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The Civil War As A Theological Crisis Summary

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Recommended: Essay on religious wars

Kaitlyn Triplett
BLS 365-01
Dr, Matthew McKinnon
9 April 2023
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis Historians often argue that the political and social tensions that existed between Northerners and Southerners and the connection to the legalization of slavery are commonly referred to as the fundamental conflicts that provoked the American Civil War. However, in Mark Noll’s book The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, he examines how the differing religious thought surrounding God’s approval or rejection of slavery created more tensions, division, and was a major landmark shift in American religious thought. In the text, Noll examines differing perspectives of what the Bible has to say about slavery. Furthermore, Noll’s captivating work argues …show more content…

Within this chapter, Noll successfully argues how the Civil War constituted a theological crisis. While many people relied on the Bible to determine their individual morals and how society should be structured, the effects of having no recognized authority “greater than the individual interpretation of Scripture for the purposes of understanding the Scriptures” (29) and the multitude of perspectives about slavery was detrimental to Protestant’s …show more content…

In his examination of the Biblical defense of slavery, Noll claims that many of the proslavery arguments were successful due to their simplest and the literal account the Bible was regarded in. For example, the first proslavery argument Noll examines is Thomas Thompson’s. Thomas Thompson utilized a quote from Leviticus 25:45-46a: “Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever” (33). Additionally, Thompson also used the example of Paul instructing the escaped slave, Onesimus, to return to his owner. Overall, Thompson’s message was direct: How could genuine Christians condemn slavery as an evil practice, when the Bible sanctioned the practice? Noll also lists popular Scriptures used to defend slavery within this chapter (34) as well as the moderate arguments including

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