THE
CIVIL WAR: BEFORE AND AFTER
1. After the end of the Revolutionary War period Americans were set to pursue their own course of action. This of course was especially true of us in two areas of life:
A. Religion
B. Politics
2. Our religious development came from several sources during this developmental period.
A. The example of England religious instability had to be reduced and eliminated)
B. The fact that America became a haven for religious minorities-with their emphasis on religious freedom.
C. The great awakening created an emphasis on experience oriented religious life.
D. The secularizing forces of rationalism (deism and Unitarianism)
3. With the creation of the American Constitution then religion became defined as a wholly voluntary institution.
A. Dependent on the ability to persuade people
B. The state became the guardian of order
C. This means a “consumer approach” to religion - religion must be “sold.”
D. This creates a fierce competitiveness among religionists.
E. In the churches it produces a desire for ‘results.”
F. This therefore brought about the erosion of the “protestant establishment” by other religions and races who were competing
4. After the revolution once again spiritual fervor began to wane—and the preachers began to look for another great awakening.
5. During this period there was a wide spread movement toward complete disestablishment of the colonies.
6. There were two major elements in the readjustment after the war:
A. Disestablishment
B. The flourishing theological liberalism
7. The Second Great awakening created a climate for religious “experimentation.”
8. The drive toward benevolence afer the war was a nationally felt phenomenon and it began to affect the remarkable American institution of slavery.
A. Deeply entrenched in the South (being Agrarian, it depended on slave labor more than the North)
B. The South began to adopt a defensive attitude toward what was called the “peculiar institution.”
C. Anti-slavery agitation begins in the North while at the same time in the South there is developing an aggressive pro-slavery movement.
9. By 1840 all possibilities of a United Christian Front in regard to slavery were lost by the shattering effects of the differences over slavery and abolition.
10. In addition there were many rapid changes in American society.
A. Factories replaced cottage industries
B. Steamships added a new dimension to travel and commerce.
C. New states were added to the Union
D. Massive immigration
E. Innovative ideas
F. There are highlighted differences regional and sectarian.
G. Trends that could be described as a “liberalization”
11. In the early decades there was increasing demand for greater freedom.
A. In theology
B. IN church polity
C. In social life
12. This brought about many splits in certain denominations.
13. Religion in this per-industrial America reflected the ferment in society.
A. There was a revolt against the authority of the Scriptures.
B. There was a sweeping rejection of social values by the millenarians'.
C. The most extreme form of social alienation was the Mormon - founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.
D. Then there were the Utopian societies that attracted thousands of seekers (some were religious and some were secular)
----Perhaps part of these trends’ would approximate the reaction of some of the cults in modern America.
----Like the Oneida Community in 1848
14. There were two currents that developed among Catholics in the 19th century.
A. The Irish replaced the French and English in leadership positions
B. The new leaders who emerged were committed to the Americanization of the church.
----this was seen in the continued trend in that direction so there is nothing new in what we are seeing today.
15. The Impact of Immigration.
A. From 1790-1860 the population of American grew from 4 million to 31 million.
B. This wave of immigration caused two things in particular.
(1) Adverse economic conditions In Europe
(2) Unfavorable political and social developments in Europe.
C. The immigrants did not readily assimilate into American society instead they segregated into smaller private communities and tried to preserve the old world values.
D. To the native born these immigrants presented a threat and a menace to the American way of life—this of course caused tensions.
E. The Irish were among the largest number of immigrants
—due to the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 more than One million came
— one fifth of the entire population of Ireland came to America.
—they settled in NY, Brooklyn, Phila., and Boston and these cities became centers for Irish Roman Catholicism.
F. The “Catholic Problem.”
—“trustee ism” = the contention of the local parishes that they could administer their own affairs
— the hierarchy won and the trustees were beaten into line.
— religious orders began to rebuild and advance the cause
— parochial school system becomes the most effective tool for cultivating the faith of the immigrants.
— tried to rid themselves of the image of a “foreign religion,” founded the first Catholic weekly newspaper —United States Catholic Miscellany in 1822.
—as the Catholic population grew, Protestants who thought of the United States as a Protestant nation become worried.
