Christians: What is your opinion of John Brown? [View All]

Capt. John Brown remains one of the most controversial figures in American history; the quintessential shit-stormer--whose raid on Harper's Ferry helped spark the Civil War--is still despised by reactionaries and feared by well-meaning liberals (mention the abolitionist's name, and the latter group will say something to the effect of: "Well, I understand why he did it, but.....).

And lest we forget...Brown was a devout Christian. Though some scholars label him "mad" or "insane," I believe Brown merely thought himself an instrument of God, drawing from Doddridge’s "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul."

Yes, he rejected Christ's call to nonviolence: he and his allies murdered five state-settlers in Kansas; killed a slaveowner in Missouri; and led the aforementioned raid on this nation's armory.

HOWEVER, few white man in America so vehemently heeded the Christian command to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." Among other endeavors, Brown harbored runaway blacks (as did his father); escorted eleven slaves in Missouri to freedom (after killing their owner); and attempted to do through small-scale violence what Lincoln would eventually do after a full-scale war, which would claim the lives of 600,000 men.

What's more, many key figures in the Northern community fancied him the martyr: Emmerson was ecstatic, believing that his death would "make the gallows as holy as the cross"; Wendell Phillips fully endorsed his actions: "The lesson of the hour is insurrection"; even Garrison, the fierce pacifist, defended Brown: “Let no one who glories in the Revolutionary struggle of 1776 deny the rights of slaves to imitate the example of our fathers.”


What do you think of Brown?