This is good , you'll enjoy on Biblical errancy vs the true extended list of preceding influences upon the human psyche as one takes the long (true) historical view examining all cultural influences
etb-biblical-errancy.blogspot.com
How many of society's best "influences" can be traced back to "Jesus?" For instance, how much do we owe to ancient Near Eastern culture? (apparently a great deal)
The ancient Sumerians/Babylonians, who lived long before Jesus, taught in their Councils of Wisdom, "Do not return evil to your adversary; Requite with kindness the one who does evil to you, Maintain justice for your enemy, Be friendly to your enemy."[ 7] In The Dawn of Conscience James Henry Breasted[ 8] showed how the earliest known recorded ethics and laws belonged to the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians and Babylonians, who preceded the Hebrews. In The Codes of Hammurabi & Moses W. W. Davies showed how the law code of Hammurabi profoundly influenced the later law code of the Hebrews in both style and content.[ 9] For a recent general summary see William Sierichs, Jr.'s article, "The Pagan Origins of Biblical Morality (Or - Where Did Moses Really Get Those Commandments From?)."[ 10] There is also the critically acclaimed work, Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East.[ 11] And in Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions William W. Hallo[ 12] listed the debt modern civilization owes to ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Babylonian ideas of urbanism, the formation of capital, the order of the alphabet, astronomy, mathematics, algebra, the division of the day into 24 hours, the hour into 60 minutes, the circle into 360 degrees, the coronation of kings, games, cookbooks, and much more.
Keeping such information in mind, Latourette can not reasonably assert that "Measured by his influence, Jesus is central in the human story." The "human story" encompasses every civilization on earth over a very long period of time. "Jesus" was not "born" into the "human story" until a mere two thousand years ago. And after his birth it took ten to fifteen hundred years before the first Christian missionaries reached China and the Americas. (During that same period, Islam challenged Christianity and "won" the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Eastern Europe, parts of Russia, parts of India, and parts of Indonesia, to become the most widespread non-Christian religion on earth. Also, Communism's expansion was more explosive than either Christianity's or Islam's, and even after the decline of Communist influence, it has left behind billions of "practical atheists" when it comes to religion.)
I would agree with Latourette if he had merely claimed that "Jesus" was known at least by name by billions. (But of those billions, how many different interpretations of "Jesus" exist?) I would also agree if he had merely claimed that the human story had been influenced to varying degrees by different interpretations of "Jesus." But to brashly claim that "Measured by his influence, Jesus is central to the human story" demonstrates Latourette's blind religious devotion rather than his commitment to historical truth and accuracy. The "human story" is old and brimming over with "influences" stretching back to ancient civilizations both East and West. In Western civilization alone there were ancient Near Eastern influences; Greek/Roman politics, art, architecture, law, science and philosophy; Islamic mathematics, astronomy, philosophy (including the thousands of Greek and Roman manuscripts preserved by Islamic scholars at the library of Seville that played a crucial role in re-igniting Western society's intellectual progress). Other major influences include "guns, germs, and steel;"[ 13] the Renaissance; the Enlightenment; modern day socialist, humanist and feminist influences and ideals; and "common sense" (as Thomas Paine might say).
Speaking of the crucial influence that the Enlightenment exerted upon Christianity, theologian Albert Schweitzer pointed out, "For centuries Christianity treasured the great commandment of love and mercy as traditional truth without recognizing it as a reason for opposing slavery, witch burning and all the other ancient and medieval forms of inhumanity. It was only when Christianity experienced the influence of the thinking of the Age of Enlightenment that it was stirred into entering the struggle for humanity. The remembrance of this ought to preserve it forever from assuming any air of superiority in comparison with thought."[ 14]
Pulitzer prize-winning political scientist, Francis Fukuyama put it this way: "There was a time when religion played an all-powerful role in European politics with Protestants and Catholics organizing themselves into political factions and squandering the wealth of Europe on sectarian wars. [Like the "Thirty Year's War" that began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window, and which turned central Europe into a wasteland of misery, leading to the deaths of more than a quarter of Europe's population. - ED.] English liberalism emerged in direct reaction to the religious fanaticism of the English Civil War. Contrary to those who at the time believed that religion was a necessary and permanent feature of the political landscape, liberalism vanquished religion in Europe. After a centuries-long confrontation with liberalism, religion was taught to be tolerant. In the sixteenth century, it would have seemed strange to most Europeans not to use political power to enforce belief in their particular sectarian faith. Today, the idea that the practice of religion other than one's own should injure one's own faith seems bizarre, even to the most pious churchmen. Religion has been relegated to the sphere of private life - exiled, it would seem, more or less permanently from European political life except on certain narrow issues like abortion... Religion per se did not create free societies; Christianity in a certain sense had to abolish itself through a secularization of its goals before liberalism could emerge...Political liberalism in England ended the religious wars between Protestant and Catholic that had nearly destroyed that country during the seventeenth century: with its advent, religion was defanged by being made tolerant."[ 15]
Even Robert Wuthnow, an evangelical Christian writer, admitted in Books & Culture (a newsletter produced by the editors of Christianity Today), "Framers of modern democratic theory in eighteenth century Europe [and colonial America - ED.] were profoundly influenced by the religious wars that had dominated the previous century and a half. Locke's emphasis on tolerance and Rousseau's idea of a social contract were efforts to find unifying agreements that would discourage religious groups from appealing absolutely to a higher source of authority. The idea of civil society emerged as a way of saying that people who disagree with each other about such vital matters as religion could nevertheless live together in harmony."[ 16]
But let us return to Mr. Latourette's praise of individuals in the "past three or four generations" whose lives "have been transformed and have begun to live the kind of life which He [Jesus] exemplified." A few that stand out in my mind are Mohandas K. Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer, though neither believed in "Jesus" in the way that McDowell advocates one must. Gandhi believed in focusing on whatever was best in each religion rather than trying to convert people from one religion to another. And Schweitzer was a noted theologian who rejected "the crooked and fragile thinking of Christian apologetics."[ 17] He later became a medical "missionary" in Africa because he held a liberal Christian philosophy based on a "reverence for life." And what about Florence Nightengale, the woman who made nursing a legitimate profession? She was one of the first women-libbers who believed a woman's place was not simply in the home. She made love to other women and disdained institutionalized religion. (Speaking of which the founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton, was a freethinker. And the founder of the International Red Cross, Andre Dunant, was gay.)
There are innumerable charitable organizations today; from international peace-seeking (and hunger-fighting) organizations to a multitude of national and local charities. In the U.S. such charities as the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the Muscular Dystrophy Association are supported by donations to The United Way, which helps raise contributions for thousands of other national and local charitable organizations few of which are connected with religion or a particular religious denomination. And there are plenty of other charities seeking to help others like the Will Rogers Institute and Comic Relief. More food is given away each year by secular organizations and governments than by "Christians." Such work has more to do with a simple wish to help others than with "Jesus" per se.
Speaking of "Jesus' influence" on nations today, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and most other nations of northern Europe contain relatively low percentages of "Christians," yet their human rights records, their generosity, their average education levels, their quality of life, lengthy life spans, low crime rates, and low poverty rates, put the rest of the world to shame, including the far more "Christian" United States. Scandinavians also have the lowest rates of unplanned pregnancies in the world. They instituted comprehensive teaching in birth control in their schools, and it worked. The leaders of Scandinavia have a long record of working for world peace. Swedes have been in Bosnia far longer than Americans removing land mines. The leaders of Norway initiated the peace talks between the PLO and Israel.
Japan is another industrialized nation whose people have longer average life spans, higher average education levels, less poverty, lower crime rates, a lower percentage of their population in prison, and lower abortion rates than the United States. Fifty-six percent of the Japanese population "do not believe in God or a Universal Spirit or were uncertain." Compare that with the ninety percent of the U.S. population who "believe in God." (Countries that have as high a percentage of "believers in God" as the U.S. include Northern Ireland and Iran.)
And what about movements and organizations throughout history that have emphasized "Jesus" and yet which wound up promoting suspicion, fear, divisiveness, inequality, intolerance, bigotry, hatred, subjugation, persecution, slavery, torture, terrorism, and war, due to the exclusivistic nature of their teachings?
The Civil War, Slavery, and the Bible
Since Latourette mentioned the "past three or four generations" (prior to 1940 when his book appeared) as providing a significant demonstration of the wonderful life changing influence of "Jesus" on "millions of individuals," I wonder how he addressed nineteenth century America? "The nineteenth century [1800s] was a period of utmost religious importance in America. It was then that children began attending Sunday school...and Bible tracts began being published in the millions. And it was then that church membership first exploded nationwide...from 2,500 church congregations in 1780 to 11,000 in 1820 to 52,000 in 1860 [the year before the Civil War began]."[ 18] Other sources corroborate that between the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the start of the Civil War (1861), the "rate of adherence" to Christianity more than doubled.[ 19]
An indication of how seriously people took their "Christianity" at that time can be seen in the Philadelphia prayer riots of 1844 (17 years prior to the Civil War). Protestants besieged Catholic neighborhoods in Philadelphia with cannon fire, pistols, and by setting houses aflame, because the Catholics had protested the use of the Protestant's King James Bible in public schools. Martial law was declared, and it took two thousand federal troops to quell the rioting; eighteen people were killed and scores more were injured.[ 20]
Of course one "prayer riot" is nothing compared with the six hundred thousand who perished in the American Civil War (1861-65). Though the Civil War has been touted as purely a war for - and against - Southern independence, the irrevocable decision to secede hinged on an attempt to get the U.S. government to agree to a compromise that would have opened half of America's newly acquired Western territories to the expansion of slavery.[ 21] Lincoln's election and his party's decision to reject the expansion of slavery was clearly "the" issue that both underlay and precipitated the conflict between North and South. Moreover, "The longer the war lasted, the more many Northerners seemed willing to embrace radical measures; indeed, the war produced a kind of revolutionary momentum propelling public opinion forward to an extent that few could have imagined before the outbreak of hostilities."[ 22] Two years after the war began, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation turned the Civil War into a war to free slaves, if only in the Confederate states. And a few years after that, a Constitutional Amendment freed slaves throughout the land.
