By J. William Jones, D.D.
624 pgs. Sprinkle Publications. $25.00.
Available for Purchase from VisionForum.com
The American military chaplaincy boasts a long and distinguished history from colonial times until today. Several recently published books concerning particular chaplains in World War II and the War in Iraq have received critical acclaim, No Greater Glory by Dan Kurzman and A Table in the Presence by Cary Cash. Although the use of pastors in the armed forces of the United States has enjoyed widespread acceptance through the years, opponents of “government-sponsored religion” occasionally raise objections.
In a recent New York Times article headlined “Evangelicals Are Growing Force in the Military Chaplain Corps,” Laurie Goodstein noted the declining number of chaplains from mainline denominations and the steady increase of evangelical chaplains in the armed forces. With fewer numbers of Roman Catholics entering the priesthood and the increasing number of women pastors from more liberal Protestant churches with little interest in military service, gaps in the chaplaincy ranks have been filled by more evangelical pastors.
Kristen J. Leslie, an assistant professor of pastoral care and counseling at Yale Divinity school observed the chaplains at the Air Force Academy and found, to her apparent dismay, that evangelicals administer “Bible-centered care” in which “the notion that the religious message is core, and you bring everybody to it and that’s how you create healing.... If someone is struggling with a supervisor, a spouse, or depression, an evangelical chaplain urges them to turn their life over to Christ.” Because of the religious diversity in the armed forces, some critics believe such proselytizing for Christianity is inappropriate. Preaching the message that Christ alone is the way to salvation violates two great shibboleths of modern America — never be judgmental and never be exclusive.
The Bible-centered, Christ-centered ministry of Christian chaplains should come as no surprise to even the casual observer of United States history. The American Civil War, especially, provided abundant evidence of the work of God through chaplains and other Christians in the armies. Historian Mark Noll in a recent lecture entitled “The Civil War as a Theological Crisis” stated that “religion was the number one most important cultural norm [in the United States] in 1860 ... at least one third of Americans were members of churches and total attendees of worship services were at least two times the formal membership.” Five million men voted in the 1860 election — fifteen million Americans were regular churchgoers! Ninety-five percent of the churches in America in 1860 were Protestant.
When the war came, those churches found multiple ways to communicate the gospel and to provide spiritual counsel to the soldiers. Regimental chaplains led the way and they were assisted by evangelists, colporteurs, and devout soldiers, from privates to generals. They preached the Gospel regularly, held Bible classes and prayer meetings, and witnessed personally of their hope in Christ. Denominational and non-denominational Christian ministries and societies printed millions of pages of materials for the soldiers; Bibles, tracts, newspapers, journals, and books were sold or given to the soldiers. One pastor from Richmond, Virginia — Moses Hoge — slipped through the Union naval blockade and brought back thousands of Bibles from England for the Confederate armies.
Countless thousands of men confessed Christ as Savior, Christians were encouraged, and membership in churches expanded, all in the midst of the greatest slaughter of Americans that the nation would ever know. Why have these facts been excluded from most histories of the Civil War? Have historians known of the powerful religious revivals that the armies experienced and the importance of faith to many Americans of that day and just ignored them as unimportant or considered them inexplicable?
The truth has been available for more than a century. Confederate Chaplain John William Jones wrote in the 1880s that “any history of that army which omits an account of the wonderful influence of religion upon it — which fails to tell how the courage, discipline, and morale of the whole was influenced by the humble piety and evangelical zeal of its officers and men, would be incomplete and unsatisfactory.”
Dr. Jones spent twenty-two years collecting the stories, reports, and memoirs surrounding the great spiritual awakening that swept through the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. He was a man uniquely placed, first as chaplain of the 13th Virginia Infantry, then as chaplain-at-large for the II Corps, with freedom of movement throughout the army. He maintained contact with fellow chaplains after the war, and, as secretary of the Southern Historical Society, cultivated a broad correspondence with many other veterans. Christ in the Camp was the result of his labors, a unique and powerful contribution to American history as it relates to the influence of the Gospel of Christ in the Southern Army. Sprinkle Publications has kept the book in print for more than twenty-five years; historians who ignore this history of God’s work are without excuse.
