While public opposition to the Confederacy from within Southern Baptist churches is rare, Northern Baptists are not nearly as unified regarding their views of the United States. Although seemingly most Baptists of the North are anti-slavery and support the Union cause, some Baptists openly support the peace movement in the North, an effort to put an end to the war by offering peace terms to the South. Whether for peace or not, still other white Northern Baptists are not abolitionists.
Against this backdrop of vivid disagreements among Northern Baptists, this month Peter Bitzel, a member of the First Baptist Church of Canton, Ohio, parts ways with his church over “differences of opinion” concerning the war. Unwilling “to take action on political questions,” the church dismisses Bitzel on friendly terms, with congregates declaring that they hope the dissenter can “find a people that he can co-operate with.”
The amicable parting of Peter Bitzel and the First Baptist Church of Canton is likely not typical in an era when public political disagreements often lead to hard feelings and bitter conflict. Even far from the battlefields of action, the tentacles of war sometimes bring discomfort and even division to Baptist life of the North.
Source: Sean A. Scott, A Visitation of God: Northern Civilians Interpret the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 111, 291.