Neither must it be forgotten that the Civil War was America's greatest conflict. The number of American soldiers lost in that War was greater than the grand total of American soldiers lost in all other wars and military campaigns stretching from the War for Independence to the Gulf War. It was also a war that cost untold billions and nourished rather than canceled the hatreds and intolerance which persisted long afterwards - a war that would not have lasted so long and led to such a tremendous loss of lives and property were it not for the fact that Southerners held an unflagging belief in their way of life, a widespread expectation of victory, and a strong popular will which sustained them to the bitter end;[ 23] one major uniting factor being their Christian faith.
For instance, when the Confederate states drew up their constitution, they added something the colonial founders had voted to leave out, namely, an invocation of the Deity. The South's proud new constitution began: "We, the people...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God..."[ 24] Southern clergymen and politicians even argued that the South was more "Christian" than the North, it was the "Redeemer Nation."[ 25] "With secession and the outbreak of the Civil War, Southern clergymen boldly proclaimed that the Confederacy had replaced the United States as God's chosen nation."[ 26]
Even prior to the War, South Carolinian politician, James Henry Hammond, boasted,
Our denominations are few, harmonious, pretty much united among themselves [especially on the issue of slavery - ED.], and pursue their avocations in humble peace...Few of the remarkable Isms of the present day have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such commotions farther North; and modern prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Dunkers, Socialists, and the like, keep themselves afar off. You may attribute this to our domestic Slavery if you choose [the slaves being taught what to believe only by members of the 'few, harmonious' Southern churches - ED.]. I believe you would do so justly. There is no material here [in the South] for such characters [from the North] to operate upon...A people [like we Southerners] whose men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our system of Slavery contributes largely to the development and culture of these high and noble qualities...[ 27]
Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, went further than Hammond in arguing for the superiority of southerners. A year after the war began, Davis publicly called northerners "miscreants," adding, "Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves...There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them. Our enemies are...traditionless."[ 28]
Speaking of the South's "traditions," Jefferson Davis boasted,
It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts...Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God - let him go to the Bible...I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation...Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments - in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.[ 29]
Davis' defenses of slavery are legion, as in his speech to Congress in 1848, "If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree." After 1856, Davis reiterated in most of his public speeches that he was "tired" of apologies for "our institution." "African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing."[ 30] Or, as Davis reiterated after being elected President of the Confederacy, "My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be."[ 31]
It should also be noted that before the South seceded politically from the North, they seceded religiously. The three largest Christian denominations in the South, the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, seceded from their northern brethren to form separate "Southern" denominations, each founded on the Biblical right (of laymen and ministers) to own slaves. Not surprising in lieu of the fact that "In the 1700s, defenders of slavery among men of the cloth were far more numerous than opponents. 'For every John Wesley who was critical there were several George Whitefields who considered slavery a blessing.'"[ 32] By the mid-1800s "not one of the major Christian denominations [in America] other than the Quakers held a strong anti-slavery position."[ 33] Or to put it another way, "The institutional involvement of northern denominations and congregations [in the anti-slavery movement] was virtually nonexistent. It is not an exaggeration to assert that the clergyman or church member who marched with the abolitionists did so in spite of his denominational connection, not because of it. The antislavery movement owed much of its impetus to the efforts of individuals [who were often considered radicals or fanatics]."[ 34] Harriet Beecher Stowe's enormously popular anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was written in reaction to her denomination's acquiescence to the practice of slavery.
