Baptists provide a prism into the diversity of American responses to the Civil War. Northerners, Southerners, White, Black, Native American, men, women, officers, soldiers, politicians, civilians, preachers, laity, elites, common folk — Baptists represented the full spectrum of the Civil War experience. This site is devoted to understanding Baptists during the Civil War through more…
This is the introductory chapter to Bruce Gourley’s 2015 volume, Baptists and the American Civil War: Crucible of Faith and Freedom. The road to the American Civil War began with the introduction of slavery into the American colonies in the mid-seventeenth century. Slavery was confined to Africans, as English Common Law prohibited the enslavement of…
INTRODUCTION Baptists and other white Americans North and South during the Civil War-era were unequivocal: secession, the existence of the Confederate States of America, and the Civil War were all the result of slavery, the immoral (or moral, depending on one’s race, political persuasion and/or geographic location) institution that served as the economic engine of…
While many if not most white Baptists in the South believed that the enslavement of blacks was ordained by God and necessary for the southern, agricultural-based economy, the Baptist defense of a slave-dependent culture was not monolithic. Slaveholders comprised up to about 20-25% of the white southern population, yet some 1% of slaveholders owned the…
During the American Civil War, many northerners and southerners, soldiers and civilians alike, projected God as their nation’s ally and salvation. In the midst of the religious rhetoric, many Baptists – especially in the South – hedged on their foundational principle of the separation of church and state and embraced Christian nationalism. Historically, Baptists championed…
by Bruce Gourley From its earliest days, the colonial experience in the New World was infused with human inequality. Theocratic colonies through both government institutions and establishment churches refused to allow freedom of conscience or religious liberty. Many poor whites were indentured servants and many blacks either indentured servants or slaves. White women were denied…
The American Civil War did not occur within a vacuum. Years of political discourse, regional maneuvering, and ideological dueling between the northern and southern states led to the break up of the United States and the war that followed. African slavery, existent in America since early colonial days, stood at the heart of the political…
Baptists and the American Civil War: Crucible of Faith and Freedom by Bruce T. Gourley (Macon, Ga.: Nurturing Faith, 2015) is a month-to-month summary of the online digital Baptists and the American Civil War: In Their Own Words project. Originally appearing as a series of articles in Baptists Today, this volume includes updated articles plus…