—by 1837 anti-Catholic opposition became a national issue.
—as the years wore on the population was deflected from their concerns over the Catholics and were increasing absorbed by questions of slavery and national unity.
16. The emergence of religious cults and certain movements:
A. The Mormons
B. The communal sects began to develop and spread:
—the roots of these sects were in the left wing of the reformation
—was the result or outgrowth of revivalism which emphasized salvation?
— almost all of these groups interpreted the Bible literally
—practiced collective ownership of property
—they never had overwhelming numbers among their adherents
—made many coverts among the destitute
—examples: Shakers (the Millennial Church or the United Society of Believers - charismatic)
Amma Society or Community of True Inspiration
Millerites or the Adventist (exponent Wm. Miller.)
Cult of spiritualism / clairvoyance or as it was called mesmerism.
17. Urban evangelism was a powerful force in the 30 years just before the Civil War.
A. Two principal figures of the age worked in the area of urban evangelism.
(1) Charles Grandison Finney 1792-1875
(2) Asahel Nettleton
B. After the turn of the century a number of issues began to command the interest of the people.
—peace
—prison reform
—poor relief
—temperance
—proper observance of the Sabbath
18. The PEACE movement plays a big part in Pre-Civil war America.
A. It was a movement to disavow was as a national policy—the war of 1812 and the Mexican War helped push the idea
B. But in the 1850s peace declined as people began to have more and more tension about slavery.
19. There were certain moral issues that gained a wide hearing in pre-Civil war America:
A. Dueling
B. Theater
C. Prostitution
20. But the big question was Slavery
A. The most vexing problem facing American unity
B. It had Four ramifications at the national level
(1) States rights vs. federalism
(2) admission of new states
(3) Colonization of free Negroes
(4) abolitionism
C. In all of this the church did not agree they were just as disunited as the rest of the nation (President James Garfield was a church of Christ Preacher and a Union Officer)
D. There were at least three things that deeply affected the institution of slavery
— popularization of Deism
— the natural rights philosophy
— humanitarianism
E. The position of the Churches.
—Quaker’s = took the lead in opposing slavery
—Methodist= adopted an Anti-slavery position - this position was withdrawn within six months because it was seen as extreme (which shows the fallacy of pronouncements without proper teaching).
— Baptist = they were divided over the issue and quietly tabled any further discussion although there was an Anti-slavery group in the church
—Presbyterians’ = offered a practical plan
First called for the gradual abolition of slavery, second–called for the immediate education of the Nego
—Catholic’s = took no official action
—Anglicans’ = took no official action
F. The colonization movement
—the underlying assumption of the movement was that Negroes were not able to assimilate into American society
—hence the idea to return the Negro to Africa
—this is the story behind the founding of the nation of Liberia
—but the colony failed in Africa for these reasons.
Poverty
Disease
Too expensive for the American backers
It created dissension in America
G. The importance of the invention of Whitney’s cotton Gin.
F. The Abolitionist movement.
—William Lloyd Garrison - 1805-1879 a leading figure
—his own publication the Liberator first published in 1831
—he and his followers organized themselves in New England Anti-Slavery Society and one year later it became a national organization
—much support for the movement came from a number of important evangelical leaders
—in the 1840s the Protestants were divided into 3 groups. (1) Those willing to sacrifice the Union for the sake of slaves (2)the conservatives who tried to justify slavery (3) evangelicals who loved their slave holding brothers but were in fact Anti-slavery.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her fiction novel of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 and within five years one and a half million copies were sold.
—the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court
I. How the Southerners defended Slavery
(1) slavery was economically advantageous
(2) attacked the Declaration of Independence as teaching the false doctrine that all men are created equal.
(3) took the position that Congress had no Constitutional mandate to regulate slavery.
(4) The Negroes were an inferior race and slavery was a benevolent arrangement for the good of the slave
(5) The moral argument was that the Black was bound by ignorance and error and cannot be free by nature (born totally depraved)
(6) It elevated the status of Negro women and gave them protection
(7) The Biblical arguments:
(A) God had decreed slavery and sanctioned it among the Jews
(B) Levitical law held that captive unbelievers could be held as slaves
© Since Christ came to fulfill and not tear down social institutions then slavery remained untouched by Him.
