The Civil War as a Theological Crisis [Hardcover]

Mark A. Noll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 24, 2006

The Civil War was a major turning point in American religious thought, argues Mark A. Noll. Although Christian believers agreed with one another that the Bible was authoritative and that it should be interpreted through commonsense principles, there was rampant disagreement about what Scripture taught about slavery. Furthermore, most Americans continued to believe that God ruled over the affairs of people and nations, but they were radically divided in their interpretations of what God was doing in and through the war.

In addition to examining what white and black Americans wrote about slavery and race, Noll surveys commentary from foreign observers. Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Canada saw clearly that no matter how much the voluntary reliance on scriptural authority had contributed to the construction of national civilization, if there were no higher religious authority than personal interpretation regarding an issue as contentious as slavery, the resulting public deadlock would amount to a full-blown theological crisis. By highlighting this theological conflict, Noll adds to our understanding of not only the origins but also the intensity of the Civil War.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an informative account of the theological dramas that underpinned and were unleashed by the Civil War, Noll (America's God) argues that mid–19th-century America harbored "a significant theological crisis." Quite simply, ministers disagreed about how to read the Bible—and as much as it was a result of fierce disagreements about slavery or Union, Noll says, the Civil War was a crisis over biblical interpretation. The Bible's apparent acceptance of slavery led Christians into bitter debates, with Southern proslavery theologians detailing an elaborate defense of the "peculiar institution" and Northern antislavery clerics arguing that the slavery found in the Old Testament bore no resemblance to the chattel slavery of Southern plantations. Noll detours, for several chapters, to Europe, analyzing what Christians there had to say about America's sectional and scriptural debates. He suggests that religious upheaval did not evaporate at Appomattox. In the postbellum years, Americans grappled with two great problems of "practical theology": racism, and the convulsions of capitalism. This book's substantive analysis belies its brevity. As today's church debates over homosexuality reveal a new set of disagreements about how to read the Bible, this slim work of history is surprisingly timely. (Apr. 24)
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Review

"Mark Noll has for several decades been leading an effort to take seriously the religious and theological complexities of America's antebellum and Civil War experience. This concise book . . . both summarizes this scholarship and, in several important respects, advances the conversation."
--The Journal of Religion

"In The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Mark A. Noll breaks new ground on pre-war theological disputes over slavery in scripture and on contemporary discussions of the providential character of the war."
-Southern Partisan

"[The Civil War as a Theological Crisis] was deeply satisfying and profoundly disturbing at the same time. It is to his credit that Noll's evangelical scholarship could raise such intellectual complexities and question such moral scandals."
-Presbyterion

"[A] well-written and insightful work. . . . Noll makes every word count."
-BYU Studies

"[Noll] grapples convincingly with one of the oldest arguments among theologians: their interpretation of what the Bible has to say about slavery."
-Black Issues Book Review

"A distinctive piece of Civil War scholarship. . . . This slim set of lectures greatly enhances the study of religion's role in the American Civil War and the study of Christian intellectual life during a crucial period of U.S. history. Scholars in both fields will profit especially from its pioneering research into Christian Europe's varied reactions to the American Iliad and its causes. Advanced students and discerning general readers will appreciate the book's lively prose and its suggestive conclusions."
-Civil War Book Review

"Noll has such religious insight. . . . Religious historians and Civil War readers will find this an important book and should read it."
-Register of Kentucky Historical Society

"Intriguing. . . . Both those who pray for an Evangelical majority in America and those who fear the rise of the religious right will find something of importance in this book."
-The Common Review

"An informative account of the theological dramas that underpinned and were unleashed by the Civil War. . . . This book's substantive analysis belies its brevity. . . . This slim work of history is surprisingly timely."
-Publishers Weekly

"Insightful analysis. . . . Represents a remarkably thoughtful beginning and an excellent model for future scholars."
-Anglican and Episcopal History

"Raises momentous questions for the history of American Christianity while offering . . . intriguing insights into an understudied aspect of our nation's greatest civil ordeal."
-Books & Culture

"Noll has opened up a new, theological understanding of war."
-Alabama Review

"Thoroughly researched and brilliantly written."
-Harry S. Stout, Yale University

"The book's particular force derives from its broad perspective. . . . More pathbreaking still is his delving into foreign critiques."
-Civil War History

"The best account and interpretation of how Christian ideas shaped, and were shaped by, the Civil War."
-Christianity Today

"The description, contextualization, and analysis of various viewpoints is comprehensive and profound."
-Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

"Displays the care and moral seriousness historians have come to associate with Noll's work. . . . Of unusual interest."
-Journal of Illinois History

"Readers will appreciate Noll's extensive command of the literature relating to his subject. . . . Noll's book adds yet another important commentary to the war that still intrigues Americans."
-North Carolina Historical Review

"By one of the premier historians of American religion. . . . It quotes and cites . . . voices on all sides of the issues."
-Touchstone

