A Bloody Unnecessary War

150th Anniversary of the Civil War – Slavery Not the Cause
A BLOODY UNNECESSARY WAR
Christian News, May 2, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 16

“Why We’re Still Fighting The Civil War – The endless battle over the war’s true cause would make Lincoln weep” is the cover story of the April 18 TIME.
Times says:
“A few weeks before Captain George S. James sent the first mortar round arcing through the predawn darkness toward Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, Abraham Lincoln cast his Inaugural Address as a last-ditch effort to win back the South. A single thorny issue divided the nation, he declared: ‘One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.’”

“On and on, seemingly endless, sometimes contradictory — although not among mainstream historians, who in the past generation have come to view the question much as Lincoln saw it. ‘Everything stemmed from the slavery issue,’ says Princeton professor James McPherson, whose book Battle Cry of Freedom is widely judged to be the authoritative one-volume history of the war. Another leading authority, David Blight of Yale, laments, ‘No matter what we do or the overwhelming consensus among historians, out in the public mind, there is still this need to deny that slavery was the cause of the war.’”

“With the centennial of the war approaching, a flood of outstanding Civil War history books hit shelves, and the half-century since then has been rich in scholarship. Robust controversies rage and always will, but the distortion and occluded memory that shaped the Lost Cause story is found now only on the academic fringe. What energy exists in the modern version comes from a clique of libertarians who view the Union cause as a fearsome example of authoritarian central government crushing individual dissent. Slave owners make odd libertarian heroes, but by keeping the focus narrowly on Big Government, this school uses the secession cause to dramatize issues of today.”

“To be blind to the reason the war happened is to build a sort of border of the mind, walling off an important truth. Slavery was not incidental to America's origins; it was central. There were slaves at Jamestown. In the 1600s, writes Yale's David Brion Davis, a towering figure among historians, slave labor was far more central to the making of New York than to the making of Virginia. As late as 1830, there were 2,254 slaves in New Jersey. Connecticut did not abolish slavery until 1848, a scant eight years before the fighting broke out in Kansas. Rhode Island dominated the American slave trade until it was outlawed in 1808. The cotton trade made Wall Street a global financial force. Slaves built the White House.”

“In other words, the path to healing and mercy goes by way of honesty and humility. After 150 years, it's time to finish the journey.”

Paul McCain of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Concordia Publishing House reflects the view of many of the organized conservatives in the LCMS who reject LCMS founder C.F.W. Walther’s position on the Civil War. McCain says the bloody war, where more than 600,000 Americans were killed was a necessity.

“150 Years Ago Today Began the Great War Between the States: Thoughts on the Tragedy and Necessity of the Civil War,” a statement released by McCain throughout the LCMS on April 12 said in part:

“One could argue that the Civil War was finally not truly over until civil rights legislation was passed and enforced throughout the South. 150 years ago began that great conflict that would consume so many of our nation’s men, at the time, on both sides. I remain deeply distressed that even some of my fellow LCMS pastors are so willingly complicit with attempts to recast the history of the times and make it appear as though the issue of slavery was not at the very heart of the issues that precipitated the Civil War.

“Slavery was a festering wound in the side of the United States at its very inception, when, frankly, hypocritically, the same men who declared that all men are created equal owned as property fellow men, as slaves. The war was long in coming, but perhaps inevitable and tragically, finally necessary. But what a great tragedy it was. I think that no better words have ever been spoken on why the war was necessary than those spoken by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg. Following Lincoln’s speech, are words from a speech given by the vice-president of the confederacy, driving a nail into the coffin of the argument that the Civil War was not about ‘slavery.’ When people talk about the ‘culture’ of the South, and ‘peculiar institution’ of the South, let’s be clear: that culture, that ‘peculiar institution was slavery’!”

McCain has long been a leading champion in the LCMS of Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He insists they were faithful Christians. The vast array of evidence in CN’s book on Bonhoeffer and King shows that both King and Bonhoeffer denied the resurrection of Christ. McCain and the conservatives who support him unlike true scholars refuse to consider the evidence.

