Summary
Title: Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920
Author: Charles Reagan Wilson
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820306819
Pro:
• Extensive information not generally available elsewhere
• Reveals the deep and extensive role of Christianity in southern culture, racism, xenophobia
Con:
• None
Description:
• Analysis of how religion was used to define and explain the Civil War
• Argues that Christianity played a key role in reconstituting the South's sense of self, mission, destiny
• Explains how southern culture has impacted America and American nationalism generally
Book Review
Christianity's involvement with slavery and the Civil War has been well documented, but more attention should be paid to role Christianity played in the South's recovery from the Civil War: explaining why they lost despite fighting on behalf of God's Will, what should happen next, and how the newly-freed slaves should be treated. Responses to questions like these were all combined to create the myth of the Lost Cause: rather than guilt or self-reflection, southern Christians and especially Christian ministers engaged in a concerted to effort re-justify their lost war as test from God. Southerners and slave-owners never did anything wrong or immoral, but God wanted to test their resolve by allowing them to be defeated.
It's important to keep firmly in mind just how devastating the Civil War was to the South — the material destruction was extensive, perhaps only exceeding the psychological destruction for the people themselves. The psychological wounds had to be healed, and conservative, evangelical Christianity provided just the salve that was needed. The consequence, as recounted by Charles Reagan Wilson in Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920, was the Lost Cause myth which ended up playing such a vital role in southern culture and politics.
A particular combination of mythology, romanticization of an idealized past, rituals, and symbols were used to teach Southerners to be proud of their heritage — including owning slaves (which was transformed into paternalistic Christianization) and violent rebellion (which was transformed into a righteous fight for states' rights). Perhaps the central organizing principle behind all of this was the portrayal of southern soldiers as "Crusading Christian Confederates." These soldiers had been engaged in a righteous, divinely-appointed cause for which no apology or guilt was necessary: "religion's greatest role was in raising the morale of the soldiers, preparing them for holy combat"
Thus the South began a long history of celebrating conservatism, traditionalism, and white supremacism in the context of a religious glorification of southern culture. They may have been inferior to the North in terms of industrial production and military action, but they were by far superior in terms of morality and religion. Cities, towns, and plantations may have been destroyed, but an internal order was maintained. Their slavocracy may have been eliminated, but the superior status of whites could still be maintained — especially with the assistance of Christian leaders.
Christianity was the glue that locked together southern culture, southern traditions, white supremacism, and southern nationalism. Despite constant persecution at the hands of infidel and apostate northerners, southerners would survive and the South would prevail — it was God's will, after all, and just a matter of time.
Indeed, if some of those post-war Christian leaders in the South were alive today, they might conclude that time has already arrived: many today write about how American politics and religion overall have shifted towards the views and traditions which used to be restricted to the South.
It's disturbing how many aspects of conservative Christianity today seem to mirror some of the behaviors commonly associated with conservative evangelical Christians then. Schools became a battleground, for example, as Christian ministers sought to ensure their allegiance in the battle to promote white, Christian, southern culture: "Clergymen led the call for textbooks and historical monographs suitable for use by southern children, served on committees to canvass the books and determine their acceptability, and wrote history books themselves"
Unfortunately, few churches and individual Christians probably understand that the historical roots of many of their current religious or nationalist attitudes can be traced directly to the white supremacist, xenophobic, and misogynistic religious attitudes of Christians in the American South. The North was originally demonized for lacking proper Christian order (paternalistic hierarchies) — and thus as being immoral and chaotic. Today, though, southern notions about the proper order for society have spread across the continent.
