Gospel of Disunion

280 pp., 6.125 x 9.25

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4687-2
Published: September 1997
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6910-4
Published: February 2014
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-1615-5
Published: February 2014

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The centrality of religion in the life of the Old South, the strongly religious nature of the sectional controversy over slavery, and the close affinity between religion and antebellum American nationalism all point toward the need to explore the role of religion in the development of southern sectionalism. In Gospel of Disunion Mitchell Snay examines the various ways in which religion adapted to and influenced the development of a distinctive southern culture and politics before the Civil War, adding depth and form to the movement that culminated in secession. From the abolitionist crisis of 1835 through the formation of the Confederacy in 1861, Snay shows how religion worked as an active agent in translating the sectional conflict into a struggle of the highest moral significance. At the same time, the slavery controversy sectionalized southern religion, creating separate institutions and driving theology further toward orthodoxy. By establishing a biblical sanction for slavery, developing a slaveholding ethic for Christian masters, and demonstrating the viability of separation from the North through the denominational schisms of the 1830s and 1840s, religion reinforced central elements in southern political culture and contributed to a moral consensus that made secession possible.

About the Author

Mitchell Snay is associate professor of history at Denison University.
For more information about Mitchell Snay, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"A major contribution to clarifying what increasingly seems like a fundamental cause of the war: the differing ideologies, North and South, with religious values playing a key part in providing moral meanings to both sides in a sectional struggle that would lead to war."--Charles Reagan Wilson, American Historical Review

"Snay utilizes a broad range of primary sources to portray and analyze the religious dimension of this momentous rupture in the political landscape of the nation, and he does so with analytical precision. . . . [His] convincing interpretation is also written in clear, uncluttered prose. . . . The result is a work of interest and importance to most southern historians, not just specialists in religion."--John B. Boles, Georgia Historical Quarterly

"Gospel of Disunion brings together all the recent scholarship in a most accessible and congenial synthesis. More important, the author has invested his own intelligence and interpretive skill to give the study a vital spirit of its own."--Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Reviews in American History