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A History Of The Southern Presbyterian Church, With Appendix
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188 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 2013
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December 29, 2024
"May the God who raised up a Thornwell to lead this church in her infant days, and a McPheeters to suffer for two of her Synods and for Christians everywhere, who has given a Dabney and a Peck, an H. M. Smith and a B. M. Palmer to minister to her people hitherto, raise up spiritual sons worth of such fathers to lead the church until another body who ahs the same witness to make, or can teach us a truer one, shall admit us to union with them" (479).
This book was published in 1894 as part of "The American Church History Series" edited by Philip Schaff (et. al). Volume XI included histories of The Methodist Church, South; The United Presbyterian Church; The Cumberland Presbyterian Church; and The Presbyterian Church, South, and Thomas Cary Johnson, then professor at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, was selected to write the latter contribution. Johnson was a Southern Presbyterian through and through, and a disciple of Robert Lewis Dabney, and would go on to write biographies of Dabney, and of Benjamin Morgan Palmer in the following years, alongside dozens and dozens of other articles and books.
The "Southern Presbyterian Church" had gone by a few different official denominational names, initially known as The Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, but after the dissolution of the Confederacy, it adopted the name The Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), distinct from the northern PCUSA. The PCCSA formed in 1861 at the start of the Civil War in response to northern Presbyterians calling slavery a sin, and calling for loyalty to the United States government in the face of the southern rebellion. Many of the PCCSA elders were enslavers themselves, and went on to chaplaincies in the Confederacy, and so they needed a denomination of their own, free from northern resistance.
Johnson's history was written 30 years later, after the war was over, and after decades of attempted "reunion" with northern Presbyterians. The reunion was never accomplished, for a number of reasons, but central to Johnson's history here, is a defense of the very existence of a separate denomination, especially one which came into existence the way it did.
Johnson opens up the book, in the Preface, with his end explicitly stated: "to furnish the materials for answers to three specific questions, viz.: Why did the Southern Presbyterian Church come into separate existence? Why has it continued till the present a separate existence? Are there any sufficient reasons why it should continue for a longer time to maintain a separate existence? These are *paramount* questions for this generation" (315).
This "history" is fixated on justifying and defending the Confederate Presbyterian Church, and its actions during and after the war. White Presbyterians did not reunite after the war because northern presbyterians would not retract the charge of "unchristian enslavement, and schism," and former Confederates would not repent of these sins, because they did not believe they were wrong. Johnson is entirely on the side of the Confederates and the book pleads their case throughout.
I am struck reading this how multifaceted the Myth of the Lost Cause is and was. I am more familiar with the civil and historical aspects of this Myth, and in particular its focus on The War, but I think the ecclesiastical aspects of the Lost Cause are just as significant, and Johnson, through this book, as well has his hagiographies of Dabney and Palmer, deserves a heap of credit in helping to formulate, consolidate, and elucidate, the Lost Cause of the Confederate Church.
I'm glad I read this as a historical artifact. I do not recommend it as "history." For a much more accurate historical account of the Southern Presbyterians, I recommend Ernest Thompson's three volume Presbyterians in the South - Set
You can access Johnson's work for free here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=t5E...
This book was published in 1894 as part of "The American Church History Series" edited by Philip Schaff (et. al). Volume XI included histories of The Methodist Church, South; The United Presbyterian Church; The Cumberland Presbyterian Church; and The Presbyterian Church, South, and Thomas Cary Johnson, then professor at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, was selected to write the latter contribution. Johnson was a Southern Presbyterian through and through, and a disciple of Robert Lewis Dabney, and would go on to write biographies of Dabney, and of Benjamin Morgan Palmer in the following years, alongside dozens and dozens of other articles and books.
The "Southern Presbyterian Church" had gone by a few different official denominational names, initially known as The Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, but after the dissolution of the Confederacy, it adopted the name The Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), distinct from the northern PCUSA. The PCCSA formed in 1861 at the start of the Civil War in response to northern Presbyterians calling slavery a sin, and calling for loyalty to the United States government in the face of the southern rebellion. Many of the PCCSA elders were enslavers themselves, and went on to chaplaincies in the Confederacy, and so they needed a denomination of their own, free from northern resistance.
Johnson's history was written 30 years later, after the war was over, and after decades of attempted "reunion" with northern Presbyterians. The reunion was never accomplished, for a number of reasons, but central to Johnson's history here, is a defense of the very existence of a separate denomination, especially one which came into existence the way it did.
Johnson opens up the book, in the Preface, with his end explicitly stated: "to furnish the materials for answers to three specific questions, viz.: Why did the Southern Presbyterian Church come into separate existence? Why has it continued till the present a separate existence? Are there any sufficient reasons why it should continue for a longer time to maintain a separate existence? These are *paramount* questions for this generation" (315).
This "history" is fixated on justifying and defending the Confederate Presbyterian Church, and its actions during and after the war. White Presbyterians did not reunite after the war because northern presbyterians would not retract the charge of "unchristian enslavement, and schism," and former Confederates would not repent of these sins, because they did not believe they were wrong. Johnson is entirely on the side of the Confederates and the book pleads their case throughout.
I am struck reading this how multifaceted the Myth of the Lost Cause is and was. I am more familiar with the civil and historical aspects of this Myth, and in particular its focus on The War, but I think the ecclesiastical aspects of the Lost Cause are just as significant, and Johnson, through this book, as well has his hagiographies of Dabney and Palmer, deserves a heap of credit in helping to formulate, consolidate, and elucidate, the Lost Cause of the Confederate Church.
I'm glad I read this as a historical artifact. I do not recommend it as "history." For a much more accurate historical account of the Southern Presbyterians, I recommend Ernest Thompson's three volume Presbyterians in the South - Set
You can access Johnson's work for free here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=t5E...
November 23, 2025
Great look at the distinctive character of the spirituality of the church doctrine among Southern Presbyterians (Old School) in the 19th century.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews