{"id":26637,"date":"2015-02-02T08:05:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T13:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=26637"},"modified":"2015-02-02T04:05:59","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T09:05:59","slug":"slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavery and the way we read the Bible: The picture is accurate, but it’s upside-down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A portrait can be perfectly rendered \u2014 accurate in every detail, offering penetrating insight into the character of its subject. But such a portrait will still be confusing if we hang it upside-down. The truth of it will become disorienting because it will be disoriented. We don\u2019t need to correct the portrait, we just need to flip it around.<\/p>\n

That, I think, is the problem with most of our theological and\/or historical discussion of American slavery and American \u201cbiblical\u201d Christianity. It paints an accurate portrait, but it hangs it wrong-side up. Last week, I discussed what I thought this means for historian Mark Noll\u2019s invaluable writing on what he calls the \u201ctheological crisis\u201d of the Civil War<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The perverse part of that argument and that narrative is this: It asserts\u00a0that pre-1865 \u201cbiblical\u201d Christians approved of slavery because of the way they read their Bibles. That\u2019s not true. That\u2019s the opposite of what is true. Pre-1865 \u201cbiblical\u201d Christians\u00a0read their Bibles the way they did because they approved of slavery<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here\u2019s another example of the same thing, from a terrific post at the Anxious Bench titled \u201cEvangelical Anti-Abolitionists<\/a>.\u201d John Turner offers a fascinating discussion of Luke Harlow\u2019s book Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky<\/em><\/a>. Turner, like Noll, is really smart and he knows his stuff. And it sounds like Harlow\u2019s book is something I\u2019d love to read. Both Harlow\u2019s history and Turner\u2019s discussion of it are insightful and instructive.<\/p>\n

Yet they still seem to get this one key point backwards and upside-down:<\/p>\n

Harlow seems to agree with Mark Noll that most evangelicals could not break free of a biblical hermeneutic that led them to support slavery, at least in the abstract. Kentucky\u2019s evangelicals believed that \u201ca commonsensical, plain reading of the Bible revealed the Christian God\u2019s sanction for slavery.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n

As Harlow notes, one could ask whether it was exactly a \u201cfaulty hermeneutic\u201d that explains the failure of most white evangelicals to actively oppose slavery. Racism clearly \u201cpervaded proslavery [and anti-abolitionism] Christianity.\u201d One needed more than a \u201cReformed, literal hermeneutic\u201d (Noll\u2019s phrase) to presume that Genesis 9 sanctioned black slavery, for instance. Harlow also seems to think Noll too \u201csanguine about the possibilities of alternative hermeneutics to solve the Bible-and-slavery dilemma.\u201d Of course, in Kentucky most white evangelicals simply saw no dilemma about slavery or white supremacy. One must at least conclude that the way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible did not lead them to oppose glaring social injustices. Instead, they tended to sanctify those injustices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first sentence there, and the last two, paint the picture backwards and upside-down. The problem was not that white evangelicals \u201ccould not break free of a biblical hermeneutic that led them to support slavery,\u201d but that they were committed to support for slavery and therefore devised and adopted a hermeneutic that allowed and encouraged them to continue doing so.<\/p>\n

Their\u00a0hermeneutic did not lead to support for slavery. Support for slavery led to their\u00a0hermeneutic.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The picture is accurate, but it\u2019s upside-down.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter what descriptors they chose to apply after-the-fact to defend that pro-slavery approach to the Bible. Calling it \u201cReformed\u201d and \u201cliteral\u201d doesn\u2019t change the purpose for which it was designed. Nor does calling it \u201ccommonsensical\u201d and \u201cplain.\u201d The fact is that it was an approach to the Bible \u2014 an idea of \u201cbiblical<\/em>\u201d \u2014 that only permitted a single \u201cconclusion\u201d about slavery because that conclusion wasn\u2019t a conclusion at all. It was their premise.<\/p>\n

Turner writes: \u201cThe way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible did not lead them to oppose glaring social injustices.\u201d No. The acceptance of glaring social injustices\u00a0led to \u201cthe way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was true in 1865. And it was true in 1965. And it remains true in 2015.<\/p>\n

White American evangelicals today still read the Bible the same way that those antebellum \u201cbiblical\u201d Christians did. They still insist that this is a \u201ccommonsensical, plain reading\u201d or a \u201cReformed, literal hermeneutic.\u201d But that\u2019s not where it comes from. It comes from our need to accommodate, condone, support and participate in glaring social injustices.<\/p>\n

One weird result of this history is that white American evangelicals, today, unanimously condemn slavery, but most are unable to say why<\/em>. They read the Bible with the same \u201ccommonsensical, plain reading\u201d that was used 200 years ago. That way of reading the Bible can only produce one conclusion about whether or not slavery is biblical. It provides a meaning for the word \u201cbiblical\u201d that ensures no other conclusion is possible.<\/p>\n

And yet, unlike 200 years ago, you won\u2019t find evangelicals today reciting the long litany of pro-slavery prooftexts<\/a> that their \u201cbiblical Christian\u201d forebears cited to prove that slavery was \u201cbiblical\u201d and therefore right and good. Turn to almost any other subject \u2014 women\u2019s equality, same-sex relationships \u2014 and these evangelicals will insist that the only acceptable approach to the matter is to debate the proper exegesis of the relevant biblical prooftexts. But they\u2019ve stopped doing that with slavery ever since Appomattox.<\/p>\n

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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Slavery and the way we read the Bible: The picture is accurate, but it's upside-down","description":"Turner writes: \"The way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible did not lead them to oppose glaring social injustices.\" No. The acceptance of glaring social injustices led to \"the way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Slavery and the way we read the Bible: The picture is accurate, but it's upside-down","og_description":"Turner writes: \"The way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible did not lead them to oppose glaring social injustices.\" No. The acceptance of glaring social injustices led to \"the way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2015-02-02T13:05:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-02T09:05:59+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2015\/01\/auction22-300x245.jpg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/","name":"Slavery and the way we read the Bible: The picture is accurate, but it's upside-down","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-02-02T13:05:09+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-02T09:05:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Turner writes: \"The way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible did not lead them to oppose glaring social injustices.\" No. The acceptance of glaring social injustices led to \"the way that most white American evangelicals read the Bible.\"","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/02\/02\/slavery-and-the-way-we-read-the-bible-the-picture-is-accurate-but-its-upside-down\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Slavery and the way we read the Bible: The picture is accurate, but it’s upside-down"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}