Download The Paradox of the Two Christian Faiths

The Paradox of the Two Christian Faiths
DAVID H. HEALEY
Communicated by: Dr. Monica Tetzlaff
Department of History
ABSTRACT
Interpretation of Christian moral doctrine was sharply divided in the antebellum South.
White southern
slaveholders were not of the opinion that a discrepancy existed between kidnaping and enslavement of Africans
and their own Christian beliefs.
Christianized slaves and free blacks realized that the religious principles
practiced and believed by them were separate from those held by the white Christian community. The purpose
of this paper is to provide some clues as to how these two Christian doctrines evolved and co-existed in the pre
Civil War South.
I looked, and the angel Gabriel lifted his hand,
and my sins, that had stood as a mountain,
began to roll away. I saw them as they rolled
over into a great pit. They fell to the bottom,
and there was a great noise. I saw old Satan
with a host of his angels hop from the pit, and
there they began to stick out their tongues at
me and make motions as if to lay hands on me
and drag me back into the pit. I cried out,
'Save me! Save me, Lord!' And like a flash,
there gathered around me a host of angels ....
(Johnson 17)
These are words spoken by a slave in the antebellum south.
He is describing an emotional event, his conversion to Christianity, not the Christianity of his white masters, but rather
the Christian beliefs of slave and free black (Ibid.)
Prior to the Civil War, two distinct forms of Christianity coexisted in the South: the white Christian philosophy of the
slave master; and the Christian doctrine adopted by slaves
as a response to their forced bondage. The perception that
Christian values and the institution of slavery were not in
conflict with one another was deeply entrenched in the South
by 1800. The phenomenon of this moral balancing act took
more than a century to evolve. It predates our own American Revolution. The origins of this phenomenon and the
African slave's response to their white masters' attempts to
convert them to Christianity are the subjects of this paper.
The failure of whites to indoctrinate bonded men and women
with a distorted ideology of Christian faith can be traced to
their own myopic concept of religion. Southern whites assumed that since slaves were not Christianized, they were
without religion and therefore heathens. The logic followed
that since heathens were without God they were empty vessels. Figuratively speaking, you should be able to pour into
that empty vessel your own interpretations of Christian values unabated. The anticipated result was a soul saved and
the creation of a docile, obedient servant. It should have
been apparent that the African slave was not an "empty
vessel"; the slave had a past, a history, and a cultural identity. However, the slaveholder of the South adhered to the
myth that "Negroes are naturally of childlike character, and
adjust easily to the most unsatisfactory social situations,
which they accept readily and even happily... " (Raboteau
49).
The result of these early attempts at slave conversion was
the start of "parallel thinking." The white slave master had
his own Christian values and beliefs, separate from the issues of forced bondage. The ability to view slavery outside
of the context of Christianity shielded the South from the
implications of the religious revivals known as the Great
Awakenings of the 1820's and 1840's. In the North the
conversion experience clearly implied that a contradiction
existed between Christian principles and the institution of
slavery. In the South no such moral chastisement of slavery
occurred. Parallel thinking is the mechanism that allowed
a southern slaveholder to "praise God on Sunday morning,
and then beat a slave on Monday."
The foundations for this southern paradox of Christian philosophy can be traced directly to the Church of England's
attempt to convert Native and African Americans to Christianity in Colonial America. In 1701 the Church of England
organized the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts (SPG). The purpose of this organization was
to minister to the colonists of America and also to instruct
the Indians and Negroes in the teachings of the Anglican
Church.
The exposure of the African Americans to Christianity prior
to 1700 was not an organized undertaking. Individual clergymen reprimanded slaveholders and planters for not taking an active role in the salvation of their slaves, but for the
most part slaves were kept ignorant of the Christian religion.
Slaveholders were extremely skeptical of slave conversion;
they feared that baptism could be construed as manumission or freedom for slaves.
Anglican missionaries had difficulty gaining access to slaves
in Colonial America. Colonists viewed Christianity as a
threat to slaveholding and also to effective slave management.
It was Christianity's potential social effects, not
its theology that concerned prospective slave-
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D. Healey
holders... Christianized slaves not only became
'proud' but 'irascible, uppity and saucy,' words
whose recitation assumed an almost ritual lilt
among slaveholding planters and farmers even
before 1720. (Butler 133)
The fear that slaves might use biblical teachings as a venue
for planning insurrection and rebellion proved to be a valid
fear for white southerners. In 1831, Nat Turner initiated
a violent and bloody slave revolt in the state of Virginia.
