Christ Ruling His People

“Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” — Psalm 149:2

Our Creator is also our Redeemer, and this is a cause of rejoicing. Christ is the Ruler and King of His people, including all those who are truly in spiritual union to His Church. His reign should result in our joy.

If we always were inclined to do this, there would be no need for the Psalmist to command us to do it. It is because we so often forget that the Spirit comes to us in this passage and whispers, “I still rule and reign among you. Now rejoice in Me.”

Southern Defeat, Theologically Considered

Nick Ryker, over at “The Truth of Things” has initiated an interesting discussion of why the South lost the “Civil War.” We think his thoughts are worthy of our consideration because his reasoning is largely theological. Nick attempts to bring the Bible to bear in his reasoning which is something that always garners our respect. Other discussions besides this one fail by drifting into blunt statements about “progress” and “modernity” and how the South failed to cope with both. Nick avoids this by trying to grapple with the question directly and ends by calling southerners to self-examination over spiritual issues other than just slavery.  We will mention some of Nick’s main points, but one should read it for himself.

Before we speak to Nick’s points, we should first assert our belief that the story of Cain and Abel is most illustrative of why the South lost to the North in the War Between the States. When Abraham raised his hand to deliver the death-blow to his son Issac and when the Egyptians were on the verge of crushing the Hebrews against the Red Sea, God intervened miraculously to alter events and establish His own perfect will. But like Stephen in Acts 7 and countless others in church history that have suffered for Truth, God did not intervene on behalf of the more godly Abel as Cain wickedly acted to end his life. God intervened later to fix His curse on Cain and inform him that his brother’s blood called out for justice. But we are never told Abel did anything to provoke the murder or that he might have extended his life by living closer to God. Abel was killed because Cain hated him, period. Though a sinner and doing some things imperfectly, there was clearly a purity and an innocence about Abel. God loved him. We could imagine him being a very happy, contented individual tending his sheep. But when God determined that it was time for Abel to come home, it was by the violent hands of his evil brother.

The Genesis account naturally leads us to suspect Cain was jealous that God accepted the offering of his more righteous brother and denied him the same favor. This seems to have instigated the murder. Unlike many Americans today, Cain was not so far gone as to be indifferent as to whether he was accepted by God or not. When his offering of fruits and vegetables was denied — for what reason we are not told – Cain internalized his rage. He could not lash out at God. But he could get his hands on God’s friend, Abel. The dialogue between God and Cain immediately proceeding the murder of Abel is noteworthy because God has more to say about Abel than the one that just felt compelled to slay him! Cain has bigger issues with God: God should not expect him to be his brother’s keeper; the punishment God exacts is too severe; the promise of God’s protection is met with only Cain’s determination to get away from Him. The loss of Abel was just collateral damage in Cain’s larger feud with the Lord.

We think it is appropriate when the War Between the States is referred to as the “War Between Brothers” because it reminds us of this biblical story. The North and South were both ostensibly Christian regions of the United States. Yet as Nick points out in his post, the North began to change in its feelings towards religion by the early 19th Century. Like Cain, it had become to have controversies with God. The old creeds and historic confessions were no longer satisfying to Northern theologians. In becoming more secular, religiously diverse, and industrialized, as its more moralistic creed asserted itself to be superior than the one found in Scripture. Unitarianism and other formally heretical doctrines became respectable. In sharp contrast, the South was satisfied to remain unchanged and even embraced more firmly the cultural aspects of Christian civilization with which the North was becoming impatient to put behind them. When the North looked at the South, it saw an older version of itself: an agricultural society, slavery, a fertile spiritual climate. And what was most intolerable to the Northerner was that the Southerner was becoming a bit too proud of the contrast.

C.H. Spurgeon once said that you can most easily demonstrate that a stick is crooked by simply laying a straight one down beside it without a word. That is actually what the South was doing by simply continuing to perpetuate life as it was all over the United States prior to the 19th Century.

In a friendly way, Nick has advanced some different views. He cites some southern authors complaining about the impulsive bent some southerners had towards war. We concede that is true, and would even point out ourselves that a preponderance of these “hot-heads” were from the Deep South and South Carolina. But writing as we do from the North Carolina perspective, we would point out that our state, along with much of the rest of the South, dreaded secession and stalled on the question until it was no longer practical to do so. We believe the Confederacy did more in terms of diplomacy with Washington than the Founders did with Great Britain during the first War for Independence. We would remind Nick of well-known southerners such as former president John Tyler of Virginia that led peace parties that attempted to reason with the federal government all the way up until shots were fired on Fort Sumter. We would remind him that one such group of diplomats were turned away from even seeing the President days before the war began. We would remind him of the desperate attempts of Jefferson Davis to bring in European powers at every point throughout the war in the attempt to negotiate peace. We would remind him of the Hampton Roads peace conference led by Vice President Alexander Stephens that failed as late as 1865. We would pointedly suggest that the South lost because it tragically encountered the first U.S. president that determined that the Jeffersonian ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness would now have to bow to the new all-encompassing American value: unity.

Working from this prior assumption, Nick has also suggested that the South placed itself in jeopardy by entering into what he calls a state of ”general grace.” In other words, the South was no more under the blessing of God than the North. For this reason, the superior arms prevailed. But we disagree. The revivals that Nick himself admits occurred in the Confederate armies during the War should have increased southern success, but instead failure seemed to come in spite of such spiritual renewal. The great victory at Manassas was early when southerners were perhaps most war-hungry and cocky. Also we believe the Bible teaches otherwise concerning how nations stand or fall: “He [God] changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings,” (Daniel 2:21). Nothing happens by the sheer will of man or outside the providence of the Almighty: “who works all things according to the counsel of His will,” (Ephesians 1:11). 

In all this we have not sought to unravel the mystery of why God did not intervene to prevent the fall of Richmond.  We cannot pretend to know the mind of God, and we await to see the good He will bring to His Church through this great tragedy. But we emphatically deny the now popular and perverse belief that the military aggression of the United States Federal Government was in any way proof of the blessing of God over its apostate cause. There were sins committed by the Southern people prior to 1861 to be sure. But for all its propaganda about slavery,  the atrocities the North committed against the South were graver and infinitely more evil. The fall of the antebellum South was a blow to liberty not only on the American continent, but for all the generations of Western Civilization for the last 150 years.