THE IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER IS THAT THERE WAS ONE THING STRONGER THAN THE BIBLE AND THAT WAS A CERTAIN PARTY SPIRIT OF PAROCHIALISM.
j. The mainline denominations were full of schisms over the issue and this was equally true of the church of Christ. What was it that divided the church? It was the Civil War or sectionalism or regionalism and a certain spirit of romanticism.
21. The War:
A. Fort Sumter is shelled and the war starts on April 12, 1861.
B. The long smoldering issue allowed the churches to take a definite stand immediately on the starting of hostilities.
C. In the North and the South preachers marched with the troops.
D. About 2.5 million men served on both sides.
E. 622,000 were killed or a death toll of 25%
F. The churches in the North and the South fully supported their respective ideas.
G. Ecclesiastical endorsements of the war were overwhelming but not entire
H. All of this tended to reduce God to the sectional interest of the combatants
“Both sides read the same Bible, and pray to the same God: and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of the other men’s faces; but let us not judge, that we might not be judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been fully answered.” Abraham Lincoln
I. Later after the end of the war the theologians found in the Civil War a type of national expiation. For without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins—the war then was a sacrifice that helped cleanse the nation.
J. The churches divided along sectional lines—the Baptist could have no further relations their Northern brothers and so they formed the “Southern Baptist Convention.”
— this sectional separation in the South came to be characterized by 4 things:
(1) Revivalism
(2) Orthodoxy
(3) Vigorous foreign missions
(4) An identifiable alliance with Southern culture and mores
K. Northern protestant denominations provided much of the idealism that guided reconstruction
—enactment of the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments
—the Blacks were seen as in need of education
L. After 1877 the South regained complete home rule and completely disenfranchised the Blacks using 3 tools.
—party organization
—legislation
—coercion
M. America did not rise to the moral challenge presented by the emancipation of the slaves
N. The Blacks were free to determine their own institutional structure in the Black Churches
— they formed their “invisible institution”
—they developed a folk religion
—their theology was expressed in song (still true today)
—their preaching was more exhortation than discourse
O. The Black churches served important social functions as well:
(1) they served as a community center
(2) it was the only institution in America fully controlled by Blacks— so it was a place where Negro talent might explode.
P. The Profile of black churches and their leaders
(1) a sense of divine immediacy
(2) spontaneity of individual response
(3) an urge toward personal holiness
(4) always contained the message of redress for the present injustices
(5) their leaders were not interested in creedal differences
(6) were ignorant of alien philosophies?
(7) were anchored in orthodox Christianity?
THE GREAT GENIUS OF THE BLACK CHURCH: IT BECAME A SHELTER SHIELDING ITS MEMBERS FROM A HOSTILE SOCIAL CLIMATE AND NURTURING THEM IN THE DESIRE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AS WELL AS FAITH IN THE RISEN CHRIST.
P. There were two immediate effects on the American population caused by the war
—demoralization
—spiritual decline
Q. The churches were weakened by their differences the attention to the spiritual aspects of growth was overwhelmed by the physical environment.
R. There was a strong element of secularism that ran through both the North and the South that were heightened by the distraction of the war.
S. The Civil War was fundamentally a moral encounter.
22. The year 1619 is a very important year for our study because it was a year that three things happened.
(1) it marked the beginning of representative government to our shores
(2) it marked the beginning of the tobacco culture
(3) it marked the beginning of slavery in America
AN IMPORTANT TOPIC OF DISCUSSION: IT IS TRUE THAT THE CHURCHES SPLIT AS WELL AS THE NATION BUT THEY COULD HAVE HELPED AND DIDN’T. HOW COULD THIS OF BEEN DONE?
23. The aftermath of the war on the Southern Churches.
A. The southern way of life was gone
B. White supremacy took other forms but remained intact.
C. There was a tremendous break with the church in the North
D. Blacks and whites moved into separate religious worlds.
E. Other concerns came over the years to the attention and concern of Americans
(1) Industrialism
(2) The new wave of immigration
(3) Urban political corruption
(4) prohibition
Lane Rogers