Baptists of the South struggle with the issue of chaplains. Typically opposed to government pay for religious chaplains–due to their historic commitment to church state separation–Southern Baptists are exploring other ways to evangelize Confederate soldiers. North Carolina Baptists have in recent months turned to the systematic distribution of large numbers of their state newspaper, the…
Meeting at Pierce’s Creek Baptist Church, the work of the Mississippi Baptist Association (of the state of Mississippi) has fallen on hard times due to the war. Only fourteen of 33 churches send representatives, and the national conflict envelopes the meeting. At a time when death and the afterlife are on the minds of Baptists…
Today Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, beloved of white Southern Baptists (and a Baptist church-goer as a teenager), is promoted to lieutenant general. Thus rewarded for his battlefield daring and bravery, upon Jackson’s shoulders falls ever more the burden of ensuring that the Confederacy emerges victorious over the United States. The general’s exploits are already…