by John Sneed » Sat May 20, 2017 6:06 pm
Let me lay out my own bias at the beginning. I am unashamedly a Conservative, very conservative, and a Calvinist. I also lean favorably towards the SBC. You all know me. That being said, I am up to my eyebrows in a master's thesis dealing with Southern Baptist beliefs during the Civil War. While I am still a small fish wading in the shallow end of the pool, I think I can say I am as up to date as one can be on this topic.
To the point. The cause of the Civil War was slavery. If slavery had not existed, neither would the war. True, there were other issues, for example, taxation, states rights and so on. All of these were subordinate to the issue of slavery, or they were issues because of the issue of slavery.
In the years before the Civil War, America was overwhelmingly Evangelical Protestant. These Protestants were concentrated primarily within three denominations, the Presbyterians, the Methodists and the Baptists. Each denomination experienced schism ... the Presbyterians in 1837, the Methodists in 1844 and the Baptists in 1845. The issue in all three cases was slavery. The Southern Baptist Convention came into existence to contend for the continuation of slavery as "God's providential plan for the black race." Along the way, the SBC involved itself in some interesting entanglements dealing with the separation of church and state, its place in the military and how it became a leading cheerleader for Confederate nationalism.
No one who is serious about looking at history can come to any conclusion except that slavery was THE issue of issues, both in the antebellum years and in the war itself.
I might note, even after the war. I read a quote from an author who said that segregation was the new slavery after emancipation.
I don't post much but it is nice to be allowed the occasional posting. Hello to you all. Until the next time.
John