“An Unnecessary War,” in this issue is an excerpt from Pastor Ronald Stelzer’s Salt, Light and Signs of the Times – An Intimate Look at the Life and Times of Alfred (Rip) Rehwinkel. Rehwinkel insisted that Walther was correct, “The Civil War did not solve the slave or Negro problem. The Civil War could have been avoided.” CPH refused to publish Stelzer’s book on Rehwinkel and the Schwan Foundation refused to help finance it.

Columnist Patrick Buchanan writes in “The New Intolerance” in this issue: “Slavery was not the cause of the war. Secession was – that and Lincoln’s determination to drown the nation in blood if necessary to make the Union whole again.”

Some of the articles CN has published on the Civil War are in the Christian News Encyclopedia. “The Civil War” in the September 2, 1991 CN said: “We have long been convinced that the bloodiest of all U.S. wars should never have been fought. We think of the utter stupidity of the killing of so many thousands of boys and men, and the grief caused in hundreds of thousands of American homes in both the North and South when we visit the Civil War battle sites.” Al Benson in “Public Television’s ‘Civil War’ impressively shallow (CNE, p. 343) noted “The series hardly dealt with the Unitarian influenced abolitionist movement in the Northern politicians. It did not at all deal with the revival of Reformation Christianity taking place in the South before the war.” “C.F.W. Walther: The American Luther (CNE, 3172) discusses the position Walther and the LCMS took during the Civil War.

This issue includes much of the section on the Civil War in “The Messianic character of American Foreign Policy” (CNE, 4120-4121).

“The Civil War – The Conflict that Divided America began 150 Years Ago This Week” is the cover story of the April 10 PARADE. “America’s War Without End”. PARADE says:

“No one refights the Revolution or World Wars I or II, but what President Abraham Lincoln termed our ‘fiery trial’ has proved to be an American war without end. From Appomattox forward, how we see the Civil War reveals much about what Dr. King called ‘the content of our character.’”

Walther - A Patriotic American

WALTHER
A PATRIOTIC AMERICAN
Christian News, May 2, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 16

C.F.W. Walther strongly opposed Socialism and Communism. Christian News distributed hundreds of copies of his booklet first published in 1879 titled Communism and Socialism (Available from Christian News for $ .50). Walther defends the thesis “Why Should and Can No Reasonable Man, Much Less A Christian, Take Part in the Efforts of Communists and Socialists?” He listed some dozen reasons why “The efforts of the Socialists and Communists are in conflict with definite doctrines of Christianity.” The LCMS’s CPH should reprint this pamphlet during the Walther year.

Walther was a loyal patriotic American. He said in a Fourth of July speech to a Christian youth group on July 4, 1853:

“There are indeed innumerable advantages and benefits which distinguish our new fatherland above all other lands and which have been poured out upon it especially since that memorable Declaration of Independence down to the present hour. I would have to be more than blind if I were not to see them. The land which we have chosen for our new homeland stands as the greatest marvel of this century before our eyes and before those of the whole wondering world, a tree that has grown with unprecedented speed, laden with a thousand golden fruits of every kind of human industriousness, and at the same time full of innumerable sprouting blossoms, which promise ever new fruits of human effort, while ever greater numbers from all languages and nations gather under its shade-giving, ever further spreading branches.”

“Then what is the greatest and most glorious, indeed, the only thing that the state can grant the true religion? Not privileges, but freedom; not civil laws to command faith in the teachings of religion, but the freedom of religion to defend and spread herself with the weapons of the convincing Word; not dominion in the state, but freedom to live within it, a hospitable reception, a guestroom, a place to stay.”

“Where compulsion begins, religion ends. All compulsion in religion is a (self-) contradiction, it is something unreal (Unding), for compulsion is contrary to the nature of religion itself. Freedom is its being. Freedom is the element in which alone it can breathe, live, and continue to exist. Religion is not to fight against earthly armies but against errors and sins. Religion is not to conquer lands, cities, and towns, but hearts. So what can the state, with its stone prisons and steel weapons, do to help religion?”