Even Evangelical Christian historians have admitted the embarrassing facts of the matter:
The Old School (Presbyterian) General Assembly report of 1845 [16 years before the war] concluded that slavery was based on 'some of the plainest declarations of the Word of God.' Those who took this position were conservative evangelicals. Among their number were the best conservative theologians and exegetes of their day, including, Robert Dabney, James Thornwell and the great Charles Hodge of Princeton - fathers of twentieth century evangelicalism and of the modern expression of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. No one can really appreciate how certain these evangelicals were that the Bible endorsed slavery, or of the vehemence of their argumentation unless something from their writings is read. I can only give a pale reflection of their righteous zeal for 'the biblical case for slavery.'[ 35]
Some of the arguments they employed included "the fact that all the patriarchs had slaves. Abraham, 'the friend of God,' and 'the father of the faithful,' bought slaves from Haran (Gen. 12:50), included them in his property list (Gen. 12:16, 24:35-36), and willed them to his son Isaac (Gen. 26:13-14). What is more, Scripture says God blessed Abraham by multiplying his slaves (Gen. 24:355). In Abraham's household Sarah was set over the slave, Hagar. [After Hagar ran away] the angel told her, 'return to your mistress and submit to her' (Gen. 16:9)."[ 36]
The Bible even depicts the "Lord" getting his own ministers involved with slaveholding. Numbers, chapter 31, says the Hebrews slew all the Midianites with the exception of Midianite female virgins whom the Hebrews "kept for themselves...Now the booty that remained from the spoil, which the [Hebrew] men of war had plundered included...16,000 human beings [i.e., the female virgins] from whom the Lord's tribute was 32 persons. And Moses gave the tribute which was the Lord's offering to Eleazar the priest, just as the Lord had commanded Moses...And from the sons of Israel's half, Moses took one out of every fifty, both of man [i.e., the female virgins] and animals, and gave them to the Levites...just as the Lord had commanded Moses."
"At God's command Joshua took slaves (Josh 9:23), as did David (1 Kings 8:2,6) and Solomon (1 Kings 9:20-21). Likewise, Job whom the Bible calls 'blameless and upright,' was 'a great slaveholder' (Job 1:15-17; 3:19; 4:18; 7:2; 31:13; 42:8)...Slavery is twice mentioned in the ten commandments (the 4th and 10th), but not as a sin ['Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or his male slave, or his female slave.' Exodus 20:17]...God tells the Jews in Leviticus 25:44-46, 'You may acquire male and female slaves from the nations that are around you. Then too, out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you...they also may become your possession. You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever [i.e., the slave's children would be born into slavery along with their children's children, forever].'"[ 37] So, slaves from "foreign" nations were treated as "possessions...forever."
On the other hand, if a Hebrew owned a fellow Hebrew as a slave, he had to offer him his freedom after "seven years." Though there is not a single penalty mentioned in the Bible should the master detain his slave longer than that period or refuse to offer him his freedom. Neither does such an offer appear to apply to female slaves. Furthermore, if a Hebrew slave chose to remain with his master after being offered his freedom, then the "Lord" told his people to "bore holes in the ears" of their fellow Hebrews to mark them as their master's possession "forever." So you had better speak up clearly and without hesitation the first time your master offered you your freedom because there was no Biblical provision for changing your mind at a later date. Complicating such decisions was the fact that masters often gave their slaves wives, so they could produce slave children for the master, all of whom, including the wife, were not allowed to leave with their husband or father, but which remained the master's "possessions." (Exodus 21:4-6)
The Bible also apparently allowed for a creditor to enslave his debtor or his debtor's children for the redemption of the debt (2 Kings 4:1); children could be sold into slavery by their parents (Exodus 21:7; Isaiah 50:1). So sayeth "the word of the Lord."
