2010
YAMAUCHI LECTURE
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THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY: |
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LESSONS FROM AN AMERICAN DEBATE |
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by
Doug Ward |
APRIL 2010-Today there is general agreement that the Bible does not
support the practice of slavery. In the Bible the God of Israel, who created
all human beings in his image (Gen 1:26), gives the instruction to "love
your neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18), where one's neighbors include
people of all nationalities (Lev 19:34; Luke 10:25-37). The Bible also condemns
human trafficking (Exod 21:16; Deut 24:7) and enjoins generosity toward the
poor (Deut 15:7-11).
Yet
in the United States, a nation whose Declaration of Independence asserts that
"all men are created equal," the Bible's teaching on slavery was a
hotly debated topic between 1830 and 1865. To many Americans of that era, in
the North as well as the South, it was not at all clear that slavery was categorically
ruled out by the Bible. The debate divided churches, and failure to resolve it
helped lead to an agonizing and bloody Civil War.
Why
did nineteenth century Americans have so much difficulty with an issue that
today seems entirely straightforward? What can we learn from their experience?
One scholar who has pondered these questions is Dr. Mark A. Noll, a
distinguished historian of American evangelical Christianity. Noll, the Francis
A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, analyzes the
nineteenth century slavery debate in his book The Civil War as a Theological
Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2006). On March 20, 2010, Noll
summarized his findings in a lecture delivered at Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio.
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A
Cacophony of Opinion |
With the southern states threatening to secede from the Union, U.S.
President James Buchanan called a national day of fasting for January 4, 1861.
Biblical teaching on slavery was, understandably, a major topic in sermons
given on that day.1 To
illustrate the diversity of opinion on this subject, Noll began his lecture by
surveying what some prominent American clergymen taught about it.
At Plymouth
Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York, Henry Ward Beecher, the best known
preacher in the North, called on the United States to repent of its national
sins, especially slavery. Noting that Jesus had come to open the prison doors
and free the captives (a reference to Luke 4), Beecher declared that the Bible
clearly denounced slavery. He said that when people read the Bible "with
the illumination of God's Spirit in their hearts; where the Bible has been in
the household, and read without hindrance by parents and children
together-there you have had an indomitable yeomanry, a state that would not
have a tyrant on the throne, a government that would not have a slave or a serf
in the field."2
On a
South Carolina fast day six weeks earlier, Presbyterian J.H. Thornwell, the
most respected minister in the South, expressed different views in a sermon
given in Columbia. Thornwell asserted, "That the relation betwixt the
slave and his master is not inconsistent with the word of God, we have long
since settled. Our consciences are not troubled, and have no reason to be
troubled, on this score." For Thornwell no detailed scriptural discussion
was necessary. The matter was "long since settled."
It
is not surprising that northern and southern clergymen had widely divergent
outlooks on this subject. Certainly there were strong economic incentives for
Southerners to discover justification for slavery in the Bible. More remarkable
is the fact that Northerners were sharply divided with regard to biblical
teaching on slavery.
For
example, on December 9, 1860, a sermon entitled "The Character and
Influence of Abolitionism" was given by Rev. Henry J. Van Dyke at
Brooklyn's First Presbyterian Church, just down the street from Beecher's
congregation. In that sermon Van Dyke denounced abolitionism, which he defined
as the doctrine that slaveholding is sinful. He stated,
"I am here tonight, in God's name, and by His help, to
show that this tree of Abolitionism is evil, and only evil-root and branch,
flower, and leaf, and fruit; that it springs from, and is nourished by, an
utter rejection of the Scriptures; that it produces no real benefit to the
enslaved, and is the fruitful source of division and strife, and infidelity, in
both Church and State."3
In
his scriptural argument against abolitionism, Van Dyke focused on two passages,
one each from the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament passage was Lev 25:44-46,
which allows Israelites to take slaves from other nations and hold them in
perpetual servitude. The New Testament passage was I Tim 6:1-5, which instructs
slaves to honor their masters and also makes clear that slaveholders were
accepted as part of the early church without being required to release their
slaves.
Another
contrast to Beecher is a fast day message given at the Jewish Synagogue of New
York by Rabbi Morris J. Raphall. Rabbi Raphall remarked that he was no friend
of slavery but felt a duty to accurately convey the biblical teaching on the
subject. In response to the question, "Is slaveholding condemned as a sin
in sacred Scripture?", he stated, " How this question can at all
arise in the mind of any man that has received a religious education, and is
acquainted with the history of the Bible, is a phenomenon I cannot explain to
myself, and which fifty years ago no man dreamed of."4
Like
Van Dyke, Raphall pointed to Lev 25:44-46 to show that enslavement of
foreigners captured in war was allowed in Israel. Citing Deut 21:14, Exod
21:26-27, and Exod 20:10, he added that slaves were to be treated humanely and
criticized Southern slaveowners for not following these biblical principles.
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Analyzing
the Debate |
As this small sample indicates, many Americans in 1860 were not at
all sure that the Bible taught against slavery, even if they wished that it
did. Noll provided some helpful explanation of the reasons for America's
struggles over this issue.
