The Civil War as a Theological Crisis

Steven and Janice Brose Lectures in the Civil War Era

by Mark A. Noll, Marc Cashman (Narrator)

The Civil War was a major turning point in American religious thought, argues Mark A. Noll. Although Christian believers agreed with one another that the Bible was authoritative and that it should be interpreted through commonsense principles, there was rampant disagreement about what Scripture taught about slavery. Furthermore, most Americans continued to believe that God ruled over the affairs of people and nations, but they were radically divided in their interpretations of what God was doing in and through the war.

In addition to examining what white and black Americans wrote about slavery and race, Noll surveys commentary from foreign observers. Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Canada saw clearly that no matter how much the voluntary reliance on scriptural authority had contributed to the construction of national civilization, if there were no higher religious authority than personal interpretation regarding an issue as contentious as slavery, the resulting public deadlock would amount to a full-blown theological crisis. By highlighting this theological conflict, Noll adds to our understanding of not only the origins but also the intensity of the Civil War.

Genres: History, Theology, Religion, American History, Nonfiction, Civil War, Church History

Audiobook

First published April 24, 2006

About the author

Mark A. Noll (born 1946), Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, is a progressive evangelical Christian scholar. In 2005, Noll was named by Time Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America. Noll is a prolific author and many of his books have earned considerable acclaim within the academic community. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind , a book about the anti-intellectual tendencies within the American evangelical movement, was featured in a cover story in the popular American literary and cultural magazine, Atlantic Monthly. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal in the Oval Office by President George W. Bush in 2006.

Reviews

[James Korsmo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis is The Steven and Janice Brose Lectures in the Civil War Era, delivered at the University of North Carolina, and as a book that came out of a series of lectures, it has a relatively conversational and approachable tone. Mark Noll is an eminent historian of Christianity and specifically evangelicalism in America. In these lectures, Noll looks at the theological issues, which Noll argues in fact constituted a theological crisis, that shaped the Civil War and informed the views of politicians and the populace on both sides of the conflict. Noll begins by setting the stage with a look at the role of religion in American public life in the years leading up to the War, and especially at the role the Bible and its interpretation played. He then looks closely at "The Crisis over the Bible," the differing interpretations of various passages in the Bible, especially over the issue of slavery, that contributed so profoundly to the theological divide in the country. This chapter forms the core of the book, as he looks at competing interpretations of the Bible and the methods and assumptions that led to these conflicting interpretations. This then leads to a discussion of "the negro question," a look at the role race played in the discussions, either implicitly or explicitly. He shows that at the root, deep-seeded racism lay behind many of the defenses of slavery, and ignorance of the importance of the race issue weakened many of the opponents' arguments. It is crystal clear that the Civil War was a war with race issues at the center, though Noll emphasizes equally strongly that the picture is far more complex than a simple bifurcation of the country with the North fighting some type of righteous struggle on behalf of equality and the South fighting a bigoted battle to preserve the status quo.

Noll's discussion then turns to a look at what role providence played in the preaching and thinking about America's destiny and the racism and slavery that were at issue. He writes that "confidence in the human ability to fathom God's providential actions rose to new heights." Many on both side presumed to know God's will and intention in and for America. By the end of the war, this view was strongly chastened, and Noll points to a connection between arguments concerning providence before and during the war and the movement of religion to the "private" sphere after the war. After these substantive discussions, Noll takes an informative look at views of Protestants and Catholics abroad, and takes stock of these perspectives that give a different view point on the happenings in America.

I found Noll's book to be compelling and important reading. I think his careful appraisal of this important conflict over the role and interpretation of the Bible needs to inform evangelical approaches to Scripture today. I think one of the clearest lessons needs to be a chastening of our American and Protestant impulse to read and interpret the Bible on our own, without recourse to church or magisterium, and often without regard for history. Along with this goes a strong warning against assumptions of the simplicity of the Bible's message. Throughout the era leading up to and including the Civil War, defenses of slavery had an easier time convincing much of the American public, often largely because of the simplicity of its arguments and the fact that it drew on "plain" and surface readings of the Biblical text. Readings that opposed slavery often incorporated more nuanced and historically couched arguments. For many, this went against their protestant and American sensibilities and assumptions.

