Recently, I’ve been doing research to help me contextualize
the life of my 3x-great-grandfather, Vasa Bozarris Jones (1823-1910), who
served for a time as a circuit-riding preacher in Ohio with the United Brethren
in Christ. This denomination published a newspaper called the Religious
Telescope, and as I was browsing the issues from 1864, I came across an
article that appears to have been republished from the New York Tribune (basically
a “retweet” of the 19th century) entitled “Copperhead Christianity.”[i]
The article was striking on so many levels, I thought I would share it here
with some commentary.
But first, some context. Published January 6, 1864, this issue
was released in the late-middle of the Civil War by a publisher based in the
North. The battles of Manassas/Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh, Chancellorsville,
Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga were in the rearview mirror, and the
Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Atlanta, the Crater, Franklin, and Appomattox were
still to come. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had been issued just over a
year earlier in September 1862, and African-Americans had been fighting for the
Union in the US Colored Troops division for several months.
The Religious Telescope kept its readers up-to-date
with the latest war news, publishing accounts of battles, the latest from
Washington, D. C., letters from soldiers on the front, and reports from a
captured surgeon in a POW camp. But they also tied the doctrine of their
religious beliefs to the war effort, particularly with the issue of slavery.
The United Brethren in Christ was a strictly abolitionist denomination, meaning
they opposed slavery and wanted it to end. The 1861 edition of their doctrinal
and constitutional book, known as the Discipline for short, explicitly
states, “All slavery in every sense of the word, is totally prohibited, and
shall in no way be tolerated in our church. Should any be found in our society
who hold slaves, they can not continue as members unless they do personally
manumit or set free such slaves.”[ii]
So the Religious Telescope was accordingly abolitionist in sentiment.
The same could not be said for all Christian denominations,
however. In fact, throughout the country, but especially in the South, there were
Christians who misinterpreted specific passages of the Bible and used them to
support their belief that slavery was not only not-wrong but was actually
God-ordained. Sadly, my own denomination fell into this category at that time,
but thankfully Vasa’s didn’t.
But just as religion was split over the war and slavery, so
too was politics. During the Civil War, unlike today, the South was overwhelmingly
Democratic, whereas the North was predominantly Republican. Pro-slavery, racist
attitudes and the Democratic Party went hand-in-hand as the Confederacy fought
not only to become independent from the United States but also to protect the
institution of slavery. Democrats in the North were divided regarding their
level of support for the war. One faction, that was particularly opposed to the
war and wanted to negotiate with the South, was known as Peace Democrats or
Copperheads, and racism, along with hatred of abolitionists, often
characterized its ranks.
With those contextual notes in mind, we can now turn to the
article entitled, “Copperhead Christianity.” The quoted portions will be italicized,
with my comments interspersed in regular print.
“The peace ‘Democrats’ of Ohio are to have a New Gospel
preached unto them by a brace of Apostles rejoicing in the names of Edson B.
Olds and Virgil E. Shaw. That they may accomplish this ecclesiastical
phenomenon, Olds and Shaw have addressed an epistle to Gov. Medary, begging him
to summon at an early day, in conjunction with said Olds and Shaw, ‘a State
Convention for devising some plan for a new Church organization, in which Democrats
may enjoy the privilege of hearing pure Gospel unmixed with Abolition
fanaticism.’ Medary responds that he is ‘gratified,’ and he invokes all
Democratic professors and confessors, where they are in majority in any church,
‘to see to it that Magdalen Devils are expunged, and that the control of the church
is placed in hands which will not disgrace the religion such churches profess.’”
Olds, a former U.S.
Congressman, was a leading Peace Democrat and was serving in the Ohio House of
Representatives at the time this article was written. Presumably, Shaw was a
Peace Democrat as well. Governor Medary, another outspoken Copperhead, was not the
governor of Ohio as one might assume, but rather was a newspaper man who had
served in the Ohio House and Senate. The “governor” title referred to his previous
positions as governor of the Minnesota and Kansas Territories during the 1850s.
As the article explains, Olds
and Shaw wrote a letter to Medary asking him to organize a gathering to create
a new denomination for Democrats who didn’t want to hear anti-slavery sentiment
from the pulpit. Their statement that the “pure Gospel” had nothing to do with
abolitionism is appalling to our ears today but reveals the twisted theology
that many blindly accepted at the time. Medary seemed to share this theology, as
he revealed his opinion of abolitionism as that which would “disgrace the religion.”
