The American Civil War comprises one of the most complex stories in a complex nation’s almost-250-year history. Further, the Christian religion is its own complex entity, even when just restricted to the southern states. In this work, Peterson seeks to combine both subjects in a study of the work of chaplains in the Confederate armies. He does a detailed job in collecting primary sources about southern religiosity during the war. However, on the historical front, he proves biased against northern accounts of the war particularly when it comes to the issue of slavery. Religiously, he also proves biased towards southern revivalism and against any more complex understanding of American Christianity. These flaws severely limit the value and potential reach of this work.
Peterson spends the last two chapters attacking historical work that stands contrary towards his viewpoint as “anti-religious.” Lest he attack my analysis in a similar vein, let me flash my credentials. I was raised in South Carolina and attended a southern college. I currently live in Tennessee (like Peterson), coordinate a weekly Sunday School class at my Presbyterian church, confess a historical and orthodox Christian creed, and have thought long and hard about why I believe in Trinitarian theology. I usually read my New Testament in Greek in an attempt to understand its message more clearly. I am, if anything, pro-religious in my bias. However, unlike Peterson, I value a diversity of views and opinions and do not view the American south as an exclusive center of Christian practice.
In his research, Peterson places little stock in the black community – much like the Confederate camp. He occasionally mentions chaplains (usually Presbyterians or Episcopalians) who worked among enslaved African Americans, but in this writing, he seems never to have considered that the Confederates were defending systemic white supremacy. He further does not make much mention of the KKK and Jim Crow era which came after Reconstruction. For all his thoroughness in bringing to light southern religiosity of a revivalist nature, he omits the perspective of enslaved people. One unanswered question was bouncing through my head during the entire book: How could these upstanding and “Biblical” men ignore the imago Dei (image of God) in their black counterparts? Is that practical theology as much, if not more, of a sin to Peterson than denying the exclusivity of Christian fundamentalism?
Religiously, Peterson limits his view of the Christian religion to southern revivalism. While this phenomenon deserves scholarly attention (which is why I wrote this book), it must be placed in the wider context of transcendentalism, abolitionism, and the social gospel, among other Christian movements among contemporary Americans. He seems to think that interdenominational and ecumenical revivalism (leading to fundamentalism, leading to evangelicalism) is the only viable form of true religion. This provincial view infuses this entire work. Peterson needs to respect others’ religious viewpoints even if they receive the label of “northern” or (gasp!) “liberal.” His conclusion seems bent on arguing for his religious position instead of standing by the erudition of his scholarship.
Overall, these biases definitively limit this book. It does collect a thorough and deep sample of southern religious sources in the Civil War era (even including Judaism). He does a decent job at demonstrating the diversity of (white) southern denominations. However, left unstated are important, critical viewpoints that call his viewpoint into question. In the end, this becomes a “rah-rah” piece for traditional southern Christianity that oppressed black Americans for centuries. It does not represent unbiased scholarship. I’m not sure the label “white grievance” should be placed on it, but the label “lost cause” certainly can. I’m grateful that this book helps me understand the southern culture around me better, but I sure could have done without Peterson’s overt agenda.
Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies
By Dennis L. Peterson
Copyright (c) 2021
TouchPoint Faith
ISBN13 9781952816543
eBook
Genre: History, American Civil War
www.amazon.com