It would seem that this book, and this historic situation, has much to say to our modern-day church, and to the evangelical church in particular. Issues such as the church's stance on women in ministry or the status of homosexuals can be well informed by this discussion. That is certainly not to say that the historic move to condemn slavery should or could be directly applied to the acceptance of women in ministry or the full acceptance of homosexual activity, but this careful historical discussion provides some important context in which to judge our approaches to Scripture. It also rightly calls us to examine our assumptions that we bring to the Bible. I highly recommend it.

[Matthew Richey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read that addresses a deficit in our understanding of the Civil War. Recommended for students of theology and history alike. I was constantly surprised how similar many contemporary theological debates sound in comparison to the arguments of abolitionists versus proponents of slavery.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguingly even handed. Won't just assume that the America of the past was more religiously faithful, but endeavors to quantify that. Won't just assume that the consequences of that fervor and piety are entirely positive but endeavors to show the firmly-held divisions that result. Even for readers not obsessed with help biblical interpretation impacted the Civil War, this is a good, brief read to consider how biblical interpretation impacts the current culture.

[Christopher Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book shows how the beliefs and assumptions held by American Christians in 1860 precluded any kind of critical reflection on the Civil War. If you've read Nathan Hatch's Democratization of American Christianity, this serves as an excellent second installment in the saga. Many of the ideals whose development Hatch chronicles played important roles in paving the way for the Civil War ethos. This book is also a nice supplement to Harry S. Stout's Upon the Altar of the Nation. Stout beautifully chronicles Americans' moral ambivalence, but doesn't really go into the root causes to the extent that Noll does. Nor does Stout explore foreign commentary on the war. Noll's exploration of foreign commentary, in fact, was one of the most fascinating aspects of the book. Foreigners seem to have seen fairly clearly what nobody in America could see.

If you're looking for a rousing or moving narrative, this isn't the book for you. But if you'd like to understand why American theology was paralyzed in the face of the slavery crisis, this little book is ideal.

That it's a "little" book is also nice. Noll says a whole lot in only about 160 pages.

[Dakota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chapter three,"The Crisis over the Bible,"is the meat of the book. In it Noll observes that antebellum protestantism was mostly unified in its interpretation of slavery with some exceptions (Quakers, for example) along with a robust confidence in Scripture. He explains that Christian values in revolutionary America were appropriated into the national culture to create a uniquely American hermeneutic. It was a plain "commonsensical approach" to reading and applying the Bible. Noll uses Thomas Thompson's (1770) concise statement to explain the American hermeneutic simply as, "open the Bible, read it, believe it." Such an interpretational approach toward Leviticus 25 and 1 Corinthians 7.21 allowed antebellum ministers to justify slavery while presenting theological obstacles for Christian abolitionists.

Even the best, nuanced, exegetical arguments from the abolitionists would never win the day precisely because of its complicated nature. Simply put, it wasn't a plain reading of the Bible. In the American republic spirit, a Christian doesn't need a scholarly and theological authority to interpret the Bible for them, instead, individuals should be able to determine the matter in a straight forward way by reading it for themselves.

Christians in antebellum US found themselves in a stalemate with one another. The matter could not be solved by the power of the Bible, instead, it would lead to a costly civil war to settle the crisis for them. As Noll ominously puts it: "It was left to those theologians, the Reverend Doctors Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, to decide what the Bible actually meant."

My oversimplification does not come close to justify this book. However, it is worth every minute of reading it.

