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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
What happens when professing Christians who also profess to hold the authority in the Bible in high esteem have diametrically opposing views of slavery based on those very Scriptures? Does God speak from both sides of his mouth? Who is right and by what authority and hermeneutic? According to historian, Mark Noll, what you have is a national theological crisis. This book examines those opposing arguments and also includes the critiques (even support) of slavery and the Civil War from outside the US, protestant and Roman Catholic. The examination of outsider views was very interesting. Unfortunately Noll believes that once the war was over, the theological crisis regarding scriptural interpretation and public ethics, i.e. the prevalent racism, was left unaddressed.
In the last chapter "Retrospect and Prospect," Noll writes, "In addition, the United States has been spared, at least to the present, further shooting wars caused by the kind of strong but religiously divided self-assurance that fueled the Civil War. The republican traditions of liberty and the strong commitments to procedural democracy that have continued in this more secular America have also done a great deal of good at home and abroad."I couldn't help but contrast this statement with the events of January 6, 2021 and the attempted insurrection at the Capitol. One side, in particular, was invoking the "sanction" of God to overthrow procedural democracy.
Noll's observations are worth considering because we may very well be in the midst of our own theological crisis. Was it caused by not addressing the crisis of biblical authority during and after the Civil War? I don't know, but history does have a way of repeating itself.
In the last chapter "Retrospect and Prospect," Noll writes, "In addition, the United States has been spared, at least to the present, further shooting wars caused by the kind of strong but religiously divided self-assurance that fueled the Civil War. The republican traditions of liberty and the strong commitments to procedural democracy that have continued in this more secular America have also done a great deal of good at home and abroad."I couldn't help but contrast this statement with the events of January 6, 2021 and the attempted insurrection at the Capitol. One side, in particular, was invoking the "sanction" of God to overthrow procedural democracy.
Noll's observations are worth considering because we may very well be in the midst of our own theological crisis. Was it caused by not addressing the crisis of biblical authority during and after the Civil War? I don't know, but history does have a way of repeating itself.
informative
slow-paced
I’m a huge Noll fan; this one, like all his work, is deeply informative. It’s a bit dry, though, lacking the vibrancy of his other work.
I was really hoping this would be a good book but ultimately it was just okay. It’s more a scholarly work than a popular one and it’s fine so far as it goes, but to my way of thinking it gets bogged down in just chasing down what everyone thought of slavery in and around the Civil war. It could have been better with a tighter focus in my mind. Too much “scholarly distance.”
Remarkably enough the only one who really seemed to “get” the theology correct was not the southern theologians or the northern abolitionists but Abraham Lincoln himself.
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.”
Too bad no one was listening to him.
Remarkably enough the only one who really seemed to “get” the theology correct was not the southern theologians or the northern abolitionists but Abraham Lincoln himself.
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.”
Too bad no one was listening to him.
An interesting, though academic look at religion and the Civil War. He focused mostly how religion influenced and was influenced by the views on slavery, and how the view of God's providence responded to the long and bloody war. He deals clearly with the issues that theological problems that both north and south had in their view of slavery.
A very helpful book.
A very helpful book.
This book just blew me away and really challenged my thinking about religion, god, politics, and how my own opinions are formed. Broken into three parts (four if you include the Noll’s own opinion in the last chapter), this book really examined the theological ideas floating around and how people justified their own opinions on owning people and going to war.
The first part really dove into the theological crisis itself. The author makes the case that the American Revolution, and subsequently the Civil War, are the direct result of the Protestant Reformation (this is probably a gross over simplification on my part, but for the sake of conversation I’m going with it). With Protestantism encouraging a rejection of authority and the American Revolution doing likewise. This was reflected in the culture as well with a very individualistic view of practicing religion. That is, there was no one who could tell you what God wants or who He is or what His scripture says. That is all you.
