Tolbert Fanning — Advocate for Peace in 1861 (XI)
By November 1861 the Confederate States and the Union were well settled into their warring camps and bloody conflict was in full swing. By mid-February of 1862, Ft. Henry on the Tennessee River and Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland would fall to Federal forces. By the end of February, Nashville was in Union hands.
Rather than continuing his frontal assault on the war in hopes of dissuading the masses from participation in the war, Fanning turned toward more practical matters of how one might serve as a “minister of peace” in the war. In particular, Fanning honored “preachers laboring in either Southern or Northern army as the angels of the churches, in their heavenly mission to the frail, the sick, wounded and dying.” At the same time, he is horrified that other preachers have supported the war, and this is the primary occasion of his November 1861 article.
In particular, he is appalled that the Missionary Society passed resolutions “approving most heartily of the wholesale murder of the people South who do not choose to be governed by a sectional party North.” He had also heard of an elder from Hopkinsville, KY, who voted in the legislature not only to support the Union army with “men and money” but “to hang all who doubt the right of foreigners to rule ove our people whether willing or not.”
Is this peacemaking, Fanning asks. Do they serve the “Prince of Peace”? He thinks not. So, he concludes:
Should we ever meet them in the flesh, can we fraternize with them as brethren? How can the servants of the Lord of this section ever strike hands with the men who now seek their life’s blood? We do not know how this matter appears to others, but without thorough repentance, and abundant works demonstrating it, we cannot see how we can ever regard preachers who enforce political opinions by the sword, in any other light than monsters in intention, if not in very deed. How can Christian men of the South do otherwise? We may not understand the true spirit of Christianity, or we may be deranged, but if we have studied the Bible to any advantage and we are not mad, the world’s conflicts work out many important results. They prove that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; they serve as fiery purifiers,–separating the dross from the pure metal; they fully expose false professions, and last, but not least, they aid the disciples of the Meek and Lowly One to exhibit a love for truth and righteousness, to which all others are strangers.
*****Fanning’s Article****
Tolbert Fanning, “Ministers of Peace in the World’s Conflicts,” Gospel Advocate 7.11 (November 1861) 347-348.
From our earliest acquaintance with the Sacred Oracles, we have entertained not a doubt that the Church of God is an institution not only differing widely from the civil, ecclesiastical and so termed moral organizations of the world, but that it is independent of them all, and destined finally, by its superior excellence, to triumph over all the powers of the earth. Hence, we have not believed that Christians, and especially ministers of the word, are responsible, for “worldly-powers,” or that they could interfere with them without serious detriment in their relations to God. We had hoped that the messengers of mercy and peace, would devote themselves still to their Heavenly calling, but in this, we have been sadly disappointed. Tobesure [sic], we could have no objection whatever to preachers laboring in either Southern or Northern army as the angles of the churches, in their heavenly missions to the frail, the sick, wounded and dying. This is the sphere of our operations, and the civilized world will never cease to approve of the labor. But, as intimated, we are pained to learn that few preachers in the South and many in the North, have stepped from their humble profession into one entirely conformable to the world. Authentic evidence has reached us that Elder D. P. Henderson, of Louisville, Dr. L. L. Pinkerton, of Harrodsburg College, and quite a number of others in Kentucky and further North, during the Missionary Meeting at Cincinnati, in October, passed strong resolutions, approving most heartily of the wholesale murder of the people South who do not chose to be governed by a sectional party North. Even a Senior in the church of Hopkinsville, Ky., has voted in the legislature not only men and money to subdue his brethren in Kentucky, by the bayonet, but to hang all who doubt the right of foreigners to rule over our people whether willing or not.
We mention these startling facts, not for the purpose of discussing their morality, or the merits of any political question, but merely to make a few enquiries.
Can these men, who so vociferously rejoiced, in their declamation, at the hundreds if not thousands of professed servants of the Prince of Peace, enlisting North to cut the throats of their Southern brethren, when the storm shall have blown over, associate with men for whose blood they are now thirsting? Can such men have the Heaven-daring affrontery [sic] to stand before intelligent people in the future to urge the claims of Him who rules by love?
Should we ever meet them in the flesh, can we fraternize with them as brethren? How can the servants of the Lord of this section ever strike hands with the men who now seek their life’s blood? We do not know how this matter appears to others, but without thorough repentance, and abundant works demonstrating it, we cannot see how we can ever regard preachers who enforce political opinions by the sword, in any other light than monsters in intention, if not in very deed. How can Christian men of the South do otherwise? We may not understand the true spirit of Christianity, or we may be deranged, but if we have studied the Bible to any advantage and we are not mad, the world’s conflicts work out many important results. They prove that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; they serve as fiery purifiers,–separating the dross from the pure metal; they fully expose false professions, and last, but not least, they aid the disciples of the Meek and Lowly One to exhibit a love for truth and righteousness, to which all others are strangers.
April 7th, 2012 at 7:27 am
JMH, this one seems to be truncated at the bottom in my browser?
April 11th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Thanks. Left off a few letters. It is now corrected.