April 21, 2006
Reconstruction, Religion, and the Closing of the Southern Mind
Even more interesting than the overview of Reconstruction historiography was the piece by Genovese mentioned in the previous entry (A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South). Genovese, of course, was the historian who provided such interesting insights on Thomas Dew in the Antebellum reading. I found the prospect of reading his take on one of the formative moments in "the mind of the White Christian South" irresistible. While his discussion largely revolved around the evolution of Southern Christian opinions regarding the Confederacy during the Civil War, the shift in perspective he chronicles is a great deal more relevant to what happened in the minds of Southerners after the war.
Consider, as a Christian in the South in the 1860s, how one might explain or justify the formation, existence, and ultimate decline of the Confederacy in light of a worldview centered on the omnipresent control of God over all human events. As is to be expected, there were certainly pastors preaching sermons that declared the South to be fighting with God on their side, for a cause He approved of. The surprise, however, comes in finding a great deal of moderation among the Southern clergy, even before things began to look especially bleak for the Southern cause. Preachers emphasised the fact that the South still had many sins to atone for, and even spoke of God's wrath against Southern wickedness. Many sermons during the period acknowledged the evils of warfare, and its incompatibility with many Christian teachings.
In short, from the beginning, leading Christian voices strove to moderate the self-righteous, patriotic fervor of the Confederate South. As the South began to lose, its religious leaders broadcast the message that the region was only getting what it deserved. Naturally, by the time Reconstruction rolled around, it seemed to many as though the South were the children of Israel who had strayed from their faith, and God had brought down the heathens to chastise them.
I would speculate that these attitudes and messages show us two interesting things about the imminent shift in Southern perspectives of themselves and their values. First, prior to their defeat in the Civil War, Southerners seem to have been much more willing to question themselves openly and honestly rather than expecting certain things to be taken for granted and expecting everyone to toe the party line. This is evidenced, I think, not only in this reading about the open criticisms from Southern preachers, but even more especially in the writings of men like Thomas Dew and the many Southern intellectuals who came before him.
Dew was writing very shortly before the Civil War, and yet, not long afterwards, "intellectual" became almost a dirty word in the South, and still bears something of a stigma today. Without questioning the rightness of waging a Civil War to reunite the nation, or judging the measures of Radical Reconstruction, I dare say that having the opinion of the North regarding slavery stuffed down the Southern throat by force did a great deal to kill any hope of Southern openness, honesty, or internal debate for decades and more. Basically, after the Civil War and Reconstruction and before the Southern Literary Renaissance, the intellectuals that the South produced came in two flavors: people like Thomas Dixon who glorified "The Lost Cause" and the good old days of moonlight and magnolias, and people whose ideas turned them into exiles (usually by mutual agreement) to the North or to Europe.
The second thing that we may observe in the message of the Southern clergy during the Civil War is, perhaps, one of the links in the evolution of the historical myths which began to appear in earnest shortly after Reconstruction. So many of Southern attitudes regarding the era surrounding the Civil War have their origins in Southern Christianity. Consider the classic vision of Old South, Civil War, and Reconstruction reimagined as Paradise, Fall, and Redemption. It is a natural progression of seeing the Northern victory as a triumph of the heathen over God's chosen, but sinful, people. The pattern is obviously modeled directly on the Bible. Consider, "The South will rise again!" What basis does this statement have outside of the religious foundation we have just established?
To conclude, the Civil War, and especially Reconstruction, in conjunction with (for better or worse) a Christian worldview set Southern intellectual development (one of the nation's brightest stars in the days of the Founding Fathers, thanks, in particular, to the Virginians) back by over 60 years. In some ways, it is still recovering from that crippling blow today.
Posted by Jared at April 21, 2006 03:44 PM | TrackBack