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Capitalism, Socialism, and Income Equality – Part I

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : April 4, 2014
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Christianity, Equality, Socialism

That capitalism has once again been resurrected as the bad boy that creates a broken society and robs the poor should be no surprise to any student of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its nemesis is socialism. The opposing concepts have found different homes in the two dominant worldviews in Western civilization—Christianity and humanism. Both capitalism and socialism claim the badge of freedom, but their definitions of freedom are substantially different. Generally, socialism speaks of a “freedom from…” while capitalism espouses a “freedom to…” Does this simple distinction really make a difference in our lives? Yes. Whichever worldview prevails will dominate and organize society and determine how we, our children, and our grandchildren will live our lives. This battle lies at the heart of the culture wars and currently revolves around cries for income equality.

The genesis of the conflict between capitalism and socialism arose from the large-scale industrialization in the Western world near the beginning of the nineteenth century. J. M. Roberts in his definitive The New History of the World stated that the magnitude of societal change produced by industrialization was the “most striking in European history since the barbarian invasions”…and perhaps the “…biggest change in human history since the coming of agriculture, iron, or the wheel.” [Roberts, pp. 708-709.]

Capitalism, unlike socialism, was not invented and therefore is not a philosophy. Rather, capitalism is a long-term outgrowth of the natural workings of human motives and endeavors as they coalesced around the events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These events included great strides in agricultural production, increasing population, technological advances, replacement of human and animal labor with machines, increasing specialization, production in larger units, and centralization of the means of production. The engine that powered all of these aspects of human life and activity was capital which had been built up over centuries in places where a measure of societal stability led to investor confidence, and this confidence was found primarily in Western civilization. [Roberts, pp. 704-705, 708-709, 711.] Growth in agriculture and industrialization would have been impossible without capital investment. The relationship between commerce and capital was symbiotic. Capital grew when investments were successful, and successful investments unleashed demand for more capital.

But societal change of the magnitude and rapidity as described by Roberts was massively unsettling. The social fabric was stretched or torn as populations shifted from agrarian life to crowded cities, new schools developed and educational requirements changed, and new social classes emerged as property and wealth were reshuffled to reflect new economic realities. Dislocation and human suffering were enormous during the initial stages of industrialization and devastating to whole generations as evidenced by bleak industrial cities, exploitation of labor (particularly that of children and women), and loss of centuries of order more specifically defined as a loss of place and purpose as the Church reeled under attacks by the humanistic philosophies of the Enlightenment. However, the poverty of urban life of the times was perhaps no greater than that of the agrarian hovel except in the loss to the soul.

Efforts to recapture of the soul would take much of a century and never really be successful as deceptive definitions of man and his purpose would poison his consciousness and relegate him to animal status with no soul and therefore no need of God.

But the Church would not quietly cede Western civilization to the flood waters of industrialization and Enlightenment philosophies. Compassion was the Christian innovation in all of history and was evident in Christ’s concern for the hurting and sick. From the earliest days of the industrial revolution, Christianity invaded the cities to not only save the soul but provide services and address societal ills for the hurting masses. Christian men of compassion fought to outlaw child labor in England, men such as William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury. But Shaftesbury was the most determined and worked tirelessly for decades in Parliament to pass many bills that improved the lot of English children. The renowned preacher Charles Spurgeon said of Shaftesbury, “A man so firm in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so intensely active in the cause of God and man, I have never known.“ [Schmidt, pp. 142-143.] From such men and women came the likes of George Muller, a German who became a missionary to England in 1829. He established his first orphanage for girls in 1836, and by the time of his death in 1898, eight thousand children in numerous orphanages under his direction were being educated and cared for. [Schmidt, pp. 132-133.] Other organizations were birthed such as the Salvation Army (founded in London in 1865 by William and Catherine Booth) that ultimately provided worldwide relief for millions of the poor and destitute. Although General Booth died in 1912, his and his wife’s work would continue and expand into over one hundred countries by the end of the twentieth century. (Hosier, pp. 3, 192, 201.] These are just few of the thousands that immersed themselves in the grit and poverty of the nineteenth century to address vast societal changes and deprivations caused by industrialization.