So when the question of slavery really came to a head in the 1800s, there was a lot of chasing our tails. There was no authority to appeal to outside of oneself. We had one group saying that scripture clearly endorses slavery and another group pointing out that slavery clearly contradicts scripture. There were all kinds of subtle nuances in these arguments, too, that I had never heard before. On the anti-slavery side there was a Very wide range of opinions. I am kind of curious of the views on abolitionists that were expressed in this book. They were generally reviled on both sides and I never really got a good impression as to why the anti-slavery side didn’t like abolitionists either. Other opinions ranged from abolitionists to being ok with slavery but not wishing to participate. There was a real debate in the north about fugitive slave laws. The consensus seemed to be that one should not practice slavery, but many felt the bible clearly didn’t condemn it and had rules in it that encouraged returning slaves to their owners. It wasn’t this black and white (no pun intended) issue for them.
The second part of the book moved on to when the debates started to get more “scholarly”, with the anti-slavery side pointing out the historical and scriptural contexts of Old Testament slavery with condemnation on many sides about how racially motivated America’s version of slavery really was. But what struck me was the divide this direction of debating created. If you had to look at scholars to discover the historical and linguistic contexts of scripture that meant you had to submit to some authority that wasn’t God to tell you what scripture meant. To look at the historical context implies that the authors were human beings that we need to understand THEIR human culture in order to understand what they wrote. If it was written by God Himself that should transcend time and culture and we only need to go to God to get clarity on what His Scripture means (especially if you claim a “personal relationship” with Him). This divide, of course, could easily be represented geographically: the north and south.
The third part of the book really dealt with outside group’s responses with a chapter dedicated to Europe and another dedicated to Roman Catholicism. These were Super interesting chapters that I am not sure my summary here will be able to do any justice. It is interesting to get a totally outsider’s perspective because there are some things that are SUPER clear to them that are totally lost on the warring parties. It is very clear to them that both sides of the conflict are just twisting scripture to make it support their own side. It is also very clear to them how big of a problem racism is on both sides.
My own challenge was in the way I think about religion. The people in the south truly believed their scripture endorsed owning another human being (regardless of what others believe scripture does or does not endorse, these people believed it did). And instead of looking at that in revulsion they said, “that sounds like a great idea!”. Let’s imagine a totally different universe that is run by a malevolent god who requires cruelty and human blood sacrifices. This god is real and what he wants is true. I would not follow this god. Bringing that back home, I know a lot of people do not believe the bible Really endorses slavery, regardless let’s pretend it does. Let’s pretend it is true, there is a God who gave us this scripture which endorses the kind of slavery practiced in America before the Civil War. I would argue that people should not worship or serve such a God! Maybe that is a losing fight, I don’t know (me against a god?). I don’t know why, in this kind of universe, this god would give me the mental capacity to reason my way to find what it does so revolting.
This changes the conversation. If someone is trying to convince me that their religion, which endorses the owning of human beings, is true….. I don’t care. I do not care if it is true or not. Because if it is not, then it is not worth following. If it is true…. then it is not worth following.
I see a lot of people doing what happened in during the theological discussions of the Civil War. They have this image of a God that they want. A God that does or does not endorse slavery (or homosexuality or abortion or whatever your favorite theological concept is) as they want and then they work their damndest to twist whatever their favored religion is to fit their own ideas. Which makes sense, because WHAT IF this God disagrees with them? What if God does endorse slavery? What are you going to do? I’ve heard people (and have been that person) who say that He is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, so if He says it is right then it is. I would imagine that this is the reasoning of every religiously motivated atrocity ever committed. Because what happens when two people disagree as to what this “final arbiter” wants? How do we resolve that conflict? Are those the only two options, making God in your own image or conflicting over what God Really wants?
The first part really dove into the theological crisis itself. The author makes the case that the American Revolution, and subsequently the Civil War, are the direct result of the Protestant Reformation (this is probably a gross over simplification on my part, but for the sake of conversation I’m going with it). With Protestantism encouraging a rejection of authority and the American Revolution doing likewise. This was reflected in the culture as well with a very individualistic view of practicing religion. That is, there was no one who could tell you what God wants or who He is or what His scripture says. That is all you.
