The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia

So here's a book whose very title might alienate . . . most people. If you are not a Christian, why take the time . . . If you are . . . you don't want to hear about it. I am still bothered by the term "Proslavery Christianity." As a Christian and a Baptist and an American Southerner by background, it was difficult to not take some of the information presented in this book personally. I didn't want it to be true. How can real Christians be "Proslavery?" Our American upbringing allows us to view Slavery as something separate and distinct from Religion. And our oversimplified understanding of history allows us to blame the sins of the past on long dead bad people not at all like us.But what if the "bad" people were like us? What if they even thought they were right? What if they were . . . Christians.Well, I don't want to spoil the story, but . . . it happened. People, Christians included, can mix right and wrong together for so long that we end up simultaneously doing both and call them both a just cause. And we still do this. We go along with others definition of evil and good in the world. And we still allow economic, political and cultural power holders to narrow our faith to non status quo threatening endeavors.Ok back to the book. Although I believe overall the case made against White Virginian (and Southern) Evangelicals here to be ultimately true, I also believe it to be incomplete. But the point is well made. In the authors words, there was indeed a "staggering moral failure" over multiple generations of southern white Christians to view slaves and freed blacks as worthy and capable of anything beyond salvation. The author faults white evangelicals for having manipulative and "paternal" motives for spreading Christianity to the slaves and free blacks. I don't doubt that. But what to me is understandably missing here is the God side of things . . . that God was seemingly willing to use an imperfect instrument (whites) to get the Gospel message to African American Blacks about His (God's - not whites) love for them. Since this is an academic book, that greater reality cannot really be expressed.This book fills huge gaps in American history, Christian history and African American history that seem to me to be seldom talked about in such a thorough, rational and fair-minded way. I guess this is partly because both religion and race are still potentially painful and sensitive subjects to talk about today.A major premise of this book is that white Christians provided the best social defense for slavery by their evangelical success in converting Virginia Slaves and Free Blacks, since they did it without challenging the institution of slavery. I'd like to think that not every Southern Christian was Pro-slavery, but too many obviously were. I also have a worry that interpreting this book without the context of economic, political and historical realities will make it easier to cross the line between telling the truth and scapegoating. Personally I wonder if I were in the Virginian's White Evangelical Christian shoes back in the 1800's if I would have been a good enough Christian to tell the difference between society's truths and lies. I hope so, but I don't know so."I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst." - Frederick Douglass

I am neither a historian nor a scholar. My purpose for reading this book was to understand what preachers were teaching about slavery in the antebellum period. Mr. Irons research is centered in Virginia and I found him to be a wonderful writer with detailed footnotes. He carefully and skillfully explains the role of the church within the context of the community and within the bigger denominational picture.Mr. Irons skillfully gives the reader an understanding of the church and slavery pre and post the Nate Turner rebellion. He also gives the reader a window into the Liberian experiment and the theological thinking behind it. The Origins of Proslavery Christianity offers so many insights it is difficult to mention them in a short review. After completing this book, my curiosity was peeked to what the proslavery Christianity narrative in the most southern states might have sounded like in the local churches. Mr. Irons also demonstrated that the local church narrative was too complex to define it in a simple statement about the church and slavery.

Very good research and presentation.

This monograph offers a carefully documented reflection on the complicated relationship of African-American and white evangelicals.

Good book.