But taking its cue from enlightenment rationalism, there was another offering its voice. Unlike Christianity, it was not interested in saving the soul but redefining man and society. The rise of socialists and socialism generally corresponded with the emergence of the industrial age near the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Both words (socialists and socialism) were first commonly used in France around 1830 to describe theories and men opposed to society run on market principles and to an economy operated on laissez-faire lines, of which the main beneficiaries (they though) were the wealthy. Economic and social egalitarianism is fundamental to the socialist idea…All socialists, too, could agree that there was nothing sacred about property, whose rights buttressed injustice; some sought its complete abolition and were called communists. “Property is theft” was one very successful slogan. [Roberts, pp. 758-759.]

At this point we must more specifically describe capitalism and socialism. Capitalism is an “…economic system characterized by private or corporation ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly in a free market. Socialism is “…any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods…” [Webster’s Dictionary, 1963, pp. 124, 828.] Interestingly, the first American dictionary published by Noah Webster in 1828 did not have a definition for either socialism or capitalism as these were rather new concepts in the emerging industrial age. [Webster’s Dictionary, 1828]

In Part II we shall examine the conflict and consequences of each of these forces that arose in the era of industrialization.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

J. M. Roberts, The New History of the World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 704-705, 708-709, 711, 758-759.

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 132-133, 142-143.

Helen K. Hosier, William and Catherin Booth, (Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1999), pp. 3, 192, 201.

Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), pp. 124, 828.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, (New York: S. Converse, 1828), Republished in Facsimile Edition (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).

Sickness in the Soul of the American Republic – Part II

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : February 28, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Government

In Part I we described the sickness in the soul of the American Republic as being caused by a loss of unity and the denigration of the truths upon which the nation was founded. At its founding, America’s unity was derived from a central cultural vision that reflected a Christian worldview whose truths rested upon biblical principles. For those that adhere to the central cultural vision of the Founders, certain actions must be taken to not only defend but reverse its decline in American society. To restore the central cultural vision of the Founders, these actions must be taken by Christians but also by non-Christians who believe in the biblical moral code as a guide for living life and governing the nation.

John Adams said that our Constitution (the framework for governing) was made only for a moral and religious people, and by morality and religion he meant Christian morality. In other words, morality in government must flow upward from the morality of its citizens. Without a moral citizenry, there is no hope for a moral and just government. Therefore, moral reformation must start with the individual, that is, morality begins with us and our families. Humanists war against the individual through exaltation of self. Exaltation of self leads to egotism and loosens the bonds of moral restraint and weakens relationships with God, spouse, family, and community. From such comes a devaluation of a society’s moral traditions, heritage, and history. For a regeneration of both private and communal morality in the American Republic, we must adhere to and teach our children and grandchildren the standards of biblical morality.

Moral degeneration has affected every sphere of American society. We have mentioned the individual and family, and here we see the attack on the traditional view of marriage and the elevation of homosexuality in society; the fragmentation of family structure through divorce and co-habitation; and the devaluation of life through abortion, assisted suicide, and in some cases calls for infanticide. Moral degeneration in other spheres includes government, politics, education, arts and entertainment, economics and business, and religion. As humanists gained dominance in these spheres, the individual can have little direct or sustained impact on these monoliths propagating the humanist worldview. However, the collective worldviews of like-minded individuals who actively stand against humanism’s onslaught can turn the tide.

In the education sphere, humanistic policies and practices in conflict with biblical standards of morality are dictated to schools and universities by an entrenched academic establishment and federal bureaucracy. If change is to come in the sphere of education, it will be a long process and must come from concerted action by our elected representatives who ultimately control the purse strings and can reign in insulated institutions and bureaucracies immune to the wishes of the people. However, in the near term there is still power to hinder if not change humanistic policies and practices at the local and state levels. To do so we must have the courage to speak out against immorality in public education, elect officials that hold the Christian worldview, and hold those elected officials accountable for their actions and inactions.

Likewise in economics and business, the individual can take a stand and hold accountable businesses for breaches of morality through public exposure and withholding one’s dollars from support of such businesses. Economic policies are typically a function of government which will be addressed as part of the discussion on government and politics. The arts and entertainment field are blatantly humanistic in worldview and offer little opportunity for influence. However, we must remember that they are businesses and sensitive to loss of patronage and revenue. We must make our positions and concerns regarding immorality known to the leadership of this sphere of American culture and withhold patronage and revenue where those concerns are not sufficiently addressed.

