A Little More of Moore

by VorJack

Some time back I wrote about Charles Chilton Moore, the Kentucky atheist and editor of the Blue Grass Blade. (and thanks to reader Sman for providing the link to this repository, as the LoC link I originally used is no longer working).

At the time, I gave a tongue-in-cheek description of Moore as the “first atheist blogger,” because his confrontational style and the personal voice of his articles made him seem more like modern bloggers than modern journalists. Bodie Hodge of Answers in Genesis picked up on this and set out to deconstruct the snippet of Moore’s writing that I provided. In typical AiG fashion, Hodge provides no link to my post, any source for Moore’s writings, or the Religion in American History post that started it. As I’m more versed in netiquette than Hodge, let me direct you to his post, Feedback: Back to the Future? (and thanks to reader MaiaZavala for finding this.)

He never got out of the rut

The key to understanding Moore, and his diatribe, was diagnosed by one of his fellow freethinkers: Moore started out as a preacher and never got out of the rut. He was an atheist second but a moralizer first.

Moore was the grandson of Barton Stone, who formed an offshoot of the Presbyterian Church during the Second Great Awakening. He later merged with the Campbellites to form what is now the American Restoration Movement. At an early age, Moore was tapped to follow in his footsteps, which he did with all signs of faithfulness.

Moore lost his faith in the normal manner for a child raised to believe in the innerrancy of Scripture. He and an unbeliever both agreed to read some of the new works arguing both sides of the issue. Oddly, both ended up converting to the other side – though it took Moore a while to admit it and leave the pulpit. It might have ended there, but Moore was too much of a moralizer.

This played out in two ways. First, it limited his sources of income. He owned the family farm, but his opposition to gambling meant that he could not invest in Kentucky’s famous racing thoroughbreds, and his support of temperance meant he couldn’t sell corn to the distilleries. So, while keeping up his farm, he sought additional means of supporting his family. He eventually turned to writing columns for the newspapers.

Second, his upbringing seemed to give him the urge to thunder against hypocrisy. Given that Moore had been a young man during the American Civil War, there was plenty of that hypocrisy on display. Both sides claimed God as an ally and prayed for the destruction of the other. Both sides claimed to be the more Christian while engaging in the bloodiest war in American history. Both sides argued the issue of slavery while quoting scripture. During his college years, Moore himself had been read the riot act in college, in to form of 1st Timothy, for daring to suggest that slavery was less than good.

Newspaper men meet such interesting people

Both his grandfather and Alexander Campbell, one of the leaders of the Campbellites, had edited and published newspapers. They were an effective way to preach to a sprawling congregation in the American west. So it’s not surprising that Moore took up the trade as well. He was already known as an “infidel” (to use the word he preferred) by that point, since he’d announced from the pulpit why he was leaving the pulpit. It took him three tries to figure out that his attacks on hypocritical preachers went down much better if he broke them up with his uncompromising Prohibitionist stance.

Moore’s style is very reminiscent of those precious “editor-preachers” of his grandfather’s movement. What you’re reading is in the thundering style of a Kentucky preacher – complete with hyperbole – turned back on itself.

The original selection that I posted, and which Hodge rebutted, was the opening to Moore’s article about the assassination of the controversial Governor of Kentucky William Goebel. It was a polemic directed at the good Christian folks who, in Moore’s eyes, supported and initiated that assassination. After all, the title of the piece (with typical extensive subtitles and Prohibition tie-in) is “Damned Drunken, Christian Devils Assassinate Their Christian Brother, Goebel, Taylor Should Be Arrested as Accessory Before the Fact, Down With The Sky-Pilots.” It is heavy handed, but basically it is a condemnation of how supposedly Christian men in a Christian society would look the other way while a Christian is murdered over political issues.

I’m not going to defend Moore’s exact words; defending a polemic is pointless. You don’t look to an intemperate rant for factual accuracy. It’s purpose is to have an emotional impact, much like a fire-and-brimstone sermon. But frankly, I expect that this comes too close to Form Criticism for anyone at AiG. It’s silly to expect someone who insists on literal, factual accuracy from their ancient myths to appreciate the genres of modern writing. So let’s just pat Hodge on his tousled head and move on.