So when the question of slavery really came to a head in the 1800s, there was a lot of chasing our tails. There was no authority to appeal to outside of oneself. We had one group saying that scripture clearly endorses slavery and another group pointing out that slavery clearly contradicts scripture. There were all kinds of subtle nuances in these arguments, too, that I had never heard before. On the anti-slavery side there was a Very wide range of opinions. I am kind of curious of the views on abolitionists that were expressed in this book. They were generally reviled on both sides and I never really got a good impression as to why the anti-slavery side didn’t like abolitionists either. Other opinions ranged from abolitionists to being ok with slavery but not wishing to participate. There was a real debate in the north about fugitive slave laws. The consensus seemed to be that one should not practice slavery, but many felt the bible clearly didn’t condemn it and had rules in it that encouraged returning slaves to their owners. It wasn’t this black and white (no pun intended) issue for them.
The second part of the book moved on to when the debates started to get more “scholarly”, with the anti-slavery side pointing out the historical and scriptural contexts of Old Testament slavery with condemnation on many sides about how racially motivated America’s version of slavery really was. But what struck me was the divide this direction of debating created. If you had to look at scholars to discover the historical and linguistic contexts of scripture that meant you had to submit to some authority that wasn’t God to tell you what scripture meant. To look at the historical context implies that the authors were human beings that we need to understand THEIR human culture in order to understand what they wrote. If it was written by God Himself that should transcend time and culture and we only need to go to God to get clarity on what His Scripture means (especially if you claim a “personal relationship” with Him). This divide, of course, could easily be represented geographically: the north and south.
The third part of the book really dealt with outside group’s responses with a chapter dedicated to Europe and another dedicated to Roman Catholicism. These were Super interesting chapters that I am not sure my summary here will be able to do any justice. It is interesting to get a totally outsider’s perspective because there are some things that are SUPER clear to them that are totally lost on the warring parties. It is very clear to them that both sides of the conflict are just twisting scripture to make it support their own side. It is also very clear to them how big of a problem racism is on both sides.
My own challenge was in the way I think about religion. The people in the south truly believed their scripture endorsed owning another human being (regardless of what others believe scripture does or does not endorse, these people believed it did). And instead of looking at that in revulsion they said, “that sounds like a great idea!”. Let’s imagine a totally different universe that is run by a malevolent god who requires cruelty and human blood sacrifices. This god is real and what he wants is true. I would not follow this god. Bringing that back home, I know a lot of people do not believe the bible Really endorses slavery, regardless let’s pretend it does. Let’s pretend it is true, there is a God who gave us this scripture which endorses the kind of slavery practiced in America before the Civil War. I would argue that people should not worship or serve such a God! Maybe that is a losing fight, I don’t know (me against a god?). I don’t know why, in this kind of universe, this god would give me the mental capacity to reason my way to find what it does so revolting.
This changes the conversation. If someone is trying to convince me that their religion, which endorses the owning of human beings, is true….. I don’t care. I do not care if it is true or not. Because if it is not, then it is not worth following. If it is true…. then it is not worth following.
I see a lot of people doing what happened in during the theological discussions of the Civil War. They have this image of a God that they want. A God that does or does not endorse slavery (or homosexuality or abortion or whatever your favorite theological concept is) as they want and then they work their damndest to twist whatever their favored religion is to fit their own ideas. Which makes sense, because WHAT IF this God disagrees with them? What if God does endorse slavery? What are you going to do? I’ve heard people (and have been that person) who say that He is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, so if He says it is right then it is. I would imagine that this is the reasoning of every religiously motivated atrocity ever committed. Because what happens when two people disagree as to what this “final arbiter” wants? How do we resolve that conflict? Are those the only two options, making God in your own image or conflicting over what God Really wants?
Very, very good. A well-written, crisp, authoritative review of the broad controversy of American slavery, focused mostly in the years just after the American Revolutionary War and up through the American Civil War and several years after.
This is not simply a review, but a deep analysis of the theological basis for the varied viewpoints about the purpose and place of slavery in America and in Christendom (and indeed in the conflated American Christian nation). The author has his own voice, of course, but he does an excellent job of presenting every voice fairly, and illustrating how dangerous the ideas of Abolitionism were to the foundations of conservative Christianity. Not, perhaps, due to a cultural attack on conservatism, but as an attack on a certain method of observing the words of the Bible.