Religious organizations are not exempt from humanistic influence. And because religion is closely tied to biblical standards of morality, there have been significant declines in patronage, membership, and revenue in those religious and church organizations that have abandoned biblical precepts and morality in favor of a humanistic worldview in matters such as abortion and homosexuality.

We now turn our attention to government and politics for the remainder of this article. Many Christians disdain any involvement with politics and government, having bought into the erroneous liberal argument regarding separation of church and state. This is a tragedy and responsible to a large degree for the sickness that pervades our Republic. However, apart from individual morality and concerted and sustained prayer by Christians, our efforts to influence and change government and politics offers the greatest opportunity to advance a moral reformation of America.

America is a republic by which is meant that power is “…lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person.” [Webster] The American Republic is a constitutional democracy (as opposed to an absolute democracy) in which the constitution is a body of fundamental laws and customs that are just and join together various regions, classes, and interests of a country. The beauty and longevity of the American Constitution occurs because “…it is in harmony with laws, customs, habits, and popular beliefs that existed before the Constitutional Convention.” [Kirk, p. 416.] Constitutional safeguards against abuses by the majority or dictatorial officials and bureaucrats include separation of powers among the federal branches and a division of powers between the federal government and states.

In humanism’s effort to remake America in its image, the safeguards built into the Constitution must be weakened or made of no effect. Additionally, the voice of the people through its elected representatives must be muted or diminished in relation to the wishes of a regal presidency and a radicalized judiciary. For anyone with eyes and ears and who is concerned about the future, the massive attacks on the Constitution and the republican form of government in America over the last five years are abundantly clear.

The attacks become obvious when one understands President Obama’s “above-the-law” attitude and actions that include his many instances of unilateral violation of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative and judicial branches; seizing powers allotted to the states; imposition of illegitimate executive orders; non-enforcement of laws passed by Congress; and vocal denigration of the judiciary and its decisions with consequent promotion of disrespect of the law. Through judicial activism of liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature in making laws, the courts have appropriated unto themselves a law-making role never intended by the Founders. Additionally, their power to decide what is right and wrong is all too frequently based on man’s law, not God’s laws. These abuses of power by the judiciary have significantly undermined the Founders’ meaning and intent with regard to the Constitution.

For Christians and those non-Christians who also adhere to the biblical worldview of morality, it is imperative that we become actively involved in electing and supporting men and women who will defend the Founders’ intent with regard to the Constitution; who will uphold biblical standards of morality, both privately and publicly; who will govern based on Christian principles; and who will tighten the reigns on humanistic bureaucracies and government-funded institutions that impose their policies, practices, and regulations that conflict with the laws and directives of the elected representatives of the citizenry.

Humanists will scream that such mixing of morality and politics is nothing more than a ruse by religious zealots attempting to impose a theocracy on the nation. But, an examination of the historical record reveals otherwise. In the founding era, politics was defined as the science of government and considered a part of ethics. This definition of politics includes “… the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.” (emphasis added) [Webster] Therefore, the active involvement of government and politics in the moral well-being of its citizenry is not of recent invention but a pattern established and followed by the Founders.

There is one other action that only Christians may take. It is more important than all of the actions listed above but not a replacement for those actions. Ultimately, the preservation of the Christian worldview as the dominant central cultural vision of America depends on her people’s reliance on the principle expressed in God’s covenant with ancient Israel: “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. [II Chronicles 7:14 RSV.] We must work and pray.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Noah Webster, “Republic,” American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).

Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, 3rd Edition, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 417.

Webster, “Politics,” American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

Work

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : February 14, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government, Socialism

A few years ago before my mother passed away at age 79, we were talking about life on the family dairy farm when my brothers and I were kids. For those that don’t know, a dairy farm is a seven-day-a-week job with long hours, and as kids we thought everyone worked like that. Teasingly, I told my mother that if I knew then what I know now, I would have reported her and my father for child abuse! We both had a good laugh. While my brothers and I may not have appreciated it when we were children and teenagers, the instilled work ethic molded us, shaped our characters, and made possible the joys and blessings of life.

