ePub Church and The Bible: Official Documents of the Catholic Church by Dennis J. Murphy in History

Description

The fall of the Confederacy proved traumatic for a people who fought with the belief that God was on their side. Yet; as Eugene D. Genovese writes in A Consuming Fire; Southern Christians continued to trust in the Lord's will. The churches had long defended "southern rights" and insisted upon the divine sanction for slavery; but they also warned that God was testing His people; who must bring slavery up to biblical standards or face the wrath of an angry God.In the eyes of proslavery theorists; clerical and lay; social relations and material conditions affected the extent and pace of the spread of the Gospel and men's preparation to receive it. For proslavery spokesmen; "Christian slavery" offered the South; indeed the world; the best hope for the vital work of preparation for the Kingdom; but they acknowledged that; from a Christian point of view; the slavery practiced in the South left much to be desired. For them; the struggle to reform; or rather transform; social relations was nothing less than a struggle to justify the trust God placed in them when He sanctioned slavery.The reform campaign of prominent ministers and church laymen featured demands to secure slave marriages and family life; repeal the laws against slave literacy; and punish cruel masters. A Consuming Fire analyzes the strength; weakness; and failure of the struggle for reform and the nature and significance of southern Christian orthodoxy and its vision of a proper social order; class structure; and race relations.