Book Review The Civil War As a Theological Crisis by Mark a Noll Book Review

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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 "spirit" of Scripture that their common sense swayed them to believe was not compatible with human repression. The latter frequently stirred up "self-evident truths," which was important to national ideology; however, the stronger those founded on ordinary humanitarian standards became, the weaker the Bible appeared in any traditional sense (Mackenzie, 2008).

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Besides the question of slavery, Noll claims that Americans were also in conflict over the operations of a providential God. Prior to the war, American theologians displayed confidence in their capability to understand the significance of worldly occurrences. In the course of the war, both parties argued that their cause was being supported by God; however, God's ways had become vague. At various occasions, God seemed to be acting quite strikingly in conflict with himself (Noll, 2006), particularly when it came to battleground defeats. This particular sense of "providential mystery" continued into the several years after the war as several dumped the notion that worldly events were being controlled by God. Just a single chapter is dedicated by Noll to this topic and leaves the reader eager to find out more (Dollar, 2006).

According to Noll, there existed a third alternative for the Christians against slavery, one which would have maintained biblical power through yielding the Scripture that did not forbid slavery per se, but arguing that it criticized the racial slavery that was being carried out in the U.S. Few lone voices attempted to organize such claims, however, they terribly failed (Noll, 2006).

So as to provide a wider context, Noll also incorporates foreign theological remarks, both Catholic and Protestant, on the subject of the Bible and slavery. Even though Noll confesses that his work here is preliminary, his utilization of these frequently ignored sources make these specifics to be regarded as the most interesting in the book. Simply put, Canadian and European Protestants together with the open-minded Roman Catholics of Europe demonstrated their strong opposition to slavery. They truly were more against slavery than they were in the North's favor. The second thread of foreign remarks came from traditional European Catholics that did not firmly criticize slavery, however, did condemn it as it existed in America. However, traditional criticism proceeded even much further as Catholics made the most of the opportunity to emphasize the power of the church. Catholic theologians revealed that as a result of the religious individualism, which played a very important role in the development of the United States together with its national culture, no overarching religious power was available to provide an ultimate statement on the subject of slavery. Therefore, religious individualism as well as liberal traditions of America played a part in a gridlock over slavery (Dollar, 2006).

Noll summarizes the effect of the theological crisis on post-war America in a short closing chapter. Even though a huge number of American Christians in the postwar era continued looking up to religion to satisfy their personal needs, the public affair of religion to provide an ultimate solution to the question of slavery made itself ineffective for shaping the broad policy, particularly in the public field (Dollar, 2006).

Conclusion

The analysis of Mark Noll builds on aspects of his superior America's God: to Abraham Lincoln from Jonathan Edwards (2002), and there is quite a lot that is new here. The book's specific force obtains from its wide point-of-view. Varying beyond the powerful as well as familiar figures of indigenous white Protestantism, he speaks to the sidelined: the anti-cultural Christian remarks of Daniel Ruggles, Daniel Coker together with other African-American writers, and native (majorly traditional) Catholic authors. More path breaking is his research on foreign appraisals: the greatly open-minded, anti-slavery, but not essentially pro-Union remarks on the European and Canadian Protestants and few progressive Catholics; and, via major essays in La Civiltacattolica and the Historisch-politische Blatterfur das katholische Deutschland, the voices of traditional Italian and German Catholics that thought of slavery as being biblical, however, were more practiced by the Americans getting rid of old world paternalism, fellowship, economic paternalism, together with a stabilizing doctrinal orthodoxy that favored religious pluralism, democracy, and personal self-determination. Doctrinal confusion emerged from this new unhealthy matrix (Carwardine, 2007). Noll does not philosophically partner himself with these traditionalists, but he is pleased by the "troubling subject" that they bring up: how to settle the gridlock when there exists no known interpretive power. The Civil War effectually handed over the business of the theologians to the generals to make a decision; ever since then, there has been a clear agreement not to found public policy of any consequence on Scripture interpretations (Noll, 2006)......

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