However, as our nation staggers toward the looming welfare state, work has become just another profane four-letter word. The denigration of work has been around for thousands of years and flourished in the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome in which physical work was considered demeaning to all except slaves and the lower classes. In ancient Athens, one-third of freemen sat daily discussing the affairs of state in the court of Comitia as slaves, who outnumbered citizens five-to-one, performed all manual labor. In the “bread and circuses” pleasure-seeking Roman culture, it was again slaves who did all of the manual labor. [Schmidt, pp. 194-195.]

But during the first century, at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, a child was born that would give voice to God’s view of the dignity of labor. His name was Jesus, the promised Messiah. His early disciples were mostly callus-handed fishermen, tradesmen, and even a local IRS agent. And the arch-persecutor-turned-apostle of this tiny Christian sect was a brilliant theologian and evangelist but also a tent-maker by trade. And the Apostle Paul admonished the Thessalonian Christians that, “If any one will not work, let him not eat.” [2 Thessalonians 3:10. RSV] It was in the first century that Christians were driven from their homeland and made their first appearances in the Greco-Roman world. Because Christians believed in the dignity and honor of work, they were held with contempt by their Roman masters. Persecution arose, in part, because those strange Christian beliefs about work conflicted with the Romans’ view of the world and also because of suspicions and jealousies of the Christians’ prosperity due to their strong work ethic. [Schmidt, pp. 195-196.]

But the first century Christian view of work was not a new philosophy but a reflection of the image of the Creator stamped on man, the pinnacle of His creation. Biblical instruction and admonitions regarding work are abundant. The first chapter of Genesis records God’s labors in creating the universe. Not only does God work, He charged man with responsibilities and duties of being fruitful, replenishing and subduing the earth, and having dominion over all living creatures. When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden because of their sin, God told Adam that “…cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life…In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground…” [Genesis 3: 17, 19. RSV] Notice that God did not impose work as a punishment for their sin. Rather, the curse was on the ground upon which they would toil. In other words, the curse was upon the conditions under which the work would be performed, not on work itself. But God loved man and would make possible a way for man to re-enter right relationship with Him by sending His Son Jesus in human form as a babe. Perhaps this gives us another insight into God’s view of work in that the earthly father of God’s Son was a carpenter.

With the decline and fall of the western half of the Roman Empire by the end of the fifth century, a remnant of the Christian heritage of the western portion of the Roman Empire was pushed northward into the sparse and hostile forests of France and western Germany. The inhabitants were Gauls whom the Romans had conquered and brought civilization at the beginning of the Christian era. To this group was added a smaller number of Teutonic invaders that had come from the East and hindered for a time the building of an organized social life and assimilation of the Mediterranean culture. Life was harsh in the pioneer wilds of northern Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages around A.D. 500. However, out of this difficult and meager existence was built a cohesive and somewhat refined civilization, and the broad and general characteristics of their medieval society remained for centuries. Those characteristics and viewpoint, worldview if you will, became the ideas and ideals of Christendom which were the foundations of the American experience from the earliest colonial days to the middle of the twentieth century. [Johnson, p. 88.]

Christendom’s creedal reverence for work and the practical necessity of work amidst primitive conditions in the forests and clearings of early Europe produced the phenomenon of the middle class, unknown before the advent of Christianity and now present in all of Western civilization. With the birth of the middle class came the reduction of poverty and its attendant disease. And from the middle class arose political and economic freedom of a magnitude unknown in the history of the world to that time. [Schmidt, pp. 198-199.]

In the very earliest years of Europeans on the American continent, socialistic answers were sought to replace the Christian work ethic as the North Star for organizing society. Because of their isolation from the civilized world, Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony stand as great laboratory experiments regarding questions as to the validity and worthiness of socialistic principles. Communism of an almost pure variety, in the isolated and controlled environment of the New World, failed miserably in its initial years as laziness and inefficiency trumped thrift and industry. As the colonists abandoned their experiment in socialism, the colonies flourished. [Johnson, p. 247.] Karl Marx’s ideas regarding socialism presented in The Communist Manifesto became the twentieth century’s grand socialist experiment which led to the enslavement of a third of humanity behind the iron and bamboo curtains. For three quarters of a century, the consequences of these socialistic systems were death and misery unparalleled in the history of mankind.

