Rhetoric Race and Religion
Slaveholder Christianity is the approach to the Scriptures which my ancestors used to justify the enslavement of people of color in the southeast of the United States. The approach they used to justify treating other human beings not as humans but as property and as beasts of burden is still the basic approach to Scripture that was used to justify the racist doctrines, practices, attitudes, and policies which we explored at these racial reconciliation events. I have become convinced that this same approach to Scripture continues to be at the root of much of the prejudice not just toward people of color, but also toward women, toward GLBT people, and toward people of other faiths that we find common in many segments of the Christian church here in the southeast.
This approach to Christianity really reached its zenith in the horrific treatment of black slaves of the United States. Being so far removed in time from the end of US slavery, we can fail to recognize the specter it has placed on our history and how it contributed to the rise of racial segregation, lynchings, and ongoing racial conflict even years after it ended. As theologian James Cone writes, slavery is intimately connected with racism, which “is America’s original sin. It is its most persistent and intractable evil1”. And although we like to picture good Christians as being the ones fighting against the institution of slavery, in truth the church was, like the nation, divided over the topic. In the south, Christian preachers quoted Scriptures to justify slavery just as today largely southern preachers quote Scriptures to justify discriminating against women and GLBT people in the church & society.
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