Entire speech in The Christian News Encyclopedia

The Resurrection of Christ is a Fact which Happended in Calendar History

The Resurrection of Christ Is A Fact Which Happened In Calendar History Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 15, April 11, 2011 “Christ Has Risen” on page one shows what the Bible teaches about Christ’s resurrection. “Jesus Is Risen From the Dead” on page 2 presents the Resurrection of Jesus as a Jerusalem newspaper might have reported it. It was a real historical event which happened in ordinary calendar history not in a realm above and beyond history, the realm of myth. “Jesus Rises From the Dead” and “Jesus Lives”, two lessons from Dr. William Beck’s Bible Stories in Pictures show that Beck clearly accepted the resurrection as historic fact. Fifty years ago Beck asked this editor to visit some major publishers in New York City to find one who would publish his entire Bible Stories in Pictures in one or two volumes. CPH had been sending Beck’s series week after week to thousands of Sunday Schools throughout the nation. They were well received. Now Beck wanted a major publisher to publish them in one or two books. The publishers CN visited agreed the art work was great. Yet they said they could not publish the work of a theologian who actually believed that the events recorded it the Bible such as the creation, fall into sin, and the devil coming in the form of a snake and really speaking happened in history. They did not agree with Beck’s emphasis upon direct Messianic prophecy, the vicarious satisfaction of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and justification by faith alone. “The Resurrection of the Flesh” in this issue makes use of what Beck wrote about the resurrection of the flesh in an article published by the Concordia Theological Monthly of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. The entire article is in The Christian News Encyclopedia. It contains helpful material for use in Easter sermons. Beck noted that when he attended an Easter Sunrise Service in St. Louis where Martin Marty preached, little was said about the physical resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the flesh. Marty has been a skeptic for decades. Beck noted that most of the translators of the NCC’s Revised Standard Version of the Bible rejected such doctrines as the deity and resurrection of Christ. Yet today the LCMS’s CPH promotes the English Standard Version of the Bible, which is 91% the RSV of the liberal National Council of Churches. The RSV-ESV changes the Hebrew text in more than a thousand places. The translators rejected the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. Yet CPH and the LCMS’s Worship commission insist that both the RSV and ESV are accurate and reliable translations. They simply refuse to examine the evidence and insist on promoting a translation which uses stilted out-dated language. Karl Barth On Resurrection “Karl Barth on the Resurrection” reprinted in this issue, (p. 5) from Guidelines for Today shows that Barth, hailed by many as the greatest Christian theologian of the 20th Century rejected the resurrection of Christ as an event which happened in real history. Liberal Churchman and the Resurrection This Easter many liberal churchmen, who do not believe that Christ actually rose physically from the grave, will again speak about the resurrection. According to them, it is not the kind of historical event which could be photographed. They will wax eloquently about Christ living in the heart of believers and about how the early Christians said he rose from the dead. They will fool many into thinking they really believe in Christ’s physical resurrection. Surveys have shown that a large percentage of Protestant clergymen reject the physical resurrection of Christ. The Roman Catholic Church now allows its theologians to deny this doctrine. Note what last week’s CN said about the Pope and the resurrection. The Christian News Encyclopedia includes plenty of documentation showing that most major denominations no longer insist that their clergymen accept the physical resurrection of Christ. Already more than 40 years ago the famous Jeffrey K. Hadden survey, which polled some 10,000 clergymen and had more than 7,000 responses, showed that only 49 per cent of the nation’s Methodist clergy agreed with this statement: “I accept Jesus’ physical resurrection as an objective historical fact in the same sense that Lincoln’s physical death was a historical fact.” Dr. Ronald Goetz, Editor at large of The Christian Century and a Professor of Theology and Religion at Elmhurst College, wrote in the April 4, 1990 Christian Century: “LET’S BEGIN by admitting that we Christians can’t agree on what happened Easter morning. Certainly resurrection faith does not require belief in the resurrection of a corpse! But does it require faith in the empty tomb? Maybe the various Gospel accounts are best read as innocent attempts – decades after the first Easter – to provide some historical hook on which first-century believers could hang their experiential faith.” True Christians agree what happened on Easter morning. Christ rose physically from the grave. Resurrection faith does require belief in “the resurrection of a corpse.” The tomb was empty. The Gospel accounts are God’s directly revealed inerrant word and not some human fabrication. The