¶ … Civil War as a Theological Crisis' by Mark A. Noll
For the Antebellum Americans, trust in divine devotion and destiny to Scripture gave their lives stability and purpose. However, in accordance to Mark Noll's most recent book, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, religious heads in the years just prior to the civil war were not capable of providing the best solution to the most challenging question of that time: Does the Bible excuse or criticize slavery? In addition, Americans were in conflict over the operations of a providential God as both Southerners and Northerners attempted to understand the significance of war and the role of God in it. Majorly depending on the writings of the 19th century theologians as well as other religious theorists, Noll comes to a conclusion that the conflicts over these two subjects exposed a theological crisis and led to a min turning point in the thoughts of the American religious (Dollar, 2006).
An extension of the Steven and Janice Brose lectures that he delivered in 2003 at Penn State University, Noll's slim volume majorly concentrates on the question of slavery. He argues that an important dispute existed regarding what the Bible had to comment about slavery at the exact period when clashes over the issue of slavery were creating the most severe crisis in the history of the country. Southerners claimed that slavery was endorsed by the Scripture, whereas those in opposition to the weird institution maintained that the Scripture did not. Noll mentions that the advocates of slavery disobeyed the spirit of the Bible. Those in opposition of slavery, additionally argued that the Scripture criticized slavery as it was present in America, since slavery was riddled with abuses. Therefore, the most trusted sacred power of the country mentions that Noll was "sounding an uncertain note" on this important subject.
Book Review
In the starting pages, Noll elaborates that his objective is not basically to explain the causes or course of the battle, instead to illustrate why and how the cultural dispute, which resulted to such a catastrophe for the country also comprised a theological crisis. That particular crisis/catastrophe focused on two queries: what the Scripture had to say regarding slavery, and the dispute appeared to imply regarding the providential design of God for the nation. Even though both read one Bible, as Lincoln famously noticed in his second opening, both the South and North Protestants realized that the Bible they had depended on for establishing and developing civilization of the American nation was not actually as naturally uniting for a tremendously Christian population as they initially perceived (Noll, 2006). Eventually, it was not God's Word, but the force of arms, which would settle the sectional disagreement (Mackenzie, 2008).
Noll places the theological catastrophe brought as a result of the battle in the "habits of mind" framework (Noll, 2006), which had succeeded in the U.S. since the nation's early years. Uniting Christian faith with republican political ideals and enlightenment epistemology, the American Protestants were basically doubtful of religious power and cynical of academic elites, and they regarded the Bible as a plain book easily understandable to any individual that opened its cover to read (Noll, 2006). Majority regarded the constant work of God in the issues of human kind as just as simply apprehended. Even though the incorporation of biblical faith and enlightenment certainly provided the antebellum American Christianity, most of its well-known expansive energy and charm, Noll claims that the mixture actually left evangelicals not well equipped to solve the sectional disaster; or even extensively think of its repercussions. Noll argues that one of the unique characteristics of the American Civil War is the nearly total absence of theological wisdom, which it stirred up amidst the Christians separated by it (Mackenzie, 2008).
Out of the two main questions that Noll stresses, he dedicates significantly more attention to the controversial association existing between slavery and the Bible. Proslavery southerners literally read the Bible and discovered no clear condemnation of slavery. Also, when anti-slavery northerners literally read the Bible, they often came to a similar conclusion, a realization which led a small minority to totally disclaim the bible authority, while supporting a larger group down the slippery slope of appeals to the common...
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