As Noll argues in the concluding chapter of his book, we are still in this theological crisis. While the bloody and horrific war forced a theological conclusion on slavery, it failed to biblically address racism in America. Noll observes that as America became more "scientific" in the north, many northerners began to embrace what he calls "scientific racism," that is, blacks are a separate inferior species from whites. Thankfully, this view is no longer widely held. Oddly, southerners fought against this "science" by rightly claiming, based on Scripture, that both blacks and whites are of one species/race. However, as history tells, the evils of racism were strongly entrenched in the American south, even still today.

Protestant churches in post-antebellum America failed to immediately and collectively address this issue, mainly, due to the fracture national hermeneutic and a lack of confidence in the authority of the Bible. The Bible since the American Civil War has slowly lost its prominence and confidence to settle national issues of practical, social, political, and economic nature. Instead of the Bible as the source for moral change and growth, the law and authority of the federal government has become the primary authority on all matters. Perhaps this is a reason why modern Americans are looking toward the 2020 elections with great anxiety. For them, the 2020 election will be a defining moment in what direction the country will take morally.

Today, American protestants are divided concerning major theological and practical issues such as abortion, marriage, women's ordination, economics, environment, race, etc. Noll has convinced me that this theological division within American Christianity partly finds its roots in the Civil War.

Some take away thoughts from further reflection on this book:

It is a temptation for modern Christians in American to look at the past with a certain hubris toward antebellum southern Christians concerning slavery and race. While in no way were they justified in their moral or "biblical" support for American raced based slavery, their sins should humble us modern-day Christians. No matter the century, Christians are not above being collectively blind and deaf toward corporate sins or erroneous interpretations. We should also remember the eighth commandment concerning Christians of the past. We shouldn't justify their sins, but forgive them, and speak truthfully of them even if they are asleep in the Lord.

What are we blind to, today?

Noll's book was a difficult read for one who values his southern heritage. It is humbling to think that an entire generation and nation could commit such sins. However, this shouldn't be a surprise to a Christian (see the entire Old Testament).

On a salutary note, if we take southern men like Lee and Stonewall at their confession, that they are Christian, then we can rejoice in knowing that antebellum Christian southerners (white or black) are in perfect reconciliation in the Lord. To the point, with the eighth commandment in mind, I think Christian men like Stonewall and his once enslaved fellow Christians are perfectly reconciled in Christ. This should give us hope for our deeply polarized times.

However, the main take away is that Christians in America have a long and arduous road ahead of them in the 21st century. How will they approach and address racism? - Individualistically or corporately? In what ways, has modern American culture seeped into interpreting the Bible and thinking theologically? These questions and more remain to be answered and for history to record.

As I said, Noll's book is worth every page.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems unthinkable now that so many thousands of Christians thought the Bible justified the enslavement of an entire race of people. Noll's book does a great job of explaining how Christians found themselves at that place at the beginning of the Civil War.

Essentially, the ingredients that made the United States a perfect place for Christianity to thrive - removal of ruling hierarchies, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms to worship and believe how you want, Enlightenment-era thinking on individualism, etc - turned out to be the exact same ingredients required to end up with a religious society that turned the Bible into whatever they needed it to be. Whatever you already believed on whatever issue, you shaped your views on the Bible to fit it, instead of the other way around.

Unfortunately, American Christians are still guilty of this today.

The more I read about the Civil War, the more I realize it really was fought primarily on one issue - slavery. But it's tempting to oversimplify it and say half of Americans believed one thing and half believed the other. Noll's research shows just how (fascinatingly) complex the slavery issue actually was.

I didn't enjoy the chapters covering foreign Christians' writings on the war as much, but it was necessary to get the whole picture. (An example - the Catholic church knew the end of slavery would be a good thing, but the way the Protestant American church was getting it there was making them nervous. Their arguments for why were really interesting.)

[Vance Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended history of the pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments made by pastors and theologians leading up to and during the The Civil War.

