At the beginning of Term 2, my church history professor asked us what our fears for the course were. I said that I was scared to learn something that would challenge my assumptions, and shake my faith.
Every term God has used church history to teach me something that keeps me up at night. In Term 2, I learned that Luther was not a Marxist. This challenged me to re-think Protestantism as a biblically sanctioned way to create a new social order. I've concluded that being a Protestant does not make me a theological badass; God desires unity more than he does "right" denominations.
In Term 3, the issue that's keeping me up at night is slavery, particularly Christian slavery. As a white, Northern, middle class woman, I could not wrap my brain around Christian slavery. Until I read "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View" by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese. This article taught me how slavery fits into a Southern Christian worldview, as well as the holes in the Northern abolitionist intellectial tradition I've inherited.
What follows are the tenants of a Southern Christian worldview as told by Fox-Genovese and Genovese. Hopefully you will see that Christian slavery is more complicated than Northerners were right, and Southerners were idiots.
1. Slavery was part of a social order that allowed morally frail human beings to live together safely in a manor pleasing to God. (Genovese 218). Southern Christian slaveowners really believed that being a slaveowner was a way for them to live out their faith, because they really believed that their slaves were morally frail. They did not see slavery as a way of denying their slaves personhood, but as an act of Christian charity- a way for the strong to lead the meek for the good of society.
2. The Southern social order took on three forms: the family, the household, and the polity (community). All of these social orders were governed by relationships of superordination and subordination (Genovese 219-220). In other words, the white male served as the head of household (superordination) over his family, his estate, and in the community. This created a social hierarchy with white men at the top, followed by their subordinates: wives, children, white hired help, and slaves. As the head of the social hierarchy, white men had a responsibility to discipline, impose order and provide for the physical needs of everyone under him (Genovese 221). Genovese argues that white male heads of household did this effectively only when they did so in accordance with the entire body of laws and commandments in the Old and New Testaments (Genovese 221). And many slaveowners believed that they treated their slaves better than capitalists did free workers (Genovese 224).
3. All human institutions lay open to abuses and injustices (Genovese 222). Southern Christian Slaveowners believed that slavery is not inherently sinful, but human beings are; just because those who run the system are sinful, this does not make the entire system sinful.
4. The Bible sanctions slavery. (Genovese 223). Southerners were a people who read their Bibles, even if many of them read little else (Genovese 225), and the Bible clearly sanctions slavery. The question becomes what type of slavery does the Bible sanction? Abolitionists pointed out that the Bible says little about slavery in relation to race, so isn't the enslavement of Africans more a question of social stratificaiton and class power? (Genovese 224).
5. The South did not undergo the "feminization" of religion that the North did. (Genovese 226). This is a facinating arguement. I think Genovese means that women often spearhead social movements, a. la the abolitionist movement, prohibition, civil rights, and women's lib. But with Southern men participating in Christianity in equal measure to Southern women (Genovese 225), Christianity empasized less sentimentality (i.e treat others the way you want to be treated), and more a way to keep social order intact (Genovese 227).
While I don't agree with most of the Southerners justifications for slavery, I am fascinated by the way life and religion interact in producing worldviews. Part of the reason I cannot write slavery off as a problem for previous generations is because the ministry I inherit will always struggle with questions of how does our faith in Jesus Christ compell us to respond to the pressing social issues of the day? Slavery in America has taught me to appreciate the historical tension that shape the world I live in.
