The North Carolina Baptist State Convention, now in session, offers affirmation of God’s designs for the Confederate States of America.
Elder J. L. Prichard expressed a wish that some member of the Convention should offer prayer for the guidance of God in our future operations ….
[he] said … we had the best army and the best generals that the world has ever seen; brave, patriotic, and skillful they are, but without the blessing of God they will be of no avail; let us then, seek His favor by rendering unto Him what is His own and what he claims at our hands ….
Elder Taylor said, many gratifying instances of liberality on the part of the Baptists of North Carolina had come under his observation; he had stated some time since in New York, that the only true friends of the black race are among the Southerners; that Southern christians have a great work to perform in this department, and that he believed as firmly, that we should triumph in the war forced upon us by our enemies as he believed in his own existence
Prayers for the Confederacy are offered, a statement decreeing that Confederate victories thus far can be attributed to Christian soldiers is voiced, and a resolution declaring God’s “divine hand” upon the southern nation is passed. North Carolina Baptists, nonetheless recognizing that there is room for improvement within the Confederacy, focus on the need for religious literature among southern soldiers and the fulfilling of “religious duties to our servants.”
As is the case with other state Baptist convention meetings, many attendees, whether clergy or laity, are men of some means. In their loyalty to the Confederate States, they celebrate white freedom and black slavery, a racial social and economic structure in which their personal and religious sense of being is tightly intertwined.
Source: “Proceedings of the Baptist State Convention,” Biblical Recorder, November 20, 1861
