Today the United States and Confederate armies clash in Culpeper County, Virginia. In the early years of the American nation, this area was Baptist giant John Leland’s stomping grounds. In those days, Leland preached religious liberty for all and church state separation. Now, many Southern Baptists still cling to “religious liberty” language yet consider the…
The city of Troy, New York, prior to the Civil War grew to become one of the 20th largest cities in America. Growth, however, came with consequences. Like many other cities of the early and mid-nineteenth century, the city of largely wooden buildings has by now experienced a series of increasingly destructive fires. Today, however,…
In much public Baptist discourse in the South, the biblical language of God’s will and Kingdom is superimposed upon the Confederate States of America — literally. Georgia Baptist’s Christian Index editor Samuel Boykin this week, generously intermingling the cause of Christ and Confederate patriotism, offers a vivid example of such dual imagery: Hark! The dread…