I oppose gambling," he said. "But I grieve over the inequities of poverty and poor schools that have plagued our state for generations. I believe we have a moral obligation to do something about it. But we are such an anti-tax state, I don't know where you get the money to fix anything."

That puts Flynt in a quandary over bingo.

"If you approach it from a moral standpoint, it's just not as simple as it might seem," he said. "There are times in life when you accept something as a necessary evil - war would be a good example, or capital punishment - and there are times when you're forced to choose the least bad of several alternatives."

"If I sound ambivalent, it's because I am. But I suppose if gambling can be part of the solution, then I'm willing to consider it."

Political Editor George Talbot's column runs on Wednesdays. He can be reached at 251-219-5623 or gtalbot@press-register.com.