Thank you too for your balanced view that neither white-washes America’s history in jingoistic idolatry nor disrespects this great nation that God has indeed blessed.

–Jacob

Herb Kraker

As a lover of Christ and a huge civil war buff I too have wrestled with feelings of respect and disappointment for such figures as General Lee, Stonewall Jackson and the like. Learning from their shortcomings as well as their strengths can only leave us wiser and less likely to repeat mistakes.

I look forward to reading more of your posts. Thank you for your contribution to this ongoing discussion.

Robert E. Lee was a great American who deserves honor for his life, faith, and deeds which honored Christ. He deserves honor for brilliant military service to both the United States military and his native Virginia. Lee set his slaves free long before the War and for much of the War advocated offering freedom to any slaves who would fight for independence.

The Confederate government finally approved that measure in March 1865, too late for anyone to notice or for it to affect the war, but that decision gives weight to the argument that there was more for which the South effused the blood of thousands of white men than for some superiority complex of keeping one people under the neck of another.

The world is a complicated place. All our American hands are crimson from the blood of slavery and its subsequent iniquity.

Lincoln sold his wife’s inherited slaves instead of freeing them. He advocated the colonization of Liberia to send as many people of African heritage back to the African continent as possible because he did not believe whites and blacks could live together in peace and equality, that blacks did not have the mental and social capabilities of living in a free society. His Emancipation Proclamation, a bald political move to pull the United Kingdom back from the brink of formally recognizing the Confederacy, guaranteed the perpetuation of slavery to any territory or state which would lay down their arms and come back into the Union. If slavery was all Lee and the South wanted, none of them took advantage of the offer. U.S. Grant retained his slaves until he was forced by the 13th Amendment to give them up.

There is a reason that slavery was not long tolerated in the North. Northern whites could not abide the presence of people of African descent. That is why the Northwest Territory had a provision that no one of African descent could own land in what is today the MidWest.

The US Army was dispatched to manhandle violent rioters in the streets of New York City when residents found out the Lincoln Administration wanted to change the direction of the War to include freeing the slaves.

The war crimes, rapes and torture of slaves, contrabanding of medicines and Bibles, and the total war strategy of making war on defenseless elderly, women, slaves, and children, that Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln prosecuted were sins of incalculable depth toward both white and black Southerners.

The politics of Reconstruction set Southern blacks and whites against one another as a strategy of the Northern victors to maintain a level of social and political control in the American South. ‘Separate but equal’ was an imposed Northern idea. The resulting post-War racism and Jim Crow codes were a direct result of that Reconstruction strategy. Southerners’ sinful resentment and bitterness about the prosecution and results of the war led to the sinful way freed blacks were treated for a century.

Slavery and virulent racism has not been just a Southern sin. It was and continues to be an American sin.

General Lee killed and killed again to attempt to keep black people as slaves to white people.

He knew it, you know it, I know it. There is nothing more despicable.

Call him what he was, a murderous racist.

I am not Caucasian, so I know my wife isn’t a racist, but I’ve found it puzzling how she claims that the flag to her is a symbol of home and her family’s affinity of Lee is not because they are secret racists. I think it is how society around her saw nothing wrong in it, they just revered it as a thread of their own history and something to be proud of. I’m quite sure Robert E. Lee was and always will be a true man of honor and integrity as set forth by his contemporary values. Lee will always have a place for Southerners, I think you can agree that he can be honored for some of his ethics and be denounced for others. Until society truly embraces equality you will always have die hard Confederates that long for the 1860s to return.

God has allowed history to transpire as it did, we all need to get over the fact the C.S.A. lost and truly set our minds to God’s work- divisiveness is not part of that work. The 1860s was not Heaven on earth, especially for non-whites and to lose so many brave men (and women), because of either “states’rights” or the issue of slavery is sad…too much blood had already been shed. Since we are human and sin is still within us, that explains the ignorance that finally turned ideas into a reality of war. Lee is a symbol of bravery and steadfastness that military officers and soldiers should have and as a veteran myself, I can see that in the man. As a human I can also see the faults he did possess, but as a Christian I pray that he did repent for some of his views.

As for the Confederate flag, I see the flag used for two different reasons. I see my wife’s notion that it is a symbol of the South and not necessarily a racist symbol, but for others it is a belligerent symbol to provoke a notion of superiority of the white race (which there is only one race- the human race). I take offense to those who use the Confederate flag the latter way. Since we do live in the U.S.A., you have the right to fly any flag in any way you want. Just think to yourself, would God be happy with my thoughts?

The only right that the south we’re fighting for was the right for the states to govern themselves and then their right to leave the Union. Had they gone on their own, slavery would have continued in the south for some period of time.

Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Davis, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Meade all had the same problem. They were every bit evil and wicked as you and I are. They need a Savior every bit as much as we do. To put the southern leaders on a pedestal, believing they were honorable in every regard borders on idol worship. I think Lee and Jackson would be horrified if they saw how they are being written about today.

I read the comments here and weep. Is Christ honored in this? Are we putting our heritage above our Lord? That is how it comes across. What are we thinking?!

You were doing great until that last paragraph.

Your (unnecessary) white guilt is showing. Please try to get over it.

No, I’ll display a portrait of the very honourable and righteous General Robert E. Lee any time… with NO shame and no apologies. Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, no, thanks all the same. History has been written by the victors, and needs to be corrected. We are heading down the very same path today, what with Obamacare, the FDA launching SWAT team raids on sellers of raw milk and honey, drones assassinating Pakistanis, and a steady pressure to disarm the entire population, if need by, by the surrender of our National sovereignty to a United Nations treaty.

re: confederate flag….

The Nazis had a symbol, too. If modern Germans wanted to keep the symbol around for them because it meant much more than the Holocaust, it meant their heritage, would you oppose that?

Is there any difference then?

The only offense I want my life to produce is the cross of Christ. It is near impossible to believe that the confederate flag is not offensive to masses of people. Hold to it, but don’t be surprised when the conversations about Christ are cut off, not because of Christ, but because of the systemic violence and injustice done in his name, represented by the flag you hold onto.

It may not mean injustice and oppression to you, but to millions of others, it does.

Apparently, I interpret his post differently. The scope of the whole (at least as I read it) is that Lee (and the Confederates), were participants in ‘evil’ and were ‘wicked’ because of it. Those are not words to just throw around. The very fact that he accuses Lee, et al. of ‘evil’ due to their allegiances is what I take issue with.
I stand by my initial comments.

Are you responding to Dr. Moore’s post? Because, if so, you need to re-read it. Dr. Moore is not slandering General Lee nor Southerners (Dr. Moore himself being a Southerner); he is pointing out the biblical truth that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.