"Bound to spark major revisionist studies and challenge young scholars to explore its provocative and convincing theses. . . . [A] masterful analysis of Civil War-era religion."
-American Historical Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition edition (April 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807830127
• ISBN-13: 978-0807830123
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fills a much needed hole in Civil War literature September 4, 2006

By Ethan R. Sanders

Format:Hardcover

This book covers a much needed gap in the history of Religion during the American Civil War. While focusing on the narrow subject of the theological debates raging during the war (both nationally and internationally), this book is a valued companion to the growing collection of works treating Religion during America's most dividing conflict. (Most notably Harry Stout and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese) While numerous historians have explored the economic, social and racial justifications of slavery, few have explored the surprisingly sophisticated arguments put forth by the Southern theologians. Although modern readers unquestionable find fault in using the Bible to justify slavery, one may be surprised at the intellectual nuance of the arguments given by Southern thinkers. By understanding the ideological mindset of both sides, one gets a fuller insight into this period of our past. And that is what history is all about.

Another novel aspect of the work is that it dives into European sources in search of Continental reactions to the war from European religious thinkers. This aspect helps readers to understand that the problem of race and slavery was not unique to American clergy alone but something that leaders in all corners of Christendom had to deal with. This book is highly recommended for four readers: 1) Someone looking for a highly specialized book on the theological battles that took place during the Civil War 2) Someone who is interested in the history of Christian responses to violence and/or war 3) Someone interested in the connections between slavery and Christianity and 4) The armchair historian who reads everything about the Civil War and is looking for a fresh angle on their favorite subject.

Happy Reading.

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "an unbridgeable chasm of opinion" November 9, 2007

By Daniel B. Clendenin

Format:Hardcover

This is the book that every Protestant evangelical who invokes "the sole authority of Scripture," and who insists upon the "simplicity," "plain meaning," and "clarity" of its message, should read. I wish a similar monograph had existed when I was in seminary, and that my professors had made me read it as a case study in hermeneutics (the study of the interpretation of Scripture). Why instead of unanimity was there an "interpretive standoff" regarding slavery among Protestant believers, an "unbridgeable chasm of opinion" that tore the nation in two? Why was the evil of slavery eradicated not by the theological arguments of Christians but by the military might of armies? How can you argue against slavery when both the Old Testament and New Testament condone it?

Mark Noll, for over twenty-five years a professor at Wheaton College and now at Notre Dame, examines a broad diversity of religious viewpoints-- mainly American Protestant, but also foreign Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic (both American and foreign) -- about the theological crisis provoked by slavery. This was a question partly about what the Bible said (how to interpret the Bible), and partly about what God was doing in history (providence). Disagreements about what the Bible said about slavery, Noll demonstrates, were deeply influenced by American assumptions about common sense rationalism, economic individualism, race, gender, and political democracy (which is why his two chapters on Protestant and Catholic opinions abroad are so helpful). Even worse, the far deeper issue of racism was barely broached; people separated "the slavery question" and "the negro question." No one in their wildest imagination considered the enslavement of whites (as in OT and NT times), even if they thought it acceptable to enslave blacks, and so even though the war abolished slavery, horrific racism and its evil twin economic disenfranchisement continued unabated. Finally, interpreting the ancient text and applying it to our contemporary context was further complicated by the Protestant insistence that there's no authority above the Bible itself, which was another way of saying that everyone and no one had the ultimate authority to say definitively "what the Bible means" about slavery.

It's a short step from Noll's theological case study about slavery to virtually every other important issue that Christians face--women's ordination, homosexuality, abortion, politics, economics, and race. The Scriptures, said the Westminster divines, are "most necessary" for Christian faith and life, and every believer ought to study them often and well. But as Noll shows, earnest appeals to the authority of Scripture, however necessary and well-intentioned, are the beginning and not the end of the serious work of studying the Bible and then living according to the letter and spirit of its message.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An important contribution to historical scholarship on the Civil War September 29, 2007

By Christopher C. Smith

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book shows how the beliefs and assumptions held by American Christians in 1860 precluded any kind of critical reflection on the Civil War. If you've read Nathan Hatch's Democratization of American Christianity, this serves as an excellent second installment in the saga. Many of the ideals whose development Hatch chronicles played important roles in paving the way for the Civil War ethos. This book is also a nice supplement to Harry S. Stout's Upon the Altar of the Nation. Stout beautifully chronicles Americans' moral ambivalence, but doesn't really go into the root causes to the extent that Noll does. Nor does Stout explore foreign commentary on the war. Noll's exploration of foreign commentary, in fact, was one of the most fascinating aspects of the book. Foreigners seem to have seen fairly clearly what nobody in America could see.

If you're looking for a rousing or moving narrative, this isn't the book for you. But if you'd like to understand why American theology was paralyzed in the face of the slavery crisis, this little book is ideal.

That it's a "little" book is also nice. Noll says a whole lot in only about 160 pages.