Christian Slavery - Bad News About Christianity

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In the second part of The Age of Reason, published in 1795, Thomas Paine noted that in the book of Numbers Moses had given instructions as to how to treat Midianite captives. Essentially, everyone was to be executed except virgins, whom the victors were allowed to keep alive for themselves. God then gave instructions as to how the booty, including 32,000 virgins, should be divided up between the victors. Paine summarised the relevant passage: "Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters" 32 . In response to this, Bishop Watson of Llandaff pointed out that the virgins had not been spared for any immoral purpose, as Paine had wickedly suggested. Rather, he said, they were spared so that they could be taken into slavery. Obviously, there could be no ethical objection to this, since slavery was divinely sanctioned. The bishop's rebuttal was perfectly acceptable to mainstream Christians, who found sex objectionable but slavery not at all objectionable. According to the Churches, slavery was not merely permitted, it was obligatory. Slavery was a God-given institution. To oppose what God had sanctioned was positively sinful. A popular publication - still available A Plan of National Colonization, advocating the removal of free Blacks, by Rev. W. S. BR0WN, M. D.
In America opposition to slavery was first voiced by freethinkers such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Initially a Quaker, later a deist, Paine was widely condemned as an unbeliever. He wrote an influential article against slavery in 1775, and when he drafted the American Declaration of Independence the following year, he included a clause against slavery that was later struck out 33 . Under Quaker influence, slavery was made illegal in the state of Pennsylvania in 1780. Other campaigners included the rationalist James Russell Lowell, the sceptical expreacher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the freethinker Wendell Phillips. Abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown had shifted away from traditional Christianity after reading Thomas Paine. Here, opposition to slavery is accurately characterised as atheistic and godless "God is introduced to give dignity and emphasis ... and then He is banished. It was this very atheistic Declaration [of Independence] which had inspired the 'higher law' doctrine of the radical antislavery men. If the mischievous abolitionists had only followed the Bible instead of the godless Declaration, they would have been bound to acknowledge that human bondage was divinely ordained. The mission of southerners was therefore clear; they must defend the word of God against abolitionist infidels." Thomas Smyth, minister of 2nd Presbyterian Church of Charleston, S.C. 11/21/1861 Slave Coffle, Near Paris, Kentucky, 1850s Elsewhere Churches held out longer. Clergymen advocated slavery and opposed abolitionist "infidels" on the traditional Christian grounds that slavery was required by God. Here is the Rev William S Plummer, DD of Richmond: "... Lastly.- Abolitionists are like infidels, wholly unaddicted to martyrdom for opinion's sake. Let them understand that they will be caught if they come among us, and they will take good heed to keep out of our way. There is not one man among them who has any more idea of shedding his blood in this cause, than he has of making war on the Grand Turk." (http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/christn/chesjgbat.html) According to Christian tradition, Blacks were inherently inferior, a consequence of their descent from a biblical character called Ham, which accounted for both their colour and their inferior status. Here is one of thousands of statements of the Christian position, from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond, edited by the Christian gentleman himself in 1866 (He was a United States Senator): The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined. The Rev. J. C. Postell, in July, 1836, delivered an address at a public meeting at Orangeburgh Court-house, S. C., in which he maintains; 1. That slavery is a judicial visitation. 2. That it is not a moral evil. 3. That it is supported by the Bible. He thus argues his second point:- It is not a moral evil. The fact that slavery is of Divine appointment, would be proof enough with the Christian, that it could not be a moral evil. But when we view the hordes of savage marauders and human cannibals enslaved to lust and passion, and abandoned to idolatry and ignorance, to revolutionise them from such a state, and enslave them where they may have the gospel, and the privileges of Christians; so far from being a moral evil, it is a merciful visitation. If slavery was either the invention of man or a moral evil, it is logical to conclude, the power to create has the power to destroy. Why then has it existed? And why does it now exist amidst all the power of legislation in state and church, and the clamor of
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 and 18: from the Old and New Testaments by
Page 19: Slavery was not confined to selecte
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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