South Carolina politician, James Henry Hammond, after having received a letter from a British opponent of slavery, responded with two letters to a prominent British abolitionist whose friend had sent Hammond the original letter. Hammond's letters were published in the South Carolinian and in pamphlet form after which Hammond was deluged with congratulatory letters from admiring fellow southerners. Hammond's letters, written 16 years before the War, began by citing Biblical arguments for the legitimacy of slavery, and pointed out that "Although Slavery in its most revolting form was everywhere visible around Christ and his Apostles, no visionary notions of piety or philanthropy ever tempted them to gainsay the LAW...On the contrary, regarding Slavery as an established, as well as inevitable condition of human society, they never hinted at such a thing as its termination on earth, any more than that 'the poor may cease to be in the land,' which God affirms to Moses shall never be: and they exhort 'all slaves' to 'be subject to their masters in everything' [Titus 2:9]; to 'count their masters as worthy of all honor [1 Tim. 6:1];' ["Worthy" of "all honor?" Why? Just because the master had enough money in his pocket to purchase the slave? - ED.] 'to obey your masters, not only to win their favor when their eye is upon you but like slaves of Christ doing the will of God from your heart' [Ephes. 6:5-6]; 'not only good and gentle masters, but also harsh masters...for what glory is it if when you are harshly treated for your faults you take it patiently? But if when you act faultlessly and suffer for it and take it patiently, this is acceptable of God' [1 Peter 2:18-20]. St. Paul actually apprehended a runaway slave, and sent him back to his master!...It would be difficult to imagine sentiments and conduct more strikingly in contrast, than those of the Apostles and the abolitionists...Are abolitionists doing the work of God? No! God is not there. It is the work of Satan."[ 38]
The Reverend Richard Furman, president of the Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, wrote a letter to the governor in 1822 expressing the proslavery sentiments of South Carolina Baptists:
Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be supposed that the inspired Apostles, who feared not the faces of men, and were ready to lay down their lives in the cause of their God, would have tolerated it for a moment in the Christian Church. Or if they had done so on a principle of accommodation, in cases where the masters remained heathen, to avoid offenses and civil commotion; yet surely, where both master and servant were Christian, they would have required that the master should liberate his slave. But instead of this, they let the relationship remain untouched as being lawful and right, and insist on relative duties.[ 39]
In 1840 (21 years before the war) John England, the first Catholic bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, composed 18 letters to the Secretary of State, outlining the Bible's and the Catholic church's centuries old support of "domestic slavery." Bishop England asserted confidently, "In many of his parables, the Savior describes the master and his slaves in a variety of ways, without any condemnation or censure of slavery. In Luke 17:7-10, he describes the usual mode of acting towards slaves as the very basis upon which he teaches one of the most useful lessons of Christian virtue: 'But which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him, when he has come in from the field, "Come immediately and sit down to eat"? But will he not say to him, "Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me until I have eaten and drunk; and afterward you will eat and drink?" He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? So when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, "We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done."'...St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, chapter 4, exhibits the great truth which he desires to inculcate by an illustration taken from the institutions of slavery, and without a single expression of censure. Nor did the Apostles consider the Christian master obliged to liberate his Christian servant."[ 40]
The Reverend Thornton Stringfellow, Baptist minister of Culpeper County, Virginia, composed a widely read defense of slavery in which he stressed, "The words of our Lord Jesus Christ...add to the obligation of the slave to render service with good-will to his master; gospel fellowship is not to be entertained with persons who will not consent to it!"[ 41] "A. B. Bledsoe, is only one of many who concluded that the 'sin of appalling magnitude' was not slave holding but the claim by abolitionists that slave holding was a sin. To suggest such a thing was 'an aggravated crime against God.'"[ 42] Or as the Rev. J. C. Postell preached, "So far from being a moral evil, slavery is a merciful visitation...It is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes...It is by divine appointment."
Needless to say, the "Biblical case for slavery" did not impress the slave. Take the one mentioned in an ad in the Georgia Messenger (July 27th, 1837) that read:
RAN AWAY: My man Fountain * has holes bored in his ears * a scar on the right side of his forehead * has been shot in hind parts of his legs * is marked on the back with the whip.
The Biblical sanctioning of slavery must have helped remove a lot of the guilt that large slaveholders felt, buying, breeding, disciplining and selling so many men, women and children as if they were private property. But how did enslaved men and women feel? The most famous escaped slave of his day, Frederick Douglass, gave us a glimpse of how he felt. He wrote, "We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals of the slave trade go hand in hand...Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to the 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. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others."[ 43]
Douglass also told about a slaveholding family he knew who knelt and prayed together daily, yet expressed no concern that their slaves nearly froze to death every winter due to an inadequate supply of clothing and blankets. He added, "It was my unhappy lot...to belong to a religious slaveholder...He always managed to have one or more of his slaves to whip every Monday morning...In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting...and there experienced religion. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was made a class leader and exhorter...I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin whip upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote the passage of Scripture, 'He who knoweth the master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.'(Luke 12:47)"[ 44]
That passage of Scripture circulated quite a bit, especially since it was a teaching of Jesus spoken in a parable to illustrate God's just punishments toward His "slaves." Williams Wells Brown recalled that when he was owned by Dr. John Young he was taught that, when whipped, a slave must not find fault - for the Bible says, "He that knoweth his master's will and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes!"[ 45]
The Old Testament agrees with the right of a master to beat his slave within an inch of their life, or within "a day or two" of their life: "If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives a day or two [before dying], no vengeance shall be taken; for the slave is his master's money." [Exodus 21:20-21] (In line with such Biblical pearls of wisdom an early Christian Council, The Council of Elvira (c. 305), prescribed that any Christian mistress who beat her slave to death without premeditation was merely to be punished with five years of penance.) 1 Peter 2:18-20 even teaches that the Christian who is a slave should "patiently endure" even harsh unjust punishments in order to "find favor with God."
