Saintly violence

Fire from the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown.
By Louis A. DeCaro Jr. New York University Press, 348 pp., $32.95.

John Brown is almost the only radical abolitionist I have ever known who was not more or less radical in religious matters also," reported his supporter Thomas Wentworth Higginson. "His theology was Puritan, like his practice; and accustomed as we now are to see Puritan doctrines and Puritan virtues separately exhibited, it seems quite strange to behold them combined in one person again." In this biography, Louis A. DeCaro reveals the religious integrity of a man whom others have seen as a criminal, a lunatic or a study in contradictions. For DeCaro, Brown's deep Christian faith accounts for his abiding hatred of slavery, his sense of himself as a special instrument of Providence, and his conviction that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." These beliefs led Brown to his fatal attack on slavery at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

DeCaro is fiercely critical of previous biographers, both proslavery apologists who portrayed Brown as a "fanatic" and modern scholars who sought a "neutral approach." He proposes instead that we see Brown as a "Protestant saint"--that is, as "a sincere believer, however imperfect, also believing himself carried along by God's grace and mercy." This approach sets the tone for the book, but it does not lead DeCaro to conclusions radically different from those of Brown's most influential scholarly biographer, Stephen B. Oates. Oates (who calls his approach "empathetic" rather than "neutral") also recognizes that "Brown's intense Calvinist faith . . . is the key to understanding him."

DeCaro rightly faults Oates for overemphasizing "the wrathful Jehovah of the Old Testament" as a component of Calvinist faith. He also departs from Oates in devoting more attention to the years before Brown gained fame as an antislavery guerrilla in Kansas and as the martyr of Harpers Ferry. In loving detail, DeCaro fleshes out Brown's lifelong practices of prayer, moral discernment and action. DeCaro's book will appeal to readers interested in antebellum evangelicalism; Oates's will remain standard for those who are fascinated with Brown's role as a precursor of the Civil War.