Christian Slavery - Bad News About Christianity

abolitionists? It is the Lord's DOINGS AND MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES: and
had it not been done for the best, God alone, who is able, long since would have
overruled it. IT IS BY DIVINE APPOINTMENT."
(http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/christn/chesjgbat.html)
The Catholic and Anglican Churches were not alone. In 1843 some 1,200 Methodist ministers
owned slaves in the USA. Under popular pressure generated by secular thinkers, all of the
mainstream Churches (except the Southern Baptists) performed a volte-face during the
nineteenth century. When enough of their members had moved over to the abolitionist cause, the
Churches followed. God had always condoned, sanctioned and even demanded the practice of
slavery, but slavery was no longer acceptable. God must have changed his mind. Priests,
bishops and popes felt obliged to cease owning slaves. Slavery was criticised for the first time by
a pope (Gregory XVI) in 1839, but it was still permissable after its abolition in the USA:
"Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to
the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these
are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred
canons.... It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold,
bought, exchanged or given." (20 June 1866 decision (No. 1293) of the Holy Office (cited in
Bokenkotter's A Concise History of the Catholic Church and by J. F. Maxwell in “The Development
of Catholic Doctrine Concerning Slavery,” World Jurist 11 (1969–70): 306–7))
It was not until the Berlin Conference of 1884 that Roman Catholic countries started to fall into
line with Protestant ones on the question of slavery, agreeing that it should be suppressed. In
1888 Pope Leo XIII declared in In plurimis that the Church was now opposed to it - though
Church Law on the topic remained unchanged.
In the USA the pattern was similar: nineteenth century churchmen advocated slavery, though
secular forces opposed it. It was a commonplace that "Slavery is of God". Christian ministers
wrote almost half of all defences of slavery published in America. The Churches routinely
produced such defences. Along with these defences, Christian Churches circulated biblical texts
on the subject of Negro inferiority, and the need for total unquestioning obedience. A civil war was
fought before the Christian South was forced to abandon slavery in 1863. Yet the Southern
Presbyterian Church could still resolve in 1864 that it was their peculiar mission to conserve the
institution of slavery, and to make it a blessing to both master and slave.
Frederick Douglass on Slavery and Christianity
Black slaves were generally not permitted to learn to
read or write, since education was seen as a threat to
God's natural order. An American slave who adopted the
name Frederick Douglass was exceptional in that he
learned to read and write in secret. After he was granted
his freedom he campaigned against slavery and wrote
about his life. His writings are of particular interest, not
only because of his personal experience, but also
because of his lucid style. He stood as a living
confutation to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did
not have the intellectual capacity to function as a citizen.
An outstanding orator, he became a leader of the
abolitionist movement. Although a Christian believer
himself, his testimony against mainstream Christians is
excoriating. Here it is in a nutshell.
Were I to be again reduced to chains of slavery,
next to that enslavement, I should regard being
the slave of a religious master the greatest
calamity that could befall me.... [I] hate the
corrupt, slaveholding, women-stripping, cradle
plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of
this land 34 .
And here it is, in more detail:
. . . I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and
show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me.
We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and
cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow
skin (whip) during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister
of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of
each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way
of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of
prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a
religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of
the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole
millions (of slaves) of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of