Douglass and Brown were not the only witnesses to testify that Christians were the cruelest slaveholders. "Henry Bibb...lists six 'professors of religion' who sold him to other 'professors of religion.' [One of Bibb's owners was a deacon in the Baptist church, who employed whips, chains, stocks, and thumbscrews to 'discipline' his slaves. - ED.] Harriet Jacobs, in her narrative, informs us that her tormenting owner was the worse for being converted. Mrs. Joseph Smith, testifying before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission in 1863 tells why Christian slaveholders were the worst owners: 'Well, it is something like this - the Christians will oppress you more.'"[ 46]
In general, slaveholders who approved of the Christianization of their slaves disciplined them with at least as much force and fervor as those who did not. Enforcing obedience and submission was just as much an order of the day for Christian slaveholders as for non-Christian ones. In fact, to the devout Christian slaveholder, disobedience to one's master constituted "faults done against God himself."[ 47] (Because the "Word of God" said that slave masters were "worthy of all honor," [1 Tim. 6:1]; and obedient slaves should seek to fulfill "the will of God" by serving their masters [Ephes. 6:5-6]; and slaves who endured "suffering" were "acceptable of God" [1 Peter 2:18-20]; it followed that slaves who did not honor their masters but disobeyed, and forsook suffering, displeased not only man, but God also.)
Speaking of the relationship of religion to slavery, there exists a letter written by a slave to a prominent white minister of North Carolina who had recently preached at that slave's plantation. An excerpt from that letter (with spelling and punctuation corrected) states: "I want you to tell me the reason you always preach to the white folks and keep your back to us. If God sent you to preach to sinners did He direct you to keep your face to the white folks constantly? Or is it because they give you money? If this is the cause we are the very persons who labor for this money but it is handed to you by our masters. Did God tell you to make your meeting houses just large enough to hold the white folks and let the Black people stand in the sun and rain as the brooks in the field? We are charged with inattention. It is impossible for us to pay good attention with this chance. In fact, some of us scarcely think we are preached to at all. Money appears to be the object. We are carried to market and sold to the highest bidder never once inquiring whether sold to a heathen or Christian. If the question was put, 'Did you sell to a Christian?" what would be the answer, 'I can't tell what he was, he gave me my price, that's all I was interested in?' Is that the way to heaven? If it is, there will be a good many who go there. If not, their chance of getting there will be bad for there can be many witnesses against them."[ 48]
The Southern Baptists, a denomination founded on the Biblical right to own slaves (and presently the nation's largest Protestant Christian denomination) "apologized" in June 1995 for their pro-slavery, pro-racist, pro-segregationist past. Measured from the date Southern Baptists began waving their Christian banner for slavery (1845) to the date they apologized (1995), it took them longer to apologize than it took the white South African government to apologize for their segregation policy known as "apartheid;" it took them longer to apologize than it took the Japanese Emperor to apologize to the Asian nations who suffered at the hands of Japan during World War II; it took them longer to apologize than it took the U.S. government to apologize to the 120,000 Japanese-Americans sent to prison camps during World War II; it took them longer to apologize than it took the U.S. government to apologize to the native Hawaiians whose government was forcibly overthrown in 1893; it took them longer to apologize than it took an Israeli president to shake hands with the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Besides which, the Berlin Wall rose and fell and so did communism in Russia, before Southern Baptists finally apologized - an apology uttered one hundred and fifty years, six hundred thousand corpses, and countless lynchings, whippings and beatings, too late.
There is a verse in the Bible that promises, "The Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth." If only the "Holy Spirit" had "led" all pious and devout ministers and priests in the North and South into the same "truth" regarding slavery. Then Christians could have played a role in fostering mutual understanding. Instead, Christians read the same "perfect instruction book," arrived at different "instructions" regarding slavery, and helped fan the flames of hell on earth. They poured Biblically righteous indignation upon congregations and politicians, and increased the likelihood and quantity of resentment, bigotry, hatred, suffering, and calamity that followed. Moreover, the "few, harmonious Christian denominations" of the South helped unite and inspire Southerners to continue fighting for far longer than they should have.
The historian Paul Johnson[ 49] put it this way, "In the South, there were standard and much quoted texts on Negro inferiority, patriarchal and Mosaic acceptance of servitude, and of course St Paul on obedience to masters. In the events which led up to the War, both North and South hurled texts at each other. Revivalism and the evangelical movement generally played into the hands of extremists on both sides. When the war actually came, the Presbyterians, from North and South, tried to hold together by suppressing all discussion of the issue; but they split in the end...Only the Lutherans, the Episcoplaians, and the Catholics successfully avoided public debates and voting splits; but the evidence shows that they too were fundamentally divided on a basic issue of Christian principle.[ 50]
"Moreover, having split, the Christian churches promptly went to battle on both sides. Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana, entered the Confederate army as a major-general and announced: 'It is for constitutional liberty, which seems to have fled to us for refuge, for our hearthstones and our altars that we fight.' [One cannot help noticing that the loudest yelps for liberty came from Southerners defending the right to enslave others! - ED.] Thomas March, Bishop of Rhode Island, preached to the militia on the other side: 'It is a holy and righteous cause in which you enlist...God is with us...the Lord of Hosts is on our side [along with a heaping helping of northern factory-produced weapons and ammo - ED.].'
