The fight over slavery has escalated religious rhetoric in the North. Emancipation of African slaves is viewed by many Northern Christians as a religious, moral, and patriotic crusade. And although Sunday is not set aside by the government as a holy day (America’s heritage of church state separation precludes such government observances; mail is yet…
The writings and sermons of Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the best-known Baptist preacher in the world, remain unwelcome in the Confederate States of America. A long-outspoken opponent of African slavery and a minister in a nation (England) that has spurned Confederate offers of a military alliance, Spurgeon this month, in his London Metropolitan Tabernacle, returns to…
Well into the second year of war, many Baptist churches of the Confederacy have fallen upon dire times. Today, the second oldest Baptist church in the state of Tennessee faces the realities of a war-time economy. On April 20, 1794–two years before Tennessee became the sixteenth state of the United States–Baptists from the Three Forks…