The narrative method of writing used by Dr. Jones included many letters from participants. Though he has been criticized for using such a “cut and paste” style, the author’s abundant use of primary sources lends a special credibility to his arguments and does not detract from the book’s readability. Portraits of many chaplains and relevant and interesting appendices make the book even more appealing.
Chaplain Jones devoted three full chapters to the spiritual influence of Christian officers. He showed the importance of character and leadership as means used by God in the attending spiritual awakening. Certain generals eagerly promoted preaching and gave personal testimony of God’s grace, especially Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, John B. Gordon, Edmund Kirby Smith, William Nelson Pendleton, and Willie Pegram.
General John B. Gordon of Georgia, for instance, “was accustomed to leading prayer meetings in his command, and during seasons of special revival I have heard him, with eloquent words and tearful eyes, make powerful appeals to his men to come to Christ, and have seen him go off into the woods with his arms about some ragged private, that he might point him to ‘the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.’” General Gordon was “always the active friend and helper of the chaplains and did everything in his power to promote the spiritual welfare of his men.” General Gordon survived five wounds at the Battle of Sharpsburg and rose to Corps command at the end of the war.
Other Christian officers, noncoms, and privates also testified to God’s saving grace, as well as led in prayer, worship, or Bible study. One particularly poignant example followed the first day of the Battle of Second Manassas. Captain Hugh White, who had sacrificed his training for the gospel ministry to serve in the ranks and had led many of his own company to faith in Christ, joined with his regiment’s Colonel W. S. Baylor, a recent convert, in a special prayer meeting. Many hundreds of men had fallen that day. Dozens of the anxious soldiers heard of hope in Christ and heard prayers for courage to face death. Leading their regiment the next day, both men were killed in action.
Chaplains, evangelists, and colporteurs were at the center of Gospel ministry in the armies of the Civil War. Chaplain Jones recorded the faithful service of those men during camp and battle, in the hospitals and especially during the times of extraordinary revival. The Reverend A.E. Dickenson, writing from a camp near Orange Court House on September 1, 1863, recorded a account of such labors:
For nearly a week I have been aiding Rev. J.J.D. Renfroe, chaplain Tenth Alabama, in a protracted meeting. I found brother Renfroe nearly broken down, having been for three weeks preaching daily. Our congregations have been very large; for some distance the entire grove being crowded with deeply interested listeners. Never in my life have I seen men so eager to hear and be profited by the word spoken. Though I have preached nine times I have not seen one listless hearer among all the hundreds in attendance.... It is impossible to say how many men have been asked to be prayed for. On several nights not less than from 150 to 200 made this request of us. Many have professed conversion — not less, I should think, than 175.
In the same brigade, several weeks later, more than six hundred men asked for prayer after one service and some two hundred professed conversion! Those pastors continued to exhaust themselves preaching and praying with that regiment. At the same time, on a hill a hundred yards distant, a Baptist minister, a lieutenant, and a Methodist chaplain were conducting services in another regiment of the same brigade. Fifty men professed Christ in that group.
The revival brought close cooperation between chaplains and ministers of different denominations. The messages were consistent and the results were the same everywhere: preaching the sinfulness of man, the sovereignty of God, and salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ, resulted in men responding in repentance and faith. Often the new converts would seek out the chaplains for counsel and further teaching; Bible study groups sprouted wherever believers congregated.
Chaplains organized “Christian Associations” to provide support and accountability for the men in their care. They recorded casualties and wrote letters home to the families of the men dying in hospitals or killed in battle. They also drew up rules of behavior based on biblical commands regarding drunkenness, swearing, gambling, and other prevalent sins of the camp.
J. William Jones and other army pastors corresponded with some of the men who had professed Christ in the war and survived to the end. They rejoiced in the faithfulness and sincerity of those whose lives were eternally changed and who returned home to raise families and start new churches. In Charles City County, Virginia, where I lived for fifteen years, a small rural clapboard Presbyterian church was organized after the Civil War. Two of the founders that are buried behind the church lie beneath gravestones upon which are carved the company and regiment in which they served in the Civil War — one in the infantry and one cavalry. I have always wondered if they heard the Word of God preached during the war and were among the thousands who came to faith amidst death and destruction and returned home as new men in Christ.
Christ in the Camp records much of the glorious work of God in the hearts of many men in the Army of Northern Virginia but perhaps only in eternity will we see the true extent of which a six hundred page book is merely a preface.
Reviewed by William Potter
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