He goes a step further and equates abolitionists to Magdalen Devils, apparently
referencing the demons that Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene.
The article continues,
dripping with the author’s sarcasm:
“We would suggest, if our profane suggestions might be
permitted, a kind of composite or eclectic faith, which shall contain elegant
extracts from a variety of creeds, and embrace whatever is tenderly savage,
sweetly barbarous, deliciously cruel and virtuously brutal in all religions ancient
and modern.
“Fully satisfied as we are of the ability of Medary and
his friends to found a religion from which both faith and works shall be
rigorously excluded, while whatever things are false, whatever things are
dishonest, whatever are unjust, whatever things are impure, whatever things are
of evil report, shall be affectionately included—and very much we should like
to hear the Rev Mr. Medary preach his first sermon!”
Here the author points out
the backwardness of the Copperheads’ perspective, showing the unbiblical nature
of creating a pro-slavery church by referencing Philippians 4:8, which says to
think on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever
is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable,” and replacing each
adjective with its opposite. But the author is just getting started…
“For our own part, humanly speaking, we can not sufficiently
commend the prudence of this movement. We have long thought it must be extremely
painful for devotees of the Medary stamp—human, we suppose, they must be, for do
they not wear coats and pantaloons, and eat with a fork?—very painful, indeed
for them to go to church, to be told that all men are brethren, equal in the
sight of God. They arrive at their conclusion [that
all men are not equal] quite
honestly. They reason thus: We know that we are not equal with honest men [the implication is that they know they are
dishonest], but we also know that we are superior to ‘n[------].’ Therefore all men are not equal.
Therefore we will have a new church, in which a sinner can worship comfortably without
having his sins impudently thrown in his teeth. What is the use of possessing a
religion if you can not enjoy it?”
The author joins in on the
insult-throwing a bit, joking that the only thing that makes it clear that pro-slavery
Peace Democrats aren’t animals is that they wear clothes and eat with a fork. He
then continues his sarcastic rebuttal and provides a thread of reasoning that
he supposes the Peace Democrats must follow: they must know deep-down that they
are dishonest and so are not equal with honest men but they think themselves
superior to people with dark skin, so of course they conclude that men are not created
equal—and therefore they can’t tolerate going to a church that preaches the
equality of all human beings. This line of reasoning might seem extreme to us, but how often are we
guilty of wanting our comfort above sound doctrine? How often do we balk at
conviction instead of humbly submitting our thoughts and opinions to the Lordship
of Christ?
Having tried to make his
point through sarcasm, the author turns next to a more serious approach:
“We must say that we regard this movement as a substantial
surrender of the Christian argument in support of Slavery. There are many
meeting-houses and many sects in Ohio, numerous forms of faith, and various
shades of ecclesiastical polity—Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Roman
Catholics, Unitarians, Calvinists, Universalists—and here are Governor Medary,
and Edson B. Olds, and Virgil E. Shaw, who can not find a single lonesome
little chapel in which slaveholding is scrupulously sustained, but are
absolutely compelled to set up a private Ebenezer, a separate establishment, an
altar of their own!”
The point is that the very
expression of a need for a pro-slavery church shows how many churches and
denominations in Ohio were standing firm on the truth and speaking out against
slavery. With that serious point out of the way, the author turns back to
sarcasm:
“But Medary must not be discouraged. Mohammed for a long
time had only one convert, and even she was his wife; whereas Medary has two
humble and devoted disciples already, viz:—Edson b. Olds and Virgial E. Shaw!
Let him thank the proper heathen deity—Mercury, the god of lies, for instance—and
take courage!
“These new prophets will doubtless want a new ritual for
their new religion; and it would be well for them to send to Utah for a
journeyman who is well skilled in such manufactures. A great deal must be done
with the Epistle to Philemon. They can have it read as the First Lesson and the
Second Lesson—they can have it arranged as an oratorio—they can have a sermon
from each of its twenty five verses—they can make much of it, as about the only
piece of Scripture which will be edifying in their pulpits.”