One of the results of the broad secularization of education in the 20th Century is that we don’t teach the religious underpinnings of the Civil War (or other major historical events). Both sides understood this conflict as part of a religious narrative. But now we only teach this as a legal and economic conflict. As a result, we don’t get the full picture of history, and the white church remains incredibly ignorant of its own history.

How could white theologians and pastors argue that the Bible supported American slavery while still claiming to be faithful a crucified king who came to “set the captives free?” The answer, supported overwhelmingly by the historical evidence, is that the church was blinded by the Enlightenment’s philosophy of white supremacy.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent short study concerning the theological question of slavery before and during the Civil War. Noll argues that the divergent views of slavery in America represent a theological crisis that was only resolved by combat, rather than theological reasoning. He examines the central arguments for or against slavery, including arguments made from outside America on the question of Southern slavery.

He shows how the intractable debate led to violence, and then the demise of biblical argumentation over public policy matters. He doesn't examine the state of the churches as much as I'd hoped him to. But this being a short book didn't have room to cover that. But he does a great job with the theological arguments. He's especially helpful on the Catholic perspective--a section I found fascinating.

[Kaleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The USA before the Civil War was a deeply religious country, one where people used faith to settle ethically charged political issues. America was also a Protestant, denominationally diverse country; this meant there was no central religious authority to resolve theological disputes. All of this was uniquely American and led to theological debates about slavery that broke down and turned into war.

Pro-slavery Christians argued that when the Bible explicitly discusses slavery, it seems to condone it (Ephesians 6:5; Leviticus 25);. The Bible also condemned many abuses of slavery, including the sexual abuse of slaves, slave trading, and the breaking up of slave families. Many moderates and emancipationists cited these verses to argue that slavery should be reformed and eventually ended, but that it was not categorically wrong. The general spirit of the Bible, expressed in ethical themes such as equality, treating others as you want to be treated, and respect for the dignity of all people, clearly contradicted all forms of slavery. Abolitionists pointed to this to prove that the Bible demanded the immediate abolition of slavery.

The book also looks at foreign Christian perspectives on America. Protestants in Ireland, Scotland, and England almost unanimously condemned slavery. Catholics argued that the diversity of Protestant views revealed the evils of Protestantism and individual interpretations of the Bible; this is what happens when you reject the authority of the Catholic Church!

Of course the abolitionists were correct. In conservative evangelical circles today, an overly literal, “common-sense” reading of Scripture dominates. To me, the debate on slavery shows how dangerous that is. When you ignore the spirit of the text and prioritize specific ethical commands, issued for a time different from our own, you get bad results: slavery, homophobia, and sexism.

Quotes

“On the other front, nuanced biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because they were nuanced. This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly from the page. Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems as well as of the actually existing conditions in the slave states; and it demanded that sophisticated interpretative practice replace a commonsensically literal approach to the sacred text.”

“Frederick Douglass was characteristically more impassioned, but less precise, when he made roughly the same point in 1861: 'It would be insulting to Common Sense, an outrage upon all right feeling, for us, who have worn the heavy chain and felt the biting lash to consent to argue with Ecclesiastical Sneaks who are thus prostituting their Religion and Bible to the base uses of popular and profitable iniquity.They don’t need light, but the sting of honest rebuke.They are of their father the Devil, and his works they do, not because they are ignorant, but because they are base.' To African Americans it seemed clearer than to all others that slavery contradicted the Scriptures in general.”

[Micah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if there's anything more thorough on the topic. Noll is collecting many different strands of research in order to give a new generation of scholars a jumping off point. It is introductory in the sense that it raises more questions than it answers. It is thorough in that it makes sure all evidence is brought to bear so that the right questions are being asked.

The central question he asks is, "How did Christians living in the same nation, who were part of the same denominations, and espoused the same doctrines of Scripture and hermeneutical principles, come to such divergent conclusions on the issue of slavery?"

Some of the most illuminating parts of the book were the chapters dealing with how slavery was perceived by Roman Catholics non-American Protestants.