"The clerical interpretation of the war's progress was equally dogmatic and contradictory. The Southern Presbyterian theologian Robert Lewis Dabney blamed what he called the 'calculated malice' of the Northern Presbyterians and called on God for 'a retributive providence' which would demolish the North. Henry Ward Beecher, one of the most ferocious of the Northern clerical drum-beaters, predicted that the Southern leaders would be 'whirled aloft and plunged downward for ever and ever in an endless retribution.' The New Haven theologian Theodore Thornton Munger declared...that the Confederacy had been 'in league with Hell,' and the South was now 'suffering for its sins' as a matter of 'divine logic.'
"To judge by the hundreds of sermons and specially composed church prayers which have survived on both sides, ministers were among the most fanatical of the combatants from beginning to end. The churches played a major role in dividing the nation, and it may be that the splits in the churches made a final split in the nation possible. In the North, such a charge was often willingly accepted. Granville Moddy, a Northern Methodist, boasted in 1861, 'We are charged with having brought about the present contest. I believe it is true we did bring it about, and I glory in it, for it is a wreath of glory round our brow.' Southern clergymen did not make the same boast but of all the various elements in the South they did the most to make a secessionist state of mind possible. Southern clergymen were particularly responsible for prolonging the increasingly futile struggle. Both sides claimed vast numbers of 'conversions' among their troops and a tremendous increase in churchgoing and 'prayerfulness' as a result of the fighting."[ 51] [Other "results of the fighting" that clergymen were not nearly as boastful about included tremendous outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea among Northern and Southern troops, as well as diarrhea, the latter of which killed more soldiers than were killed in battle.[ 52] Not to mention the South's financial destitution. - ED.]
The Southern Presbyterian Church resolved in 1864 (a year after Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation and while the War was still raging): "We hesitate not to affirm that it is the peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve the institution of slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master and slave." The Church also insisted that it was "unscriptural and fanatical" to accept the dogma that slavery was inherently sinful: it was "one of the most pernicious heresies of modern times" - to which one slave's response was, "If slavery ain't a sin, then nothing is."
Mitchell Snay in Gospel of Disunion, pointed out the pivotal role that Southern denominations played in promoting secession: "Southern clergymen spoke openly and enthusiastically on behalf of disunion...Denominational groups across the South officially endorsed secession and conferred blessings on the new Southern nation." Influencial denominational papers from the Mississippi Baptist to the Southern Episcopalian, the Southern Presbyterian and the South Western Baptist, agreed that secession "must be effected at any cost, regardless of consequences," and "secession was the only consistent position that Southern freemen or Christians could occupy." (One amusing anecdote tells how a prominent member of a Southern Presbyterian church told his pastor that he would quit the church if the pastor did not pray for the Union. Unmoved by this threat, the pastor replied that "our church does not believe in praying for the dead!") Meanwhile, Northern clergymen blamed their Southern counterparts for "inflaming passions," "adding a feeling of religious fanaticism" to the secessionist controversy, and also blamed them for being "the strongest obstacle in the way of preserving the Union." "In this way, the Northern clergy contributed to the belief in an irrepressible conflict, and aroused the same kind of political passions they were condemning in their Southern brethren."[ 53]
One Southern sermon that had "a powerful influence in converting Southern sentiments to secession," and which was republished in several Southern newspapers and distributed in tens of thousands of individual copies, was Reverend Benjamin B. Palmer's sermon, "Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate It," delivered soon after Lincoln's election in 1860. According to Palmer that election had brought "one issue before us" which had created a crisis that called forth the guidance of the clergy. That issue was "slavery." Palmer insisted that "the South defended the cause of all religion and truth...We defend the cause of God and religion," while abolitionism was "undeniably atheistic." Palmer was incensed at the platform of Lincoln's political party which promised to constrain the practice of slavery within certain geographical limits instead of allowing it to expand into America's Western territories. Therefore, the South had to secede in order to protect its providential trust of slavery.
