Slavery and Racism in the Bible

These attitudes continued throughout European history, even as the institution of slavery evolved and slaves became serfs—little better than slaves and living in a deplorable situation that the church declared as being divinely ordered.

Not even after serfdom disappeared and full-fledged slavery once again reared its ugly head was it condemned by Christian leaders. Edmund Gibson, Anglican bishop in London, made it clear during the 18th century that Christianity freed people from the slavery of sin, not from earthly and physical slavery:

The Freedom which Christianity gives, is a Freedom from the Bondage of Sin and Satan, and from the Dominion of Men’s Lusts and Passions and inordinate Desires; but as to their outward Condition, whatever that was before, whether bond or free, their being baptized, and becoming Christians, makes no manner of Change in it.

American Slavery
The first ship bearing slaves for America landed in 1619, beginning over two centuries of human bondage on the American continent, the bondage that would eventually be called the “peculiar institution.” This institution received theological support from various religious leaders, both in the pulpit and in the classroom.

For example, through the late 1700s, the Rev. William Graham was rector and principal instructor at the Liberty Hall Academy, now Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Every year, he lectured the senior graduating class on the value of slavery and used the Bible in his defense of it. For Graham and many like him, Christianity was not a tool for changing politics or social policy, but instead to bring the message of salvation to everyone, regardless of their race or status of freedom. In this, they were certainly supported by biblical text.

As Kenneth Stamp wrote in The Peculiar Institution, Christianity became a way to add value to slaves in America:

…when southern clergy became ardent defenders of slavery, the master class could look upon organized religion as an ally …the gospel, instead of becoming a mean of creating trouble and strive, was really the best instrument to preserve peace and good conduct among the negroes.

Through teaching slaves the message of the Bible, they could be encouraged to bear the earthly burden in exchange for heavenly rewards later on—and they could be frightened into believing that disobedience to earthly masters would be perceived by God as disobedience to Him.

Ironically, enforced illiteracy prevented slaves from reading the Bible themselves. A similar situation existed in Europe during the Middle Ages, as illiterate peasants and serfs were prevented from reading the Bible in their language—a situation that was instrumental in the Protestant Reformation. Protestants did much the same thing to African slaves, using the authority of their Bible and the dogma of their religion to repress a group of people without allowing them to read the basis of that authority on their own.

Division and Conflict
As Northerners decried slavery and called for its abolition, Southern political and religious leaders found an easy ally for their pro-slavery cause in the Bible and Christian history. In 1856, the Rev. Thomas Stringfellow, a Baptist minister from Culpepper County, Virginia, put the pro-slavery Christian message succinctly in his “A Scriptural View of Slavery:”

…Jesus Christ recognized this institution as one that was lawful among men, and regulated its relative duties… I affirm then, first (and no man denies) that Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command; and second, I affirm, he has introduced no new moral principle which can work its destruction…

Christians in the North disagreed. Some abolitionist arguments were based on the premise that the nature of Hebrew slavery differed in significant ways from the nature of slavery in the American South. Although this premise was meant to suggest that the American form of slavery did not enjoy biblical support, it nevertheless tacitly conceded that the institution of slavery did, in principle, have divine sanction and approval so long as it was conducted in an appropriate manner. In the end, the North won on the question of slavery.

The Southern Baptist Convention was formed to preserve the Christian basis for slavery before the start of the Civil War, yet its leaders did not apologize until June 1995.

Repression and the Bible
The later repression and discrimination against the freed black slaves received as much biblical and Christian support as the earlier institution of slavery itself. This discrimination and the enslavement of blacks only was made on the basis of what has become known as the “sin of Ham” or “the curse of Canaan.” Some said blacks were inferior because they bore the “mark of Cain.”

In Genesis, chapter nine, Noah’s son Ham comes upon him sleeping off a drinking binge and sees his father naked. Instead of covering him, he runs and tells his brothers. Shem and Japheth, the good brothers, return and cover their father. In retaliation for Ham’s sinful act of seeing his father nude, Noah puts a curse on his grandson (Ham’s son) Canaan:

Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers (Genesis 9:25)