Channels, Fall 2019

Page 52 Punzi • A Religious Interpretation Union and the Confederacy claimed the same, mutually exclusive, moral ground as the right side of the war. This moral question in the Civil War has led scholars to study the role of religion in America before and during the war. They have sought to determine how religious beliefs influenced the decisions of people and their confidence in being right during a time of incredible conflict and division. Scholars have also studied the function of songs and hymns during the Civil War. These songs were sung at strategic moments and expressed an understanding of the events surrounding the people, especially soldiers. Americans’ religious beliefs played a substantial role in the sectional debate leading to the Civil War. In fact, the proportion of Americans who participated in religious bodies was significantly higher in the decades before the Civil War than today, and evangelical Christianity constituted the dominant religious culture in the country. 8 Americans were not just involved in the Christian culture, they cared deeply, and the primary concern for many individuals was their eternal salvation and the proper outworking of their actions. 9 The Civil War, however, did not mark the beginning of the interweaving of religion and current events. Since the early influence of the Puritans on the nation, many understood happenings in their world as instruments of God, either as blessings or judgments. 10 This influence did not wane, and even when the Civil War began, Evangelical Protestantism affected how Americans viewed their world. 11 When the conflict erupted in war, people looked to their preachers for guidance in how to respond, wanting confidence that they were among the right. 12 Before the war began, the general public believed that God was in some way at work in their world. Providentialism encompassed the beliefs that God acted to reward or punish nations, to use a nation for the better of the world, or to combat evil on a cosmic scale. 13 War was one of the ways God worked in the world to bring progress or judgment. Themes about believers involved in a great battle of good versus evil trace back again to the Puritans. 14 Beliefs about the end of the world impacted how Americans interpreted events and connected ideas they otherwise did not understand. 15 The Civil War proposed a question, “What is God doing in this?” Postmillennial convictions and a belief in Christ’s soon return influenced how people drew conclusions about geopolitical changes and warfare. 16 At the same time, people began to read and interpret the Bible 8 Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis . (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 11- 12. 9 James W. Silver, Confederate Morale & Church Propaganda , (New York: Norton & Company, 1957), 25. 10 Larry Witham, A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History , (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 38-39. 11 April Holm, A Kingdom Divided: Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era , (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2017), 3. 12 Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis , 1. 13 Ben Wright and Zachary W. Dresser, Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War , (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2013), 4. 14 Witham, A City Upon a Hill , 3 & Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 18. 15 Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: a History of Modern Evangelicalism , (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 4. 16 Sutton, American Apocalypse, 3.