Broken churches, broken nation Book

I would heartily recommend this to anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the churches role in the events leading to the civil war. The splintering of the major denominations in the pre-war years foreshadowed the splintering of the states that followed. It was a sorry display from the major denominations and an example of what depths men, churched men, can go to defend a pet evil. The Quakers, it seems, are the only ecclesiastical group to survive with gospel integrity. I was especially saddened to learn of the origins of my denomination, the Southern Baptist. The one quote that stood out to me was from Dwight Lowell Dumond. " the failure of the churches at this point in our history forced the country to turn to political action against slavery, and political action destroyed slavery as a system but left the hearts of slaveholders (and it must be added, other white Americans) unregenerate and left oppression of the free Negro little less of an evil than slavery had been".