But our collective memory is short and socialism’s propaganda machine is strong. As a result Christianity and its values are being rapidly abandoned in Western societies in favor of a humanistic worldview requiring socialistic solutions to society’s problems. As a result, socialism is destroying the middle class and its indispensable Christian work ethic, and America is becoming a bread and circuses culture.

The displacement of the work ethic by the actions of the American government’s social engineers since the 1960s has had a multitude of far-reaching consequences. Just one example is the humanistic welfare solutions that have fractured the concept of family by substituting governmental assistance to unwed pregnant teenage girls. Fathers are not required to work and provide for the mother and child for whom they are responsible. This welfare system perpetuates itself through ensuing generations that repeat the cycle. The direct consequences of institutionalization of illegitimacy in American life are a rise in the illegitimacy rate (6% in 1963 to 41% in 2014) and consequent increases in drug use rate, dropout rate, crime rate, and incarceration rate. [Buchanan, p. A-14.

In the mid-1990s Congressional welfare reforms required those seeking welfare to work. However, this requirement was removed by an executive order by President Obama in 2012. Additionally, governmental subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act have now been determined to be a disincentive to work by those receiving subsidies with a consequent loss of 2.5 million jobs over the next three years according to a Congressional Budget Office report. [Carruthers]

The operation of man’s fallen human nature exposes the soft and rotten underbelly of the tenets of the socialism and humanistic faith in mankind and their commitment to the principle of the greatest-happiness-for-the-greatest-number which humanists consider to be the highest moral obligation for humanity as a whole. [Johnson, p. 247.] The operation of human nature conflicts with man-made socialistic solutions to the problems of life, and the end result is failure. People fail, families fail, and cultures ultimately fail. The socialists’ false view of man’s nature leads to poverty, starvation, and loss of freedom. The antidote is a rejection of socialism and a return to the Christian work ethic.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 194-196, 198-199.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 88, 247.

Patrick Buchanan, “Is this end of the line for the welfare state?” Tulsa World, February 12, 2014, A-14.

Wanda Carruthers, “Joe Scarborough: CBO Report Shows Obamacare ‘Still Red Hot Mess’,” Newsmax.com, February 6, 2014. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cbo-work-obamacare-disincentive/2014/02/06/id/551246#ixzz2tEpiNt4b (accessed February 13, 2014).

Saving the Republic – The Third Great Awakening – Part II

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : January 24, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity

The Revival of 1857-1858 influenced many young men who would later spark many revivals among troops during of the Civil War. Large and widespread revivals in both Union and Confederate armies occurred between 1862 and 1865. Conversions during the war were estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 among Union troops and as many as 150,000 in the Confederate Army. [McClymond, pp. 117-118.]

One may ask how this can be—brothers fighting and killing each other while both called on God for protection and to save their immortal souls. To answer, we must remember that slavery was an institutional cancer on the national body. Regardless of slavery’s origins and protectors, it was slavery that was being cut from the body, not the Southern soldier and citizen. God was just as concerned for the individual Southerner as he was for those in the North.

The efforts to abolish slavery in America began early in the nation’s history as a result of the moral suasion of Christian people who saw slavery as morally unacceptable within the biblical worldview. It was a matter of right and wrong and not a matter of “rights” or equality. However, breaking the chains of injustice sometimes requires the hammer of state in the cause of brotherhood and fraternity. The Civil War cost 600,000 lives, billions of dollars, and loss of unity as the nation was tragically divided with few thoughts of Christian brotherhood on either side of the chasm filled with distrust.

The war and the years following the draconian Reconstruction Act of 1867 left the South lying prostrate and ravaged. Called the Tragic Era, Sherwood Eddy paints a picture of the dozen years of life in the South following the Civil War.

Often with flagrant disregard of civil liberties, Southern officials, courts, customs, and organizations were removed or swept away, and a government by Northern Carpetbaggers and Negroes was substituted under military tribunals. A Northern army of occupation of twenty thousand was aided by an irritating force of colored militia…The state administrations under Northern carpetbaggers were extravagant, corrupt, and vulgar. The state treasuries were systematically looted…The majority of the legislature and most of the important officers were Negroes and many of the rest were rascally whites from the North, or unsavory characters from the South. Taxes were levied by the Negroes, of whom 80 percent were illiterate, and were paid by the disfranchised whites…the future of the Negro was sadly prejudiced by these disreputable adventures in self-government. [Eddy, pp. 177, 179-180.]