When Union armies reached Reverend Palmer's home state, a Union general placed a price on his head, because as some said, the Reverend had done more than "any other non-combatant in the South to promote rebellion."[ 54] Thomas R. R. Cobb, an official of the Confederate government, summed up religion's contribution to the fervor and ferment of those times with these words, "This revolution [the secessionist cause] has been accomplished mainly by the Churches."[ 55]
Confederate president Jefferson Davis "Never publicly wavered in his conviction that the cause of the South was a just one. As the outcome of the war became obvious to almost everyone, he never truly conceded defeat. In the latter stages of the war, probably a majority of southerners saw him as aloof, stubborn, and even tyrannical. Only in the aftermath of war did Davis become a hero in the South, becoming a part of the Lost Cause mythology."[ 56]
After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation "few slaves staged outright revolts, but thousands ran away. In the single month of January 1864 [the year before the war ended], Jefferson Davis himself lost three slaves, one of whom tried burning down the executive mansion on his way out."[ 57] The escaped slave, Frederick Douglass, wrote candidly, "I prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."[ 58]
It must prove humbling if not humiliating for Christians to note that the Greek philosopher, Zeno, declared centuries before Christ was born, "No matter whether you claim a slave by purchase or capture, the title is bad. Those who claim to own their fellow men look down into the pit and forget the justice that should rule the world." What clarity of speech and prophetic vision. If Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jesus or Paul had uttered such a passage, Jews and Christians would be prouder than hell of it. Rabbis, ministers and priests would have built sermons around it for centuries, splayed it across huge banners, carried it on placards held high, and emblazoned it in needlepoint on pillows sold in religious bookstores. If only the Bible spoke as clearly as Zeno on the subject of slavery.
Of course, the Bible did speak as clearly, but unlike Zeno, it favored the institution of slavery. The Christian church became the biggest slave owner in the Roman Empire. Popes kept slaves until the eighteenth century. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107-117) refused the request of Christian slaves to have their freedom purchased out of the common fund. Augustine (c. 354-430) taught that slavery was God's will and that Christianity did not make slaves free but made good slaves out of bad ones (The City of God 19.5). "Early in the 11th century Benedict VIII condemned the children of priests to be slaves and Clement did likewise to the whole population of Venice in 1309. Pope Paul III decreed slavery for all Englishmen who supported Henry VIII of England. Papal licenses were granted to the Kings of Portugal in the fifteenth century to conquer 'heathen' countries and reduce their inhabitants to 'everlasting slavery.' Altogether, more than eighteen hundred years of Christianity supported the notion of slavery."[ 59] Furthermore, as historian Forrest G. Wood pointed out, "English North Americans embraced slavery because they were Christians, not in spite of it."[ 60]
It was only after the influence of Enlightenment thinking (in the eighteenth century) that some Christians in Britain and America began to focus on certain "dynamic principles" in the Bible that they claimed were anti-slavery, i.e., instead of continuing to emphasize the far plainer teachings of a master's rights of ownership and honor, and the submission, obedience and disciplining of slaves. So, it took millions of Christians over eighteen hundred years before they could agree on the proper application of certain "dynamic principles" to slavery. And they only arrived at this agreement after leaders of the Enlightenment (who were far from pious) had done so, and long after pagan philosophers like Zeno and Epictetus[ 61] had done so. Which demonstrates that Christianity has little reason to boast of its superiority over human reason.
Moreover, some "narrow bibliolators" who believe they are "led into all truth by the Holy Spirit" continue to declare that slavery is not, and has never been, a sin, and therefore, there was no God-given reason to outlaw it (which every country in the world did by the middle of the 1900s). John Murray of Westminster Theological Seminary continued to argue till 1957 that the Bible allows for the institution of slavery.[ 62] Adrian Rogers, a key leader in the 1980s of the fundamentalist movement in the Southern Baptist Convention, when asked by a non-fundamentalist pastor how he interpreted a particular biblical passage that condoned slavery, responded, "I feel slavery is a much maligned institution. If we had slavery today we would not have such a welfare problem."[ 63] (But think of the problems and injustices that slavery would create! I guess Mr. Rogers did not think that far.) Peter Ruckman, founder of the Pensacola Bible Institute, continues to state that "God never abolished slavery a day since it started (1 Tim. 6:1-3, 1 Cor. 7:21)."[ 64]
Even Dr. Henry Morris (the founder of the Institute for Creation Research) declared as late as 1991 that "Negroes...were [not meant] to be forcibly subjugated," but they were, "because of their innate nature."[ 65] While allowing for exceptions in the case of many outstanding "Negro" individuals, Morris teaches that "Negroes" are "possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane [commonplace] matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen...and religious zeal of [other races]. Dr. Morris bases this belief on what he perceives to be a prophecy in "Genesis, chapter 9" that has been fulfilled, i.e., the curse that Noah laid upon one of his sons' sons to be "a slave of slaves...forever." |
