On a crisp autumn morning in 1738, murmurs filled the Quaker meetinghouse in Burlington, New Jersey. Suddenly, Benjamin Lay strode in, small in stature but burning with conviction. He declared, “Oh all you Negro masters who are contently holding your fellow creatures in a state of slavery…It should be as justifiable in the sight of the Almighty…if you should thrust a sword through their heads as I do through this book.”
Lay then threw a Bible to the ground, drew a sword, and pierced it, causing pokeberry juice inside to splatter like fresh-spilled blood. Gasps filled the air as he declared, “Thus shall God shed the blood of those who enslave their fellow men!”
Benjamin Lay was an 18th-century Quaker abolitionist whose 1737 book, All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates, was one of the earliest anti-slavery works in America. He openly condemned Quaker slaveholders, refusing to wear cotton or consume sugar, knowing both were produced by enslaved labor.
A History of Theological Error
Lay was also an outlier in the 1,700-year history of Christianity up to that time. Early church fathers largely accepted slavery as an unavoidable reality, seeing it as a natural consequence of humanity’s fallen state. While some advocated for humane treatment, few questioned the system itself.
Slavery declined during medieval Europe but received a second wind in the 15th century through papal bulls like the Doctrine of Discovery, granting Christian rulers the divine right to enslave non-Christians. By the 18th century, slavery was deemed normal, necessary, and biblical. Opponents were accused of twisting scripture, while proponents justified slavery with scripture. A Puritan minister once remarked, “It is therefore a condition in which God may be glorified; and for that reason, we are commanded to do so.”
As we look back from today’s perspective, it’s hard to understand how faithful Christians across generations could embrace such viewpoints. We ask: how could they do so much harm under the banner of their faith?
Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “Slavery in America was perpetuated not merely by human badness, but also by human blindness.” This blindness was not just moral or social—it was profoundly theological. Economic interests and cultural sensibilities supported slavery, but the more significant failure was the active distortion of theology to empower this sin. Rather than letting Scripture challenge slavery, many Christians reshaped it to align with societal norms, giving oppression divine legitimacy.
As Sean McGever documents in his book Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield, influential theologians didn’t just tolerate slavery—they sanctified it. By clothing injustice in religious language, they enabled a system that contradicted the heart of the gospel. This led to a cascade of errors, misapplied doctrines, and moral blindness that justified, in the words of John Adams, America’s original sin.
1. Plain Reading of Scripture
Massachusetts Puritans modeled slavery laws on “the law of God established in Israel.” Their understandings of scripture permitted slavery through war captives, self-imposed servitude, and purchase. William Perkins, the father of Puritanism, viewed slavery as divinely ordained, arguing it was “so clearly and plentifully noted in the Scripture that anyone is any whit acquainted therewith may know them to be so.”
2. God Is in Control
Eighteenth-century Christians saw slavery as a divinely appointed institution ordained by God as a vocation, social office, and a rightful station in life. It existed within God’s providential design to manage a fallen and sinful world. God assigned people to different roles and ranks in society according to a “most excellent and perfect order,” and any attempt to disrupt this hierarchy would result in “hellish confusion.”
3. Compartmentalized Christianity
People were believed to have a God-ordained earthly status distinct from their spiritual standing. This meant that a slave’s spiritual status mattered more than their earthly condition. Evangelism, not emancipation, was prioritized. On a more practical level, some slaveholders sought to prevent their conversion, fearing it might challenge the social hierarchy. Others saw Christianity as a tool for control, believing it made slaves more obedient.
The issue for the church, therefore, was not abolition but ethical slave management. Cotton Mather