This book will not answer all of your questions, but again it is not supposed to. It's meant to put the resources in your hands to pursue further research.

[Megan Hueble · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so interesting!! I’m always thinking about Biblical literalism & while this was specifically about the Civil War, it was about so much more — the positioning of American Protestantism, the danger of reading the Bible “literally” without thinking of context or your own biases, how money & power influence beliefs, etc. It was also written in an approachable, conversational way, which I love!

[Peter Spaulding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not enough short but scholarly books on very specific subjects like this.

I don’t think he ever mentions the words “sola scriptura” in this, but that is, to me, what it’s all about. We’re looking at the crisis of hermeneutics as it comes to a head in a country whose entire political, ethical, and ideological principles were still tied to the Bible. How did everyone end up on different sides?

It’s a really great read, and important for understanding our idiosyncratic country.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've gotten into debates with people about whether the Bible allows for slavery. Everyone I have ever argued with has argued that the Bible condemns slavery. We are unified as Christians in seeing slavery as a horrific sin.

Yet go back to the era of the Civil War and the mainstream opinion was that the Bible approved of slavery. Mark Noll's fantastic book documents this in great detail. He shows that the very ideologies that made America what it was, such as individualism and democracy, led to a way of reading the bible "literally" that affirmed slavery. Southern theologians argued that the Bible supported slavery. They went further to argue that abolitionists went down a path that denied the Bible. To deny the straightforward and literal reading of the text was to move away from orthodoxy. Surprisingly, many in the North agreed! Northern theologians often came at the Bible with the same presuppositions and thus said the Bible allows slavery. The usual tact then was to argue that the form of slavery practiced in the south was far from the slavery allowed for in scripture. Thus they allowed for slavery as an institution, but attacked the specifics of southern slavery.

Overall it is a fantastic book. But it is more fantastic for making us think about how we read the Bible today then it is for shedding light on how it was read then. That is because many who are so quick to say the Bible does not allow slavery are the theological descendants of those who said the Bible did allow slavery. And many today read the Bible in the exact same way as those in the 1860s did!

The hot-button issue of today is gay marriage and I could not help but think of that often. The argument for slavery relied on a simple reading, picking out the clear proof-texts from all over scripture. Today the argument against gay marriage also rests on a few proof-texts. Further, back then those who argued the Bible does not allow slavery focused on the spiritual interpretation or the grand narrative of scripture. In other words, they moved past the words of a few texts to emphasize the principle beneath. For this they were accused of straying from orthodoxy. Those who defend gay marriage today use the same sort of argument.

How many who argue against gay marriage today shudder to realize how their theological arguments used the same arguments for slavery? At the very least this ought to humble us. It ought to make Christians very cautious when entering debate on these sorts of issues.

I listed this book as church history, but perhaps it ought to be required reading for those who interpret the Bible. As we interpret the Bible we need to keep in mind lessons from those who interpreted it before us, to help us steer clear of their same mistakes.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading that offers explanatory power for America’s most vexing problem. The chapter on the evolving biblical interpretations, both for an against slavery, is fascinating if also sobering—a reminder that we bring more into the text from the culture around us than we’d care to admit. Reading books like these, rather than spending hours on inane and outrageous social media discourse, will actually help deepen our understanding.

[Josh G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting look into how the North and South employed biblical arguments and providential reasoning to justify their respective causes. A sobering example of how selfish ambition, personal interest, and cultural assumptions influence our biblical interpretation.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I don't disagree with Noll's overall thesis, the subjects of his study are severely limited, decreasing the usefulness of his work. He references few female abolitionists besides Harriet Beecher Stowe, and conveniently ignores those who contradict his conclusions. Anti-prejudice rhetoric in antebellum America is unknown to this book, as are black female abolitionists. Yet, Noll couches his claims with such nuance that he avoids his myopia being revealed for what it is.

