As I was saying in my last post about Slavery, Christianity cannot support it. Many people say that back in the day (civil war times) many Southern Baptist supported it and the slave trade, this was mainly because slavery was a way of life, it was how all the huge farms functioned. Without the slaves they couldn't have ran a huge farm. Most preachers also bent the scriptures to support their ways. Now don't take this as that I support slavery or that I am trying to justify their ways, I am simply explaining their thoughts in my opinion. I do think that the farmers could have treated them better, given them a choice if they wanted to work, offered them pay and better housing, etc., therefore they would no longer would have been classified as slaves.
David Brewster wrote in a column for Scripps Howard News Service saying "The slavery of America's antebellum South found support in the theology of many of men's churches until the nation ran red with blood and the righteousness of reason prevailed" (p. 25)
Now I do see where he comes from about slavery finding support in the churches, because that's what was really happening, and I have already explained why that happened. But how can one say "...until the righteousness of REASON prevailed". Reason is based on a personal preference and definition, so in the farmers mind their reasoning was that slavery was fine. Everyone has their own definition of right or wrong based on different things. So the slave owners were not ignoring right or wrong, most of them were raised to believe that blacks were inferior to them, as did the law with the three-fifths compromise, saying that slaves were only counted as three-fifths of a person. So between the law and the "scriptures" (they were bending them to make them fit for their cause) their reason was right and just. So it would be unjust to attack christianity as a whole for so called "supporting" slavery.
Also, look at it from a neutral point of view, if someone walks in a room, they can't read, communicate (language barrier), and lack of basic knowledge, you automatically feel superior to them
Waylon, your point that that's what people in the south were taught is valid to a point, but you're on thin ice when you say that therefore "their reason was right and just." The point the book was making was that, like you said, many slave-owners in the South were manipulating Scripture to support their slave-owning views. At the same time there were LOTS of Christians who were vehemently opposed to slavery and that it was BECAUSE of the strongly Christian-backed abolitionist movement that we were able to eventually put and end to slavery.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate point: it is wrong to broad-brush ALL of Christianity as supporting slavery, based on the wrong actions of a sliver of the pre-Civil War population...especially in light of the fact that it was Christians (like William Wilberforce in England) who were the driving force behind the movement to end slavery.
Dr. Anderson