Keith, in Christ there is no east or west or south or north. You need to leave your southern-ness at the door brother. Unless of course your kingdom is of this world, in which case you may want to get out your rifle. Inasmuch as I am a northerner, I will still not defend all that happened in that “period of unpleasantness”. I will remind you of a couple things though. First, your brothers in So. Carolina cheered when the war began and thereby welcomed the devastation that came to them. Sherman’s approach of total war was in some respects merciful in that it helped end the war sooner and ultimately spared life and property.

Second, was it “blessed” for southerners to take children from their parents and sell them? Was it right for slave owners to sell wives away from their husbands? Wedding vows were taken “until death or the master parts us”. How would you feel if you had to witness your wife being sold to take care of another man’s babies. Is that blessed to you? I know there were benevolent owners, and I don’t want to beat up on the entire South. But, it was very far from blessed. And it didn’t end in 1865. I can show you the statistics of lynching in the South as recently as the 1920’s. They called it “strange fruit” because what tree produces dead black men from its branches . . . ? I refer you to very eloquent words who acknowledged that judging in this instance should be left to the Almighty:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

A. Lincoln - Second Inaugural Address, 1865

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