Worth reading if you want an overview of the theological issues surrounding the Civil War, but you'd better pair this with resources that give issues of race and women's rights the historical weight they require.

[Persis · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Tom A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure how many Civil War books really go into the religious landscape of the nation at this point in time, but this seems like it would be a great supplement to any Civil War reading you may be doing. I’m pretty sure I found it in the citations from when I read Battlecry of Freedom.

Really does a good job looking at religious arguments being had prior to and during the Civil War. Everything the author writes is backed up with quotes so you aren’t wondering what may be his opinion which I appreciated. Also very cool because he not only analyzes Protestant and Catholic viewpoints from the North and South, but also looks to other counties’ for their religious commentary on the war to compare to the American discussions. Gets into biblical discussions and debates that were happening amongst Protestants in the US that shed light on the differing opinions going into the war.

[Relstuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic. I had to slow myself down to consider and process some of the info and analysis. It's a short volume but scholarly. If you've haven't read much on the Civil War you probably should read some more generalized book(s) on the conflict unless you are only focused on the theological crisis. And, this is not a history of religion in the Civil War nor does it focus on one denomination (both the Methodist and Baptist church split over the slavery issue leading up to the war). The scope of analysis is focused on the national scene and the big moral questions of the day.

Why is this an important subject? Author James McPherson (author of the American Civil War best seller, Battle Cry of Freedom) states that "Civil War armies were, arguably, the most religious in American history." And, "Religion was central to the meaning of the Civil War, as the generation that experienced the war tried to understand it. Religion should also be central to our efforts to recover that meaning."

At the time leading up to and during the late unpleasantness, about 40 percent of the American population appear to have been in close sympathy/identified with/as evangelical Protestant Christianity. The ratio of churches to banks was 35 to 1. Modernly, it's 4 to 1. Protestant Christians were the largest subgroup in America. If they could only resolve the issues of slavery and economics that drove the country towards war among fellow believers, couldn't violent conflict be avoided? Other countries ended slavery without civil war. Christians are generally supposed to love peace and be known as peace makers. With such a large influential cross section of society identifiably closely with Christianity, surly they could have resolved things without having a war that killed hundreds of thousands of American young men in combat? We already know the answer was that Christians could not resolve the issue among themselves, so neither was society. This book looks at why Christians could not agree on the issue of slavery and whether it was wrong according to the Bible.

There is a ton of material from that time the author quotes to ensure he is accurately portraying the issues the way the people in that time saw them. He also looks beyond the borders of American and spends a little bit of time looking at how the rest of the world looked at the crisis.

One of the most fascinating parts was the analysis of what split Christians was the divide over whether to be Scripture text focused on what the Bible says, or to be focused on the more general God is love so how should that drive behavior focus. The different way people read the Bible and applied it, is a key factor in understanding why Christians could not agree and the states eventually had to resolve the conflict with violence. "...abolitionist efforts left the impression in many minds that to employ Scripture for opposing slavery was to undercut the authority of Scripture itself. In particular, arguments that contrasted the principles or the "spirit" of the Bible with the clear message of individual texts (its "letter") were gravely suspect in a culture of democratic common sense that urged people to read and decide for themselves." This history and analysis was by far the most fascinating part of the book for me. I've not read anything about this in the many other books on the American Civil War I've read. The fact that the church could not resolve the issue also impacted society. That the church couldn't answer every question faced by society was the general impression. That had an ongoing social impact that has probably not completely abated. There is also a whole chapter on the crisis over the American belief in the providence of God and how by allowing the war between brothers (and a long bloody one at that) God appeared to be acting contrary to what American believers expected in a country they believed was blessed by God.

