This book examines how numerous northern civilians understood the Civil War as a contest permeated with religious significance. From the war's outset, many religious Northerners asserted that God was directing the conflict to chasten his chosen nation and bring about the destruction of slavery. Convinced that the Union was sacred and had to be preserved so that America could fulfill its God‐ordained purpose in world history, many ministers and laypersons wholeheartedly supported the northern war effort and broadcast their political views at church. Overflowing with Christian patriotism, indivi ... More

This book examines how numerous northern civilians understood the Civil War as a contest permeated with religious significance. From the war's outset, many religious Northerners asserted that God was directing the conflict to chasten his chosen nation and bring about the destruction of slavery. Convinced that the Union was sacred and had to be preserved so that America could fulfill its God‐ordained purpose in world history, many ministers and laypersons wholeheartedly supported the northern war effort and broadcast their political views at church. Overflowing with Christian patriotism, individual congregations and entire denominations frequently alienated members who disagreed with them politically. Some disgruntled Democrats formed their own assemblies where they could avoid political preaching, but these churches oftentimes suffered from partisanship as well. A minority of churchgoers lamented that war and politics had caused people to lose interest in spiritual matters, and some feared that the church had forsaken its divine calling to preach the gospel. The enthusiasm of clergy and laity to sanctify the Union and fuse religion and politics during the Civil War demonstrates that religious Northerners tended to look to the American nation rather the church as the primary means through which God would accomplish his will in the world. Ultimately, this consuming desire to Christianize the Union by infusing it with spiritual significance contributed to the secularization of religion rather than the transformation of the state into a Christian republic.