It is simply packed with information (and there are some 25 pages of notes), quoting extensively from contemporary sources (letter and sermons and debates) describing how American Christians, and their European co-religionists, tangled with each other and with their Bible to figure out the right path to explain or condemn American black slavery.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
This is not simply a review, but a deep analysis of the theological basis for the varied viewpoints about the purpose and place of slavery in America and in Christendom (and indeed in the conflated American Christian nation). The author has his own voice, of course, but he does an excellent job of presenting every voice fairly, and illustrating how dangerous the ideas of Abolitionism were to the foundations of conservative Christianity. Not, perhaps, due to a cultural attack on conservatism, but as an attack on a certain method of observing the words of the Bible.
It is simply packed with information (and there are some 25 pages of notes), quoting extensively from contemporary sources (letter and sermons and debates) describing how American Christians, and their European co-religionists, tangled with each other and with their Bible to figure out the right path to explain or condemn American black slavery.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Noll describes how and why the Civil War was a theological crisis. One indicator of the depth of the schism is that even among Northern ministers there was disagreement about what the Bible taught on slavery (i.e. it was not merely a North/South split). At the core are America's focus on the Word, their belief in interpreting the Word without religious authority, and God's providence on American culture. Noll demonstrates how the Bible and its interpretation was a part of American identity and to defy a particular belief meant you were not saved. The events from 1776-1860 increased the belief that everyone had the ability to determine the sacred meaning of the Word. There is a difference between the slave question and the "negro" question, as defenders of slavery did not think it was acceptable to enslave whites. Noll also shows how this became a Protestant/Catholic issue as Protestants' anti-authoritarian position left them without an arbiter to dictate the "right" position. Catholics also disapproved of the economic freedom that slavery and American represented.
dark
informative
fast-paced
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
This book compiles and summarizes the theological debates between Northern and Southern Bible-believing Protestant theologians (all all those in between, including abroad) on the hottest political topic in there has probably ever been in the USA - slavery as an American institution.
A huge amount of brain power was poured into decades worth of theological debates, essays, sermons, and treatises about whether or not the United States, as a Bible-believing nation (that is, a nation culturally founded on individual readings and moral interpretations of the Bible as opposed to a church institution, clergy, or state) can morally justify slavery based on the "clear meaning" of Scripture. Their arguments, counter-arguments, and proof-texting are eerily reminiscent of certain contemporary debates within the Christian community today. I'm not naming which ones, but take a wild guess.
Southern theologians relied on passages from the Pentateuch, such as Leviticus 24:45-46 ("Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession; they shall be your bondsmen forever") and the New Testament epistle of Philemon (in which the apostle Paul instructs an escaped slave to return to his master) clearly revealed divine sanction of slavery. They claimed that no true Christian could be opposed to slavery, as that would be tantamount to rejecting the Bible's moral authority. In fact, many abolitionists did reject the Bible's moral authority for these very reasons. Meanwhile, Northern theologians countered by saying these Bible passages which condoned slavery were not taken in context of the culture in which they were written, and could not be considered divine instruction in light of the Bible's holistic message of God's love for all mankind and the injunction to love other men. They also turned to other passages in Levitical law that contradicted the particular form of slavery practiced in the American South, pointing out laws against kidnapping, against badly injuring slaves, against sexual immorality (rape of female slaves was well known and frequently invoked), about sanctuary cities and rights afforded to escaped slaves. Both Northerners and Southerners accused each other of cherry picking Bible verses, throwing out the Bible, and of having invested political and economic gains propelling their agendas.
(European theologians, on the other hand, by and large believed that slavery was clearly a moral evil without tying themselves into theological knots about it. I won't go there, but Mr. Noll does.)
