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The Civil War As A Theological Crisis By Mark Noll

796 Words4 Pages

Many Americans believe the divine wisdom and devoted to Gods holy word; as it provides purpose and give stability to their lives. In Mark Noll’s book entitled The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, the religious leaders of that time leading up to the Civil War were unable to provide answers to some of the most difficult question of that era; does the Bible condone or does the Bible condemn slavery? Americans were at odds over the understanding of God’s divine word as both Northern and Southerners tried to find meaning on this war and what Gods role was in it. How could either side claim to have the support of God through his word for their position? Clashes over the interpretation of the Bible on slavery were matched during the era of the Civil …show more content…

Holding the title of Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame; Noll looked at the political, economic and social lines between the opposing sections and their contradictory opinions of God’s plan. “By 1860 Americans who believed in the Scriptures as unquestioned divine revelation should have been troubled by the growing number of their fellow citizens who seemed willing to live without that belief” (31). Around this time the United States was primarily a Protestant nation according to Noll, because it offered a vision of America that coincided with the new converts political …show more content…

If you were to open up the Bible and read it, in ancient times God had set strict limits to Hebrew enslavement of other Hebrews; we see in Leviticus 25:45-46a: “Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn which then begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall possession; they shall be your bondmen forever.” In the New Testament Thompson turned to the book Philemon, when Paul (a prisoner in Rome and a prisoner of Christ Jesus) in a brief letter instructed an escaped slave, Onesimus, to return to his master. His message was straightforward: “if God through divine revelation so clearly sanctioned slavery, and even the trade in “strangers,” how could genuine Christians attack modern slavery, or even the slave trade, as an evil”

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