The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
the Bible takes a clear stance against tyranny, or statism, there are passages that are sometimes cited to support communism. Exodus 16:16–18 124instructed the Israelites to take no more than was needed when they gathered daily manna. Once the Jews settled in Canaan, land was supposed to remain within tribes and families. Notably, this appears to have been a primary reason that Naboth had refused to sell his vineyard to King Ahab, whose wife had, in turn, arranged for Naboth’s death. Jesus often warned about those who stored up earthly treasures (as in Matthew 6:19–20 and Luke 6:24–25), and one of his most vivid stories, that of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19–31), describes a rich man suffering in the afterlife while a beggar at his gates lives in comfort. Acts 2:44–45 and Acts 4:33–37 describe how early Christians held property in common in order to take care of one another. Peter subsequently pronounced judgment on Ananias and Sapphira in a story recounted in Acts 5:1–11, but this appears based on their false claim to have sold all that they had for the common good rather than on any church-mandated obligation that they do so.
Although many fundamentalists largely withdrew from politics after the Scopes Trial in 1925, one exception was their unrelenting opposition to communism, which they associated with atheism and statism. One leader in this movement was Rev. Carl McIntire (1906–2002), who founded numerous organizations and had a program on more than six hundred radio stations. Although refusing to compromise his hard-shell fundamentalist convictions, McIntire was willing to ally with Catholics and others on this issue (Ruotsila 2012, 388). From the Protestant mainline church, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1888–1959) developed a strong anti-communist stance based largely on his belief that communism denied that human beings had been created in God’s image and deserved basic human rights.
Communism has not been popular in the United States, and throughout U.S. history, politicians have sought to label their opponents as communists, socialists, or fellow travelers. Southern supporters of segregation often denounced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders, in such terms. Ironically, King gave a sermon on the subject in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 9, 1953, in which he began with the statement that “communism and Christianity are at the bottom incompatible. One cannot be a true Christian and a true Communist simultaneously” (King 1953). More specifically, King argued that because it left out God and Christ, communism was “avowedly secularistic and materialistic.” He further observed that the methods of communism “are diametrically opposed to Christianity.” Third, he pointed out that communists subordinated individuals to the state. He did, however, cite the observation of William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who had identified communism as something of a “Christian heresy.” King thus noted that communists had a concern for social justice and emphasized the need for action. He observed that “we are challenged to dedicate and devote our lives to the cause of Christ as the Communist[s] do to Communism” (King 1953).
See also Fundamentalism; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Property
For Reference and Further Reading
Cline, Austin. 2019. “What Does the Bible Say about Communism and Socialism?” Learn Religions. March 22. https://www.learnreligions.com/biblical-communism-250944.
Hart, David Bentley. 2017. “Are Christians Supposed to Be Communists?” New York Times. November 4.
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King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1953. “Communism’s Challenge to Christianity.” Stanford University: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. August 9. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/communisms-challenge-christianity.
Mulder, John M. 1971. “The Moral World of John Foster Duller: A Presbyterian Layman and International Affairs.” Journal of Presbyterian History 49 (Summer): 157–82.
Ruotsila, Markku. 2012. “Carl McIntire and the Fundamentalist Origins of the Christian Right.” Church History 81 (June): 378–407.
Wilcox, Clyde. 1987. “Popular Backing for the Old Christian Right: Explaining Support for the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.” Journal of Social History 21 (Autumn): 117–32.
Confederate States of America
Although Abraham Lincoln observed in his second inaugural address that Northerners and Southerners read the same Bible, their interpretations varied significantly on the issue of slavery. Northerners often emphasized the story of Moses and other liberation narratives in Scripture, while Southern slave apologists pointed to verses encouraging slaves to obey their masters. These differences were reflected into the division of major denominations into Northern and Southern wings.
The religious dimension of the Southern case was evident in the preamble to the Constitution of the Confederate States which, while otherwise almost identical to its forbear, explicitly invoked “the favor and guidance of Almighty God” (Vile 2018, 23). The Confederate States further adopted the motto Deo Vindice (“God will avenge”) and conceived of themselves, much as had the New England Puritans whom Southerners largely despised, as God’s chosen people (Stout n.d.). Drawing from biblical passages in Psalm 118:22 and Matthew 21:42, Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, stated that the Confederate States repudiated the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” and were instead built upon the “corner-stone” of human inequality (Stephens 1861).
Because most American Bibles had been printed in the North prior to the war, the Southern states faced a shortage both of Bibles and of prayer books (Brydon 1948). The Southwestern Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee, which was owned by J. R. Graves, W. F. Marks and Company, published the first Bibles to be published in the Confederacy in 1861, but publication ceased when Union troops occupied the city in February 1862.
Perhaps seeking to alleviate this problem, the Confederate Congress enacted a law on October 13, 1862, which provided that “all money and other property bequeathed by any person within the Confederate States, or any State thereof, to the American Bible Society, and which may be liable to sequestration under the laws of the Confederate States, shall be paid and delivered to the Bible Society of the Confederate States of America, as if the same had been bequeathed to said Bible Society of the Confederate States, for the purposes of such bequest” (Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America 1862, 2:378). President Jefferson Davis vetoed this bill on October 26, 1862. He argued that the Congress had no power to bestow such money as a gift, or to divert it from 126its beneficiaries, and that it had no way of knowing what the purposes of the American Bible Society might have been (Davis 1862).
Most Southern efforts to import Bibles from England were frustrated by the Northern blockade of Southern ports. As the war increasingly turned against the South, chaplains reported increased revivals among the troops, many of whom developed what has been called “the religion of the ‘Lost Cause,’” in which they tried to interpret their suffering and defeat as the pursuit of a higher cause. Southern writers especially glorified General Stonewall Jackson and his Christian faith and used the date of his death by friendly fire (May 10) as the Confederate Memorial Day (Stout n.d.).
The Union victory was interpreted by many former slaves as a recapitulation of the biblical story of Exodus and lifted Southern rules that had made it a crime to teach them how to read and write. Prior to this, even African American preachers were often far more familiar with oral renditions of Scripture than with the written word.
See also American Bible Society; Declaration of Independence; Jackson, Thomas (Stonewall); Lincoln, Abraham