Some things that the author could have done better/differently: (1) the split between the Baptist and Methodist denominations in the North and South is something I wanted a little more discussion of. It was mentioned in passing but it was a huge event in American Christendom that probably deserved a bit more analysis. (2) The focus here is on the moral issue, slavery. So that focus is eminently fair in the context of this book. And, it is absolutely a major factor in why the war happened. But, some minor mention (at least) could/should have been made of those people that did not believe slavery was morally right but fought for the South. Robert E. Lee is probably the most famous example, he bluntly called slavery a political and moral evil. He was a committed Christian and made his decision to fight for the South because he felt he had to follow his state's decision on which side to join. Virginia joined the Confederacy only after Lincoln called for an army to be raised to invade the states that had declared they were seceding. Slavery was the main moral issue, the author does touch on some of the other economic issues at play, but some discussion on people like Lee would have been a good addition. (3) I would also liked a tad more discussion focused on the revivals in the Army on each side and what impact did those conversions have on society? Did it make reunion harder if people saved or rededicated while serving in the military saw their military service and lives thru the lens of fighting for their version of what the Bible says about slavery?

A thoughtful interesting book. Well worth your time if you are interested in this subject as a historian or Christian.

[Brett Vanderzee · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some 19th century quotes in this book that will spin your head around! It’s sobering to see pastors and theologians so diametrically opposed (not always cleanly between North and South!) on what the Bible “obviously” taught about slavery. Catholics and Protestants outside of America seemed to have much clearer vision on slavery’s evils and the self-interested exegesis some Americans used to justify it. It could be easy to read a book like this and feel a bit historically haughty, but in the right spirit, it could just as easily lead one to humility.

[MKMyrdal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read and no better time than the present to read it!

[Mike Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. However, for every interesting and compelling insight gained their was considerable interest lost in disjointed and loosely connected sources. Laborious but worth reading if deeply interested in American and church history. Especially helpful as it relates to discovering and tracing long-standing and continuing divisions in doctrine and democracy to the past.

[Benjamin Lantzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“From the historical record it is clear that the American Civil War generated a first-order theological crisis over how to interpret the Bible, how to understand the work of God in the world, and how to exercise the authority of theology in a democratic society” (162, final sentence of the book).

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening. A little dry at the end but still great.

[Ben Franks · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can find my review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdVgR...

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wrongly narrow focus, errors, undercut thesis of book

Noll makes a few errors, mainly, but not entirely, in setting the framework for this book.

Other than a semi-coda chapter on Catholic opinions, he tries to make the "theological crisis" about Protestant Christianity, and more specifically, Reformed Protestant Christianity.

Well, until the Jacksonian Revolution, Episcopalianism supplied much of the national-level political leadership, very much the state-level Southern leadership, and a fair amount of Middle Atlantic states' leadership.

Second, while Methodism in the US might be more influenced by Reformed thought than in the UK, it's not a "Reformed" denomination.

Third, Lutherans had been in American in non-minuscule numbers for a full century before the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian splits. Of course, both they and Episcopalians didn't have the same take on "divine providence," or, in general, attempts to read America as the new Israel, as did the three aforementioned denominations. So, it wasn't the same type of crisis, if much of any, for them, or for Catholics.

And, Noll, as a scholar and academic, knows all this.

Per a one-star reviewer, but with a different focus on my part, I would say that he's showing deliberate theological bias.

He also has sociological and economic ignorance, or bias, take your pick. As modern historians like Edward Baptist have shown, the antebellum South was both a full part of the emerging capitalist trade system and, in many ways, was the greatest fuel for that — not New England — as far as American participation in the system. Therefore, his first bullet point on page 74, about a Southern charge that individualistic capitalism was economically dangerous is some mix of naive, ill-informed and biased — not to mention that, per his own attempts to distinguish southern and northern Protestants' appeals to sola scriptura vs. appeals to customary sense, is wrong, because other than "give unto Caesar," the bible says zip about economics.

Finally, per that last sentence above, Noll's use of the phrase "common sense" for what's really "customary sense" is off-putting.

So, unless you're a conservative evangelical Christian today expecting some "confirmation" of your views of the development of American Xianity through the Civil War, take a pass on this book.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic, deep study of religion and society during the turning point in our country's history. I'm going to have to read more books by Mark Noll, because he's bringing the intellectual study of Christianity that I've always craved.

