Southern Baptist Civil War: A Case Study

In the years leading up to the Civil War the Baptist denomination in the United States fractured because of issues relating to slavery and missionary work, and North Carolinians provide a lens with which to look at this dissolution from the southern perspective. Although many northerners and southerners were ambivalent toward splitting their organizations and, as a result their resources, division was nonetheless the eventual result. The two sections could not reconcile their conflicting priorities, so the only logical answer to them, even in light of their shared religious beliefs, was to go their separate ways. This separation would have long-lasting repercussions in Baptist life. Even to the present the Southern Baptist Convention is still