One
reason that many Bible-believing Americans hesitated to adopt abolitionism was
the fact that leading abolitionists often questioned the truth and authority of
the Bible. For instance, Raphall took great exception when Beecher dismissed
the commandments of the Torah as outmoded. Similarly, Van Dyke objected to an
assertion by abolitionist Albert Barnes that no book which sanctioned slavery
could rightly be considered a revelation from God.5
To Van Dyke, Barnes had things entirely backwards. One should not presume to
correct the Bible; instead, one should take correction from it.
Another
factor that limited the effectiveness of abolitionist arguments is that
antislavery writers often "talked past" their opponents. When
discussing the biblical evidence, these writers tended to appeal to general
principles like the golden rule (Matt 7:12) or Jesus' statement that he was
sent to proclaim freedom to the captives (Luke 4:18) instead of directly
addressing passages like Lev 25:44-46 and I Tim 6:1-5 that seemed to cause
problems for their position.
A
further reason that Americans wrestled with the biblical teaching on slavery
involves both some prevailing attitudes of American Christianity and the nature
of the biblical evidence. In the Protestant mindset of the early years of the
American Republic, there was a strong tendency to distrust religious tradition
and appeal directly to the Bible for authority. There was also a widespread
confidence in the simplicity of God's revelation and in the capacity of the
ordinary Christian believer to be able to open the Bible and readily grasp its
message.
For
people with such a mindset, a quick proslavery argument based on Lev. 25:44-46
and I Tim 6:1-5 was often persuasive. A careful, nuanced exegesis of these
passages in historical context could lead to different answers, but this sort
of in-depth study was difficult without formal training unavailable to most
ordinary believers. Moreover, an anti-intellectual bias was prevalent in
American Christianity. To people who held such a bias, scholarly commentary on
the Bible could seem like a way to "reason around" the Scriptures
rather than to explicate them. In this environment, superficial arguments based
on prooftexting could carry greater weight than more careful but more complex
arguments.
Finally,
there were some commonly held assumptions that tended to skew the way that many
Americans interpreted and applied the Bible. One of these assumptions, a part
of America's Puritan legacy, was a conviction that Americans were in a special
covenant relationship with God. A second, even more widely held assumption was
the view that Europeans were innately superior to Africans.
White
Americans in 1860 would never have considered the possibility that lifelong
servitude might be a suitable destiny for themselves. But coming to the Bible
with the two aforementioned assumptions, they read Lev 25:44-46 and
automatically plugged in themselves for the children of Israel and African
Americans for "the heathen that are round about you." In this way,
they saw biblical precedent for the race-based slavery practiced in the United
States.
Another
passage used to justify the enslavement of Africans was Gen 9:25-27, which was
widely seen as a prophecy that Ham's descendants, identified as Africans, were
destined to be enslaved. Rabbi Raphall, for example, gave this interpretation
in his fast day sermon.6
African
Americans, unhindered by these assumptions, could evaluate the biblical teaching
on slavery more accurately. Noll found one of the most profound and insightful
discussions of the subject in the writings of Daniel Coker, a minister in the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. In his Dialogue between a Virginian and
an African Minister (1810), Coker observed that when Abraham, the father of
the faithful, circumcised his slaves according to God's command (Gen 17:13),
those slaves were included in the covenant of God. Similarly, when Israel
enslaved foreigners who were defeated in battle, those slaves would have been
given every opportunity to follow God and become part of the people of
Israel-for example, they would have participated in the Sabbath rest (Deut
5:14). Any slave who chose to follow God would no longer be a foreigner, and thus
that slave's family would no longer be subject to the perpetual servitude
described in Lev 25:44-46. Analogously, American slaves who became Christians
were part of God's New Covenant people and should therefore be set free. One
wonders how Henry Van Dyke would have responded to Coker's incisive argument.
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Conclusions |
Noll identified two lessons to be learned from the American slavery
debate. The first is that we should be wary of things that seem
"obvious" in the realm of popular level Bible teaching. It was
obvious to many nineteenth century Americans that slavery was sanctioned by the
Bible, but Bible students in 2010 see this issue much differently.
Second,
the truth is available in the Bible to those who are willing to really search
for it. Although Daniel Coker did not have the opportunity to pursue a seminary
degree, God led him to a deep insight concerning the biblical teaching on
slavery.
These
lessons have additional applications. Here are two that readily come to mind:
· Today
there are many sincere Bible students to whom it is obvious that Gen 1 dates
the beginning of the universe to less than ten thousand years ago, although
that is not the only possible way to interpret Gen 1.
· Popular
Bible teachers can attract large followings with predictions about the
fulfillment of biblical prophecies. Popular prophetic scenarios that initially
appear very convincing often are based on faulty assumptions and prove to be
fallacious.
In both these instances, careful study of the Scriptures in historical context
can be the key to separating truth from error.
1Several of these
sermons, along with some given in the weeks leading up to that day, were
collected and published in the book Fast Day Sermons: or the Pulpit on the
State of the Country (Rudd & Carlton, New York, 1861).
2Fast Day Sermons,
p. 289.
3Ibid., p. 137.
4Ibid., pp. 235-236.
5Ibid., pp. 236-238;
163-164.
6Ibid.,
pp. 232-234. For further discussion of Gen 9:25-27, see the article "Watch Your
Antecedents!" in Issue 10 of Grace
and Knowledge.
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