Addressing WWI, N.C. clergy presented disunited front

“Ministers from mainstream Southern denominations preached pro-war sermons, such as the one delivered by the Presbyterian minister in Dunn, North Carolina, in January 1918 and headlined in the Raleigh News & Observer: ‘Teutons Cannot Win, Proof from Bible.’

“Other Christians had different views. In March 1917, before the declaration of war, a group of ministers from Littleton, North Carolina, wrote to [House Majority Leader] Claude Kitchin that ‘War entered into until every effort that can be made to avert it is made is murder.’… ”

— From “Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight: Race, Class, and Power in the Rural South” by Jeanette Keith (2004)