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Faith, Slavery and Irony in the Civil War
Lee Webb from CBN News profiles the ironic history of a stained glass window of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson in the predominantly African American Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Virgina. It’s worth reading the entire article and watching the video, but here is a brief excerpt:
The church’s founding pastor Rev. Lylburn Downing designed the window in 1906 to honor Jackson for leading his parents to faith in Christ when they were slave children. Prior to the Civil War, Jackson was a professor at the Virginia Military Institute, and a deacon at the Lexington Presbyterian Church. In 1855, the man who would become one of the Civil War’s most famous generals, began a Sunday school class for black children, slave and free.
Downing’s father and mother were among his many students.How do the members of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church feel about a stained glass window honoring a Confederate general?
Freeland Pendleton, who’s been a member of the church most of his life, says he has no problem with it. “The reason I was okay with it because he had the courage to teach us, teach blacks to read and write,” Pendleton said. “Whether he was fighting for slavery, or whatever, he did do a good thing.”
What lessons can we learn of stories like this?
“I think we like to make history simple,” Miller said. “I think we like to say there are just good guys and bad guys and that depends on which side, who’s the good and who’s the bad.” “It encourages me, especially today when we see our country so divided over so many issues,” Williams said. “It continues to reaffirm and confirm in my mind that Christ is the answer to our problems.”
