"Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown

Louis A. DeCaro

NYU Press, Dec 22, 2002 - Biography & Autobiography - 349 pages

Reveals a complex new portrait of John Brown, radical abolitionist and leader of the 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry

John Brown is usually remembered as a terrorist whose unbridled hatred of slavery drove him to the ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Tried and executed for seizing the arsenal and attempting to spur a liberation movement among the slaves, Brown was the ultimate cause celebre for a country on the brink of civil war.

“Fire from the Midst of You” situates Brown within the religious and social context of a nation steeped in racism, showing his roots in Puritan abolitionism. DeCaro explores Brown's unusual family heritage as well as his business and personal losses, retracing his path to the Southern gallows. In contrast to the popular image of Brown as a violent fanatic, DeCaro contextualizes Brown's actions, emphasizing the intensely religious nature of the antebellum US in which he lived. He articulates the nature of Brown's radical faith and shows that, when viewed in the context of his times, he was not the religious fanatic that many have understood him to be. DeCaro calls Brown a “Protestant saint”—an imperfect believer seeking to realize his own perceived calling in divine providence.

In line with the post-millennial theology of his day, Brown understood God as working through mankind and the church to renew and revive sinful humanity. He read the Bible not only as God's word, but as God's word to John Brown. DeCaro traces Brown's life and development to show how by forging faith as a radical weapon, Brown forced the entire nation to a point of crisis.

“Fire from the Midst of You” defies the standard narrative with a new reading of John Brown. Here is the man that the preeminent Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois called a "mighty warning" and the one Malcolm X called “a real white liberal.”

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LibraryThing Review

User Review  - hereandthere - LibraryThing

John Brown was first and foremost a religious warrior, a Christian jihadist, committed to the duality of spiritual and military struggle. Decaro gets this, and helpfully focuses on the fine religious ...

"Fire from the midst of you": a religious life of John Brown

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

When abolitionist martyr John Brown led an armed raid on Harper's Ferry, VA, in October 1859, he helped set the stage for the American Civil War. Yet as pastor and educator DeCaro points out, Brown ...

Contents

• Part II A Good Cause and a Sovereign God: 43
• Part III Providence and Principle: 81
• Part IV In Times of Difficulty: 121
• Part V Big Difficulties and Firm Footholds: 161
• Part VI Enduring Hardness: 203
• VII I Will Raise a Storm: 237
• A Saints Rest: 279
• Notes: 285
• Selected Bibliography: 335
• Index: 345
• About the Author: 349

Popular passages

Page 12 - So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

Page 31 - And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

About the author

Louis A. DeCaro, Jr., is Associate Professor of Church History at Alliance Theological Seminary, and is the author of "Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown and Freedom's Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: "Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown
• Author: Louis A. DeCaro
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: NYU Press, 2002
• ISBN: 081471921X, 9780814719213
• Length: 349 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Literary Figures; Biography & Autobiography / Religious; History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)