There was only one essayist who reluctantly conceded that, based on a plain reading of Scripture, slavery was permitted, Biblically-speaking. This essayist then took it a step further by admitting that there was no evidence for why blacks only should be slaves; and so, based on a plain reading of Scripture, slavery of whites was also permitted, Biblically-speaking. Needless to say, this line of reasoning did not go far in a country which prided itself on freedom and standing up to state tyranny, but it did highlight the elephant in the room that rarely made an appearance in both Northern and Southern debates about the Bible - the racism, the fact that the American institution of slavery would not have existed if it weren't for the racism, and that the racism could not be abolished even if slavery were abolished.
I occasionally try to pair books the same way some people pair food and wine, and I paired this book with Frederick Douglass' Narrative of a Life. It immediately cut through the big-brained debates of all these smart and even compassionate men: the proof-texting, the scholarly investigations into what was Hebrew slavery, really? the foreign high church commentary, and the rigorous Bible study, and revealed what all that effort actually was - inane babble in the face of real humans suffering real cruelty and evil.
In the end the issue of slavery was settled, not by the theological argument, but by force of arms. Noll quotes Abraham Lincoln, writing in the midst of the Civil War: “The Almighty has His own purposes… If God wills that [the Civil War] continue, until all the wealth piled up by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” Amen to that.
A huge amount of brain power was poured into decades worth of theological debates, essays, sermons, and treatises about whether or not the United States, as a Bible-believing nation (that is, a nation culturally founded on individual readings and moral interpretations of the Bible as opposed to a church institution, clergy, or state) can morally justify slavery based on the "clear meaning" of Scripture. Their arguments, counter-arguments, and proof-texting are eerily reminiscent of certain contemporary debates within the Christian community today. I'm not naming which ones, but take a wild guess.
Southern theologians relied on passages from the Pentateuch, such as Leviticus 24:45-46 ("Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession; they shall be your bondsmen forever") and the New Testament epistle of Philemon (in which the apostle Paul instructs an escaped slave to return to his master) clearly revealed divine sanction of slavery. They claimed that no true Christian could be opposed to slavery, as that would be tantamount to rejecting the Bible's moral authority. In fact, many abolitionists did reject the Bible's moral authority for these very reasons. Meanwhile, Northern theologians countered by saying these Bible passages which condoned slavery were not taken in context of the culture in which they were written, and could not be considered divine instruction in light of the Bible's holistic message of God's love for all mankind and the injunction to love other men. They also turned to other passages in Levitical law that contradicted the particular form of slavery practiced in the American South, pointing out laws against kidnapping, against badly injuring slaves, against sexual immorality (rape of female slaves was well known and frequently invoked), about sanctuary cities and rights afforded to escaped slaves. Both Northerners and Southerners accused each other of cherry picking Bible verses, throwing out the Bible, and of having invested political and economic gains propelling their agendas.
(European theologians, on the other hand, by and large believed that slavery was clearly a moral evil without tying themselves into theological knots about it. I won't go there, but Mr. Noll does.)
There was only one essayist who reluctantly conceded that, based on a plain reading of Scripture, slavery was permitted, Biblically-speaking. This essayist then took it a step further by admitting that there was no evidence for why blacks only should be slaves; and so, based on a plain reading of Scripture, slavery of whites was also permitted, Biblically-speaking. Needless to say, this line of reasoning did not go far in a country which prided itself on freedom and standing up to state tyranny, but it did highlight the elephant in the room that rarely made an appearance in both Northern and Southern debates about the Bible - the racism, the fact that the American institution of slavery would not have existed if it weren't for the racism, and that the racism could not be abolished even if slavery were abolished.
I occasionally try to pair books the same way some people pair food and wine, and I paired this book with Frederick Douglass' Narrative of a Life. It immediately cut through the big-brained debates of all these smart and even compassionate men: the proof-texting, the scholarly investigations into what was Hebrew slavery, really? the foreign high church commentary, and the rigorous Bible study, and revealed what all that effort actually was - inane babble in the face of real humans suffering real cruelty and evil.
In the end the issue of slavery was settled, not by the theological argument, but by force of arms. Noll quotes Abraham Lincoln, writing in the midst of the Civil War: “The Almighty has His own purposes… If God wills that [the Civil War] continue, until all the wealth piled up by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” Amen to that.