A review by adamrshields
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll

5.0

Short Review: The Civil War brought up theological problems, not just slavery or violence and death. The most interesting to me was the problems of hermeneutics (understanding scripture). People on both sides defended slavery in part because they viewed rejection of slavery as a concept (not necessarily as it was in the US south) required that you reject the plain reading of scripture. Noll also does a great job looking at how the culture of the US impacted its reading of scripture by also looking at how those outside the US viewed the problems of slavery, economics, race and war.

This is a perfect example of why we need historians to help us work through modern problems.

My full review (about 1200 words) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/crisis/