I read the book on Sunday mornings, usually sitting outside with a cup of coffee and the chance to think hard about what I was reading. One chapter or even just part of one was all I could manage at one time, since there was so much material to turn over in my mind. About a third of the way through I decided to always have a pencil with me to underline parts and take notes in the margins. Some day I may re-read this book and will be interested to see what I found most meaningful in 2009. (It will also give me a chance to mark up that first third of the book.)

Right from the start, Noll points out how slavery and racism were co-mingled in the American experience, but not necessarily so in the Biblical accounts of slavery.

The book really got me thinking about how moral and religious authority is unique in America, and how it's changed over time. Founded by Puritan fundamentalists, sure, but also founded with an intense belief in the individual. When individual interpretations of scripture and moral behavior led to an impasse, the lack of singular religious authority in America (no national church, no Pope, and no serious thought of the President as a religious example) meant the problem when unresolved until it escalated to civil war. The war may have been won by the side we now think of having the correct moral answer, but what was more clear then (and even now) was that the North had a more productive capitalist economy. That's not how we want moral questions to be answered--may the more economically successful side win!--but neither do we want a central religious figure.

Although the Civil Rights Movement a century later were far from easy, they also avoided escalation to war and that sort of economic decision-making. I think that can be taken as a positive sign for our society. (It is also telling that the military-economic resolution of the Civil War had no appreciable sway over the moral resolution of racism.)

[Mike Horne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much easier book to read than his massive America's God, this book does a great job of putting you into the theological arguments of a great number of antebellum Americans. And theology leads to the Civil War (by cutting off compromises). Two good quotes:

"The inability of evangelicals to agree on how slavery should be construed according to Scripture, which all treated as their ultimate religious norm, was in fact connected to the economic individualism of American society." p. 158

I don't know if I buy that, but certainly "both read the same Bible" in pretty much the same manner and but came up with different conclusions (which were seen to be from God--and, therefore, not to be compromised). Knoll presents the Catholic perspective (both domestic and foreign). To Catholics slavery was an evil to be accepted as part of society, but which should be regulated and finally gotten rid of. That attitude might have led to something less dreadful than war.

This quote sums up the book.

"In helping to provoke the war and greatly increase its intensity, the serious commitment to scripture rendered itself ineffective for shaping broad policy in the public arena. In other words, even before there existed a secularization in the United States brought on by new immigrants, scientific acceptance of evolution, the higher criticism of Scripture, and urban industrialization, Protestants during the Civil War had marginalized themselves as bearers of a religious perspective in the body politic." p. 161

[John Pawlik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful book. First recommended to me by Collin Hansen about 9 months ago. Not gonna lie it kinda drags in some parts when he’s quoting discourses between thinkers in the mid-eighteen hundreds, but it’s pretty necessary considering how little most of us really understand about that time period.

This book dives deep into the theological arguments going on during the Civil War. it seems almost impossible to imagine, but the US was so predominantly Christian, and Evangelical in particular, that a social issue of this magnitude could be helpfully understood as a giant battle for the Biblical interpretation of each side. The problem is that when a nation of Christians reached theological deadlock, war ended up as the only solution in a nation of believers.

The aftermath has been a neutering of Christian and Biblical political influence of any degree like what was seen prior to 1865. The secularizing influence of such a large failure of Christians to handle social situations with the interpretation of Scripture raises many key questions about how a nation of people might manage to function as a mass of free Christians capable of coming to alternate solutions to each other.

The book is a wonderful deep dive into the theological perspectives that ended in bloodshed when no reconciliation was reached. White, black, north, south, Evangelical, Catholic, domestic, and significantly the European Protestant and Catholic reflection on the United States at the time teach valuable lessons and raise significant questions for all of us!

[Susie Meister · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.