Nat Turner believed that he was a prophet of the Lord and
interpreted a solar eclipse in February of 1831 as a divine
sign of approval for the planned insurrection.
The Anglican domination of Christian institutional life in
late seventeenth-century southern Colonial America ensured
Anglican ascendance on the moral interpretation of slavery. Anglican missionaries desired to instruct and convert
slaves to Christianity and at the same time placate the fears
of slaveholders. This set the stage for an unholy alliance
between Christian doctrine and the institution of Colonial
slavery. "These clergymen had been forced by the circumstances of racial slavery in America into propigating the
Gospel by presenting it as an attractive device for slave control" (Raboteau 103).
This sordid alliance between Christian values and the desire
of slave masters to expand slavery in the American Colonies
became formalized in 1705. In that year Anglican Bishop
William Fleetwood published a book entitled, The Relative
Duties of Parents and Children, Husbands and Wives, Masters and Servants. Concepts articulated in this book became
crucial in developing the planter philosophy of authority,
obedience, and punishment of slaves.
Bishop Fleetwood believed that there was a difference between those who served by agreement and those who served
in bondage. He argued that even the apostle Paul was aware
of this difference. "To the slaves and captives [Paul] would
say, Obey your Masters in all things, as becomes your sad
Condition, and make your Chains as easie as you can, by
your Compliance and Submission" (Butler 136).
In 1711 Bishop Fleetwood again aligned himself with the
proponents of slavery. In a sermon given that year he addressed the issue of whether or not conversion to Christianity freed slaves. He said, "The liberty of Christianity is
entirely spiritual. Baptism left men under all the obligations and engagements that it found them, with respect to
Liberty or Bondage" (Ibid. 138).
Archbishop Thomas Secker in 1741 delivered a sermon to
the SPG in which he suggested that Colonial planters would
benefit from slave conversion. Secker believed that conversion to Christianity would make the slave's temper milder,
their lives happier, and would instill in them dutiful obedience and loyalty (Ibid. 139).
Anglican clergymen working in America distributed instructional lesson plans for both ministers and slave owners conerning the conversion of slaves. These lesson plans validated the position presumed by members of the Anglican
hierarchy such as Fleetwood, Secker and others. Anglican
priests ministering in Colonial America were at liberty to attach supplementary arguments supporting the acceptance of
slavery.
Francis Le Jau, priest of St. James Goose Creek Church
in South Carolina, altered the baptismal ceremony. Slaves
were forced to repeat the following oath in the presence of
their masters before Le Jau would baptize them. "That
you do not ask for the holy baptism out of any design to
free yourself from the Duty and Obedience you owe to your
Master while you live" (Ibid. 141).
In the 1740's Thomas Bacon, an Anglican minister in Maryland, introduced another pro-slavery concept. In his sermons, he presented the belief that slaveholders were God's
agents. And as God's agents, they were entitled to reap
the benefits from the labor of slaves. He told slaves that
all commands given by their masters, even commands that
forced them into illegal and immoral acts, must be obeyed.
"It is not for slaves to object to these acts. God would forgive them in the next world; in this world obedience took
precedence over moral courage" (Ibid. 143).
Substantial literature exists pointing out the fact that slave
and free blacks alike were very aware of the difference between the two Christian tenents of the South. Linda Brent,
a slave woman living in the antebellum south recorded these
words of the hypocritical Reverend Pike, "You must forsake
your sinful ways, and be faithful servants. Obey your old
master and your young master, your old mistress and your
young mistress. If you disobey your earthly master, you
offend your heavenly Master" (398). David Walker, a free
black, heard a more intimidating sermon from a white minister. He described the episode: "our Reverend gentleman
got up and told us [coloured people] that slaves must be
obedient to their master, must do their duty to their master
or be whipped" (39). Frederick Douglass provides the most
eloquent description of the differences between the Christian
faith of a slave and the Christianity of a white slave holder.
Douglass wrote, "I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial
Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women whipping, cradel plundering, partial, and
hypocritical Christianity of this land" (326).