The post-war product of the hammer of state that broke the chains of injustice was dis-unifying, absent Christian principles and brotherhood, and was anything but moral. Should Abraham Lincoln have avoided the assassin’s bullet, his post-war efforts at reconciliation of the divided nation could have forestalled much of the tragedy and anguish experienced during the Reconstruction period. Richard Weaver described the precipice upon which the nation teetered following Lincoln’s death at the end of the Civil War.

There was a critical period when, if things had been managed a little worse, the South might have turned into a Poland or an Ireland, which is to say a hopelessly alienated and embittered province, willing to carry on a struggle for decades or even centuries to achieve a final self-determination…As it was, things were done which produced only rancor and made it difficult for either side to believe in the good faith of the other. It is unfortunate but it is true that the Negro was forced to pay a large part of the bill for the follies of Reconstruction. [Weaver, p. 216.]

Therefore, we must ask how it was possible for the nation to survive the cataclysmic events of the Civil War and the subsequent Tragic Era in the midst of moral degradation and dashed hopes for brotherhood and unity. Once again we must look for the answer in the actions of Christians who originally provided the motivation and drive to end slavery and who, following the Civil War, would provide the motivation for the restoration and unification of the nation.

Restoration and unity would not come easily, and it would be decades before signs of healing would be evident. The Northern and Southern churches continued to have different interpretations of the war and its outcome. Northerners viewed theirs as a righteous victory and themselves as guardians of the ideals embodied in the Constitution which were based on the same principles as found in Christianity. [Shattuck, pp. 129-130.] Following the war main-stream Northern churches tended toward rectifying other ills of society through a social gospel with a consequent loss of focus as it “…switched its emphasis from perfecting the inner man to social justice.” [Johnson, p. 244.] In spite of loss of the war, Southern evangelicals comforted themselves with the thought that their goals were spiritual and not temporal which resulted in the rise of an other-worldly mood within Southern Christianity. Thus, Christianity allowed the Southern culture to focus on spiritual victory in the midst of earthly defeat. Religion in the South became the bulwark of Southern culture and “…never appeared stronger than it did at the end of the nineteenth century.” From this détente between Northern and Southern churches during the remainder of the century, old animosities began to wane as reconciliation became a common political, literary and religious theme in both the North and South. “Religion which once played a role in breaking the nation apart, now aided the reunification of the South with the North.” [Shattuck, pp. 12, 125, 127-128, 130-131, 135-136.]

In spite of differing views of the war and the rampant corruption and immorality that plagued both the North and South for decades after the Civil war, many of the faithful Civil War veterans who embraced Christianity during the war-time revivals returned to their homes with their religious fervor intact, filled the pews, spurred post-war revivals (particularly in the South), and brought healing to the nation. [McClymond, pp. 120-121.] Without the unifying common ground of Christianity and faithfulness of individual Christians who sheltered the flame of brotherhood amidst the secularism and materialism of the Gilded Age in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the rebirth of national unity would have been still-born which could have easily and likely led to a permanent balkanization of much of the South. But because of the Revival of 1857 and 1858 and its legacy of Christian revivals among the soldiers during the Civil War, the Republic was saved.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Michael McClymond, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, Vol. 1, A-Z, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 117-118, 120-121.

Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941), pp. 177, 179-180.

Richard M. Weaver, The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver, Eds. George M. Curtis, III and James J. Thompson, Jr., (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, 1987), p. 216.

Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr., A Shield and Hiding Place – The Religious Life of the Civil War Armies, (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1987), pp. 125, 127-128, 130-131, 135-136.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 244.

Saving the Republic – The Third Great Awakening – Part I

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : January 17, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity

The Third Great Awakening began in 1857-1858 has been called by many names including the Businessman’s Revival, the Layman’s Revival, and the Union Prayer Meeting. But it is most widely known as the Revival of 1857-1858. We must briefly distinguish between a revival and an awakening. Revivals tend to be localized events (church, village, town, or city), but an awakening affects a much larger area (district, county, or country), can last for years or decades, and significantly affects the moral standards of a society. [Backholer, p. 7.] Although popularly called the Revival of 1857-1858, it bore all the marks and qualifications of a general moral and spiritual awakening in America. Its distinguishing features were the absence of clerical leadership, broad inter-denominational support, and focus on prayer. However, the meetings included brief corporate prayers, religious testimony, and singing. [McClymond, p. 362.]

The revival sprang from an initial meeting at the noon hour on September 23, 1857 in the upper room of the Dutch Reform Church in lower Manhattan. Jeremiah Lamphier had advertised the prayer meeting, but only six came that first day. Three weeks later, a financial panic that had been building since August exploded on October 13th when banks were closed and did not reopen for two months. Attendance soon mushroomed as businessmen from nearby Wall Street began attending. The prayer meetings quickly spread to other churches, auditoriums, and theaters. [McClymond, pp. 362-363.] During the winter months the crime rate dropped even as in mass unemployment caused by the financial panic engulfed the large city and where one would expect the crime rate to rise under such circumstances. [Backholer, p. 62.]

The greatest intensity of the revival occurred between February and April of 1858. The initial effects of the revival were felt in New York City where the revival began. The prayer revival also sparked local church revivals in New England, the Midwest, and upper South (beginning particularly with New Year’s Eve “watch night” services); in separate women’s prayer groups; and on college campuses across the nation (including Oberlin, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Rutgers, Princeton, the University of Michigan, Ohio Wesleyan, the University of Virginia, Davidson, the University of North Carolina, and several others). Net growth in membership of Protestant denominations for the period 1857-1859 grew by 474,000, more than twice the number of the preceding three years. The greatest influence of the Revival of 1857-1858 was felt in the North, but the revival spread through the South, into the Canadian provinces, and crossed the Atlantic to the British Isles where it lasted until 1862. [McClymond, pp. 362-363.]

The character and results of the Revival of 1857-1858 were described by Matthew Backholer.

The lay influence predominated to such an extent that ministers were overshadowed. This awakening was not a remote piety in little corners of churches, but to the fore of everyday business life, college life and home life. It was right there in the nitty-gritty of everyday work, not just a Sunday affair. [Backholer, p. 63.]

This lay influence of the revival was remarkably demonstrated when a group of Pennsylvania lumbermen visited Philadelphia and were converted at a Charles Finney evangelistic meeting. The men returned to their families in the lumber region and five thousand people were converted in an area of about eighty miles without the attendance of a single minister. [Backholer, pp. 62-63.]

After considerable and careful research, J. Edwin Orr, one of the twentieth century’s foremost revival historians, confirmed estimates that over one million solid, long-lasting conversions occurred during 1858-1859 out of a population of less than thirty million. [Backholer, pp. 62-63.]

Historians have debated the impact of the Revival of 1857-1858 as it related to nineteenth century social reform efforts. Some historians strongly connect the revival with concerns for the ills of society and the need for social reforms that were beginning to ferment in the last half of the nineteenth century. Others pointed to the revival prayer meeting practice of avoiding any discussion of controversial topics such as slavery and abolitionism as evidence of little direct social impact caused by the revival. [McClymond, p. 365.] The reality was that the 1857-1858 Revival was about personal religious transformation but with which society greatly benefited. It must be remembered that the ordering of society and the addressing of its social ills must begin with the individual and an ordering of his soul in right relationship with God. This must certainly be the greatest impact of the Revival of 1857-1858 as the nation was soon to be immersed in its greatest struggle for survival. It was the Revival of 1857-1858 that caused men and women, in both the North and South, to be spiritually prepared for the coming struggle in which the nation would exorcize the demon of slavery and recover its national unity.

We have noted that the Great Awakening was the formative moment in American history and that the Second Great Awakening was the stabilizing moment that saved the new nation from political and moral destruction. We can also say that the Third Great Awakening was the sustaining moment that made possible the survival of the nation in the aftermath of the Civil War. We shall examine the consequences of this providential moment in Part II.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Matthew Backholer, Revival Fires and Awakenings, (www.ByFaith.org: ByFaith Media, 2009, 2012), pp. 7, 62-63.

Michael McClymond, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, Vol. 1, A-Z, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 362-363, 365.