Implying that to be pro-slavery
is outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity, the author points out that what
Medary, Olds, and Shaw are wanting to do is basically start a different
religion. And a new religion needs new practices, so the author suggests
getting someone from Utah to help, presumably a reference to the Mormons who
had begun a new religion under the self-proclaimed new prophet Joseph Smith a
few decades earlier. Because a new religion obviously will not adhere to all of
Scripture, the author suggests this new pro-slavery “church” will have to lean
on Philemon, one of the passages of Scripture that was misinterpreted as an approval
of institutionalized slavery. He continues…
“Instead of the usual benediction, the priest can bawl
through a speaking trumpet: ‘Cursed be Canaan,’ while all the congregation responds:—‘Cursed
be Canaan,’ the voices of Medary, Olds and Shaw being particularly sonorous.”
This refers to what was perhaps
the bedrock of pro-slavery theology, a misinterpretation of the curse Noah
placed on Ham’s son Canaan found in Genesis 9:25: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant
of servants shall he be to his brothers” (ESV). Because African peoples descend
from Ham, people believed that this verse meant Africans were destined to be
slaves to the descendants of Shem and Japheth (aka non-Africans). They
conveniently ignored the fact that Ham’s descendants through Canaan were
actually the Canaanites that we read about in the rest of the Pentateuch and
Historical books in the Old Testament.
But this new religion
would need more elements to fill its services, so the author says…
“If there be any praying, it must be for Rebel victories—if
there be any fasting, it must be for Rebel defeats—if there be any preaching,
it must be an exposition of the wickedness of doing unto others as we would
have them do unto us. Upon great occasions it would be well to offer up a black
man—one caught running through Ohio from Kentucky [i.e.
a runaway enslaved man] would be particularly acceptable—and upon very
great occasions a woman with her little child might be burned, with a rattling
concert of drums presented to the new Ohio church by the Monarch of Dahomey.”
Dahomey was a kingdom in
Africa, in the region of modern-day Benin, that was well-known as a major
player in the slave trade, capturing fellow Africans and selling them to
Europeans. The author’s sarcasm seems to border on shocking here, but it shows
the horrors of racism and morally equates support of the institution of slavery
with human sacrifice and murder. The point is that all are equally abhorrent.
But the horrific language, the author agrees, is a lot to take, as he concludes
the article with…
“We know that these discussions can not be quite agreeable
to our gentle, genial readers; but we have wished to put upon record this Ohio
enterprise. One hundred years hence, such a narrative will be in danger of
being regarded as utterly fabulous [i.e.
unbelievable]. Should this article then meet the eyes of some
antiquarian, we beg leave to assure him that a New Religion was actually set on
foot in Ohio in 1863, and that the names of its apostles were Medary, Olds, and
shaw [sic]!”
I don’t know about you,
but that last paragraph gave me chills. I was the “some antiquarian,” the person
interested in things of the past whose eyes happened to meet this article, as
the author anticipated. You and I—we are the posterity the author had in mind. He
wanted to write this article to record the racism and pro-slavery attitudes
that were behind this attempt to create a new church. Why? Because he guessed
that in the future people would have a hard time believing that such blatant
racism and callousness were second-nature and applauded by so many and so that
future generations would realize what had happened in the past and where we had
come from as a nation.
In many ways, his
prediction came true. While racism still exists in America—and around the world—many
people, and often Christians in particular, have a hard time acknowledging that
fact and acknowledging the extreme racism that infected some of the Church and upheld
institutional slavery in America in the not-so-distant past. This author’s
article makes us confront the ugliness of the self-righteousness and prejudice
that ran rampant in our ancestors’ world, and in doing so makes us consider our
own society and individual lives.
We would do well to see
this article as a reminder that the Church can get it wrong. While there were
many churches and many Christians who stayed true to the Bible, as this article
also shows, there were still many, like the “Copperhead Christians,” who read
God’s Word and misused it to suit their own interests and perpetuate their own
sinful behavior, convincing themselves that they weren’t in fact sinning at
all. If humans before us could fall into that trap, so can we, and we must remain
humble as we approach Scripture, asking God to strip away any selfish misconceptions
we might hold and to help us rightly interpret His Word—because “Copperhead
Christianity” is not a Christianity worth having at all.
[i] “Copperhead Christianity,” Religious Telescope (Dayton, Ohio), Jan. 6, 1864, digital image, Huntington University, https://palni.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15705coll63/id/477/rec/1 : accessed 27 January 2022.
[ii] Origin, Doctrine, Constitution, and Discipline, of the United Brethren in Christ (Dayton, Ohio: United Brethren Printing Establishment, 1861), 81, digital image, HathiTrust https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nnc1.cr60175818.
