Christian Slavery - Bad News About Christianity

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The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example. James Henley Thornwell was an advocate of slavery. On May 26, 1850 he said the following, in The Rights and the Duties of Masters, A Sermon Preached at the Dedication of a Church Erected in Charleston, S.C.,for the Benefit and Instruction of the Coloured Population: The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders—they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battle ground—Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake. Bishop Meade, an Episcopal clergyman of Virginia, cited in American Slavery and Colour by William Chambers 1857, pointed out that a slave aught to regard his master as God himself: And Baptists: Having thus shewn you the chief duties you owe to your great Master in heaven, I now come to lay before you the duties you owe to your masters and mistresses here upon earth. And for this you have one general rule, that you ought always to carry in your minds, and that is, to do all service for them as if you did it for God himself. Poor creatures! you little consider when you are idle and neglectful of your masters' business; when you steal, and waste, and hurt any of their substance; when you are saucy and impudent; when you are telling them lies and deceiving them; or when you prove stubborn and sullen, and will not do the work you are set about without stripes and vexation-you do not consider, I say, that what faults you are guilty of towards your masters and mistresses, are faults done against God himself, who hath set your masters and mistresses over you in His own stead, and expects that you will do for them just as you would do for Him. And pray do not think that I want to deceive you when I tell you that your masters and mistresses are God's overseers, and that, if you are faulty towards them, God himself will punish you severely for it in the next world, unless you repent of it, and strive to make amends by your faithfulness and diligence for the time to come..." "…the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example… Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be supposed that the inspired Apostles … would have tolerated it for a moment in the Christian Church. In proving this subject justifiable by Scriptural authority [Luke 12:47], its morality is also proved; for the Divine Law never sanctions immoral actions." Richard Furman, Baptist State Convention, letter to South Carolina Governor, 1822 The Roman Catholic Church was the largest corporate staveholder in the Americas. Catholic institutions also held slaves. so did religious orders. Jesuits who ran a Catholic educational institution in Maryland were not atypical. They sold 272 enslaved men, women, and children (including a two-month old infant) in 1838 to help fund the institution (now known as Georgetown University) founded by the first US Cardinal. The slaves had been held on Jesuit plantations in Maryland. Their world had been one dominated by priests who required them to attend Mass, and whipped them at least as often as other slave masters. Some had to be “dragged off by force to the ship,” bound for New Orleans. They included children separated from their parents 28a . Jesuits had sold off slaves before. As early as the 1780s they had discussed the need to cull their stock of slaves. Other universities including Brown, Columbia, Harvard and the University of Virginia have publicly recognised their involvement in slavery. Slaves were often donated to Church's and Church institutions by prosperous parishioners. Important questions for the Church were the extent of slave owners' rights to flog or burn their human property, to split up their families, and to demand sexual gratification from them 29 . This last must have been a particular problem, since owners could point to several biblical passages that take it for granted that a slave girl is available for her master's sexual desires. This was clearly difficult to square with the knowledge that sex was sinful. The harm that was done to the slaves themselves was not considered, although its effects were so severe that they live on today. In the Americas it has left a legacy of bitterness, hatred and social disruption 30 that is likely to endure well into the third millennium. An auction of slave women and their babies
Slavery was not confined to selected races or to members of other religions: Christians routinely condemned their fellow believers to slavery. John Knox for example spent 18 months as a galleyslave under French Catholics. Cotton Mather, a Puritan clergyman best known for his part in the infamous Salem Witch Trials, plotted the enslavement of William Penn and his fellow Quakers in 1682 31 . Cotton Mather, clergyman, one of the most influential religious leaders in America, was keen to enslave Quakers in 1682 In the late eighteenth century popes still held slaves, as did Anglican clergymen. It was still beyond question that slavery was ordained by God and therefore unimpeachable. This advertisement was placed in the Colored Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee on October 7, 1865 It is a equest for information by Thornton Copeland who had been separated from his mother, he and his mother having been sold to different slave masters some twently years earlier. (It was, incidentally, normal practice for slaves to adopt the surname of their masters)
Page 1 and 2: Slavery Click below for more inform
Page 3 and 4: Church & State Symbiosis Meddling i
Page 5 and 6: Children inherit their parents' sta
Page 7 and 8: seizure of their land. Like other b
Page 9 and 10: On the Law of Barbados, which impos
Page 11 and 12: On November 29th, 1781 the crew of
Page 13 and 14: Below are some notable highlights.
Page 15 and 16: Since they were merely property, th
Page 17: from the Old and New Testaments by
Page 21 and 22: In America opposition to slavery wa
Page 23 and 24: wholesale (moral) pollution. The wa
Page 25 and 26: After the American Civil War, the V
Page 27 and 28: civilisation of the society and the
Page 29 and 30: Documents Runaway Slave Poster, in
Page 31: Slave Chains from west Africa (Roya
Page 38: Slave Transport in Africa
Page 41: Slave sale, Charleston Advertisemen
Page 45 and 46: The Official Medallion of the Briti
Page 47 and 48: Slave masks, collars and shackles U
Page 49 and 50: US Slave Collar - the bells make it
Page 51 and 52: US Slave Collar - Reproduction by F
Page 53 and 54: Franklin and Armfield Office, was s
Page 55 and 56: Slave collar and mask. The collar h
Page 57 and 58: another run-away slave, 1854 - note
Page 59 and 60: “Salve Auction” in Richmond, Vi
Page 61: The Voice of the Clergy (Philadelph
Page 66 and 67: Other areas of social reform: Racis
Page 68 and 69:
Edict of the King: On the subject o
Page 70 and 71:
Signed Moriceau. Bad News About Chr
Page 72 and 73:
(Decretals of Gregory IX, Book Four
Page 74:
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1
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Christian Slavery - Bad News About Christianity

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