From Neutral to Pro
Desmond Tutu is quoted as saying “if you are silent in times of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” I think there’s no greater example of that quote in action than in the story of 19th century Baptists in the South.
As we read last week, anti-slavery sentiment among Baptists in the South gave way to stubborn silence for the sake of the denomination. Historians have outlined several factors at play in the Baptist turn from neutrality towards full-on pro-slavery. The one I think made the biggest difference was the influence of prominent and powerful Baptists leaders in the south - many of whom were themselves slaveholders.
In the early 19th century, Charleston SC was a huge seat of power in the south. It was a highly populated port city and the church leaders in Charleston were generally very wealthy, highly educated, and extremely influential. The first seven presidents of what would eventually become the Southern Baptist Convention shared six things in common: they were all wealthy landowners, they held Calvinist beliefs, they were highly educated, they’d grown up mainly within Charleston, they defended slavery, and they owned slaves themselves. But it wasn’t just the founders of the SBC that were slaveholding church leaders at the time - all four founders of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary owned slaves as well, along with several other prominent Baptist leaders in the south.
Just like today, it is those leaders who hold the most power and sway that are the ones whose opinions are broadcasted the loudest. So it isn’t hard to imagine how far-reaching the influence of these important men was; they covered many of the declared-neutral southern Baptist churches in a net of pro-slavery ideals.
As I mentioned, one thing many of these leaders had in common was Calvinist theology - a major aspect of that was the belief that all things happened according to God’s specific design. And, according to these men (who conveniently benefited financially from slavery) given that slavery existed at the time, must have meant that slavery itself was God sanctioned. These leaders were able to further rationalize slavery by noting that the Bible itself does not explicitly condemn slavery - in fact, the Old Testament provides instruction as to how the Israelite people were to care for their slaves, and one widely held interpretation of the New Testament book of Philemon has Paul himself orchestrating the return of an escaped slave, Onesimus, to his owner. This argument of Biblical authority, although extremely misguided, was a widely used one on the side of pro-slavery. There were many more who argued that, had the slaves never been taken from Africa, they never would have heard of Jesus; to many slaveholding Christians, the eternal salvation of the slaves was worth more than whatever earthly discomfort slavery offered them in the meantime.
“If you are silent in times of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
In 1822, Richard Furman, a prominent Southern Baptist leader (who owned 300 slaves himself) wrote a letter to the Governor of South Carolina, outlining his pro-slavery viewpoints and attempting to influence political leadership. What is so interesting (and a little unsettling) about this letter is how much it seems that some of the political and religious leaders of our own day might have plucked this letter from antiquity and used it as a template of their own.
Furman suggests, in his letter, that many in the north were inciting insubordination and rebellion among the slaves, for the sole purpose of trying to disturb the peace. He writes in a sort of paranoid frenzy that these anti-slavery northerners are infringing upon the rights of the citizens of SC and “deprive the slaves of religious privileges by awakening in the minds of their masters a fear.” Furman writes that the slaves lived better lives in America than they had before, and that they were better off in the south as slaves than the poor free men in the north. But perhaps the most disturbing part of Furman’s letter comes towards the end, when he pleads for the souls of the slaves that would be lost if they were ever to be emancipated.
There is nothing new under the sun, is there?
There is one line of Furman’s letter, however, that gives me pause. Furman writes: “Acts of benevolence and generosity must be free and voluntary; no man has a right to compel another to perform them.” Perhaps another reason, however ironic, for the southern Baptist turn towards pro-slavery had to do with the long-standing Baptist commitment to religious and personal freedom - which happens to be my favorite thing about being a Baptist.
In 1839, John Leland’s views on slavery took a turn once more - this time from ambivalence to anti-abolitionist. He now argued that the government, nor any other ruling body, had any right to tell slaveholders what to do with their slaves. Several historians have noted that Baptists in the south felt increasingly alarmed and thought that the northern states and churches were not respecting their rights or liberties as free and individual states and churches. Furman’s point about compelled morality being devoid of actual merit is one that echoes the earliest Baptist founders who argued that the State should have no power over someone’s morals or faith. However misguided Furman was about slavery, his insistence that churches and Christians be free to make their own decisions (for better or for worse) was one with very deep Baptist roots.
So it’s not a stretch to think that, perhaps, changing sentiment amongst 19th century protestants in the south had a lot to do with feelings of encroachment on their rights - maybe as much so as it had to do with slavery itself. Especially among Baptists, who have a long history of fighting tooth and nail for church and soul freedom for all.