These men and women were capable of resisting this perversion of Christianity, in part, because of their cultural
heritage. Africans forced into slavery did possess religious
beliefs. "Common to many African societies was the belief
in a High God, or Supreme Creator of the world and everything in it" (Raboteau 8). Captured West Africans had
existed in a unified cultural area prior to their forced immigration to Colonial America. They had lived in cultures that
were highly organized, complete with kings, priests, and rule
of law. Slaves were not "savages" as southern whites liked to
believe. They were a sophisticated people, able to recognize
the disparity between these two Christian philosophies. In
fact, the conversion experience for slaves signified their rejection of the master's religion. The harbinger of conversion
was usually a cataclysmic event, "A light seemed to come
down from heaven, and it looked like it just split me open
from my head to my feet" (Johnson 61). "When God struck
me dead... I could neither speak nor move, for my tongue
stuck to the roof of my mouth; my jaws were locked and my
limbs were stiff" (Ibid. 59).
Salvation demanded these men and women to die in the Lord
and be reborn. This is reminiscent of the spirit posession
that was part of the West African culture. However, the
bodies of these people were not possessed by the Gods, or
The Paradox of the Two Christian Faiths
infused with the characteristics and the personalities of their
ancestors. They were possessed by the Holy Spirit of Jesus
Christ that filled them with happiness and power, that freed
them to shout, sing and dance. "While the North American
slaves danced under the impulse of the Spirit of a 'new'
God, they danced in ways their fathers in Africa would have
recognized" (Raboteau 72). This type of ecstatic behavior
was not well received by Christian evangelists. Attempts
were made to discourage shouting and ring dances. In 1878,
Bishop Daniel Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church (AME) made these comments. "I attended a 'bush
meet' .... After the sermon they formed a ring, and with
coats off sung, clapped their hands and stamped their feet
in a most ridiculous and heathenish way" (Ibid. 68).
Other Christian evangelists also expressed their aversion
to the growing influence of ecstatic behaviors. In 1819
Methodist evangelist John Watson wrote a book entitled,
Methodist Error or Friendly Advice to Those Methodists
Who Indulge in Extravagant Religious Emotions and Bodily
Exercises. It was his belief that the Negro shouts, which
consisted of singing for hours, wild body movements, thigh
slapping, and foot stomping were beginning to infiltrate
white religious worship. He wrote " ... the evil is only occasionally condemned and the example has already visibly
affected the religious manners of some whites" (Ibid. 67).
Linda Brent makes mention of this phenomenon in her journal, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; "... the slaves left,
and went to enjoy a Methodist shout. They never seem so
happy as when shouting and singing at religious meetings"
(Brent 398). AME Bishop Payne lamented, "And what is
more deplorable, some of our most popular and powerful
preachers labor systematically to perpetuate this fanaticism.
Such preachers never rest till they create an excitement that
consists in shouting, jumping and dancing" (Raboteau 69).
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These evangelists were well aware that certain aspects of
West African pagan culture were establishing a safe haven
within the confines of Christianity. "There are close parallels between the style of the dancing observed in African
and Caribbean cult worship and the style of the American
'ring shout"' (Ibid. 70). However, I am not critical of incorporating these vestiges of the past into the slave practice
of Christianity. It was the cultural awareness of their past
that formed the first lines of defense against the ravages of
slavery.
The mingling of many distinct West African histories formed
the slave culture of the South. It was the weapon of resistance that empowered slaves with the ability to reject white
Christian beliefs. And eventually created for slaves an inner
strength based upon the Christian promise that in death,
freedom and eternal life would be theirs.
REFERENCES
Brent, Linda. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Gates. New York: Penguin
Books, 1987.
Butler, Jon. Awash in a Sea of Faith. London: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Douglass, Frederick. "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass."
The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Gates. New York:
Penguin Books, 1987.
Johnson, Clifton H., ed. God Stuck Me Dead. Cleveland, OH:
The Pilgrim Press, 1993.
Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978.
Walker, David. David Walker's Appeal. 1892 reprint. New York:
Hill and Wang, 1965.
DAVID is currently a senior History major. His paper was written for A355, African American History I 1610 - 1880.
"Biblical scripture is often interpreted in such a manner as to give support or justification for reprehensible human
attitudes and actions. Christianity as practiced by southern whites in the antebellum South sanctioned the institution
of slavery. I was curious as to how this contradiction between Christian morality and human action occurred. The
result was this paper which provides a few clues as to how this peculiar sort of reasoning evolved."