Christian Century has long attacked the fundamental doctrines of historic Christianity. This was not the first time Dr. Goetz attacked the physical resurrection of Christ in The Christian Century. Here are some items taken from the Christian News Encyclopedia: February 25, 1980 “Easter” is the theme of the Winter, 1980 Dialog Some of the liberal theologians associated with this publication maintain that it is possible to affirm the “resurrection’ of Christ without believing that Jesus ever rose physically from the grave and that the tomb was actually empty. Editor Robert W. Jenson writes that “The resurrection was not a resuscitation; . . .” “Whether, e.g., ‘Jesus is risen’ must claim that the tomb was emptied, that he now is a collection of cells in organic continuity with a material mass once buried, depends on how we understand ‘body,’ and this in turn on how we understand time and space. It is therefore a matter of the problem next on our agenda, and not an immediate component of the gospel-claim. Doubtless there are also things in fact claimed by ‘Jesus is risen’ that we nevertheless would not have to claim to predicate ‘is risen’ of him, even supposing a negative decision on the question just posed, the emptiness of the tomb is one such. These are not my present concern.” “. . . serious assertion of the resurrection is now so uncommon. Our mental map of time and space includes no region that could contain Jesus’ present body. And so, whatever orthodox formulas we may repeat, our actual body of Jesus: the conception that cooperates in the thinking of ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ alike is of Jesus’ continuing ‘spiritual’ or historical influence i.e., by any responsible rendering ‘. . . is risen,’ the whole modern church proceeds as if Jesus were not – and will so proceed until a post-Copernican way of locating Jesus’ body is proposed and becomes ecumenically influential.” Dialog is published quarterly, 2375 Como Ave., St. Paul, Minnesota 55108, $8.50. It has a circulation of about 2,000. April 12, 1982 “The Resurrection: A Truth Beyond Understanding” in the April 7 CHRISTIAN CENTURY leaves the doctrine of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ an open question. Dr. Ronald Goetz, a Christian Century editor at large and professor of religion at Elmhurst (Illinois) College is the author of the article. Goetz points out that there is a vast difference of opinion among church members about just what is meant by the resurrection of Christ. “This Easter, though Christians in many churches will be standing together in the pews and singing in joyful harmony the triumph anthem ‘Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Alleluia,’ their interpretations of the resurrection will be radically discordant. Some members of the congregation will be thinking of a relatively straightforward physical event. Certainly more was entailed, but at the very least the resurrection entailed a resuscitation of the body and an empty tomb, with Jesus concretely and empirically manifested. “Others will conceive of the event in a ‘demythologized’ manner. What came forth from death was not a body; the event was not historical but existential. . . “For still others such Germanic circumlocution is impossible to understand, let alone embrace; they will regard the resurrection in a rationalistic, relatively, ‘old-fashioned’ deist-liberal manner as a pre-scientific way of expressing the timeless content of Jesus’ life and ministry – his preaching about the love of God and the need for human fellowship”. . . “THIS RANGE of opinions does not exhaust the list of possible alternative understandings of the resurrection, but it is enough to indicate that the church is not of one mind on the question of what happened that first Easter.” The Christian Century editor says that “the church need not be embarrassed by this diversity of understanding. A wealth of interpretations in unavoidable – given the character of New Testament witness, the difficulties inherent in the doctrine of revelations itself, and the pluralism of our philosophic environment.” Goetz says that “One can affirm a bodily resurrection without such literalistic smugness; however, such a dogmatic insistence on a bodily resurrection is often indicative of a vague grasp of the problem involved. The implication that a physical event guarantees that a divine reality gave rise to that event is an assertion not of the Christian’s faith in the doings of the transcendent, invisible, eternal God, but an attempt to like a particular finite metaphysical and epistemology to the Christian faith.” The Christian Century editor-at-large concludes that “What I am saying is simply that when we gather on Easter we should not be dismayed by our differences. We should rejoice that the Easter event is more true than any of our explanations.” The Christian Century has long argued that there should be room within the major denominators for those who reject such doctrines as the virgin birth of Christ, His deity, and physical resurrection. A church member who does not believe Christ rose physically from the dead can hardly be considered a Christian. The vast difference of opinion within the churches of our day about the resurrection is cause for alarm. Clergymen who do not accept Christ’s physical resurrection should be removed from the ministry.