Amos C. Dayton (1811-1865), a popular Baptist pastor and advocate of Landmarkism, this month offers his answer to the Southern question of, “Is God on Our Side?” Regarding African slavery, the Confederacy is clearly on God’s side, according to Dayton. But on certain issues of government holiness and purity, the South needs to align itself…
Many Southern Baptist men are now soldiering for the Confederacy. Army life is far from easy: danger, hunger, illness, exposure to the elements, and death are all constant worries, although secondary–in the minds of preachers–to the ever-present specter of sin. Most Baptist churches in the South never refer, in their church records, to their soldiers…
Recent battlefield reversals and Union advancements in Tennessee and along the Confederate coast are ample fodder for sober assessments of the Southern war effort. Enthusiasm for the war effort is dampened in the minds of some, but many others are more determined than ever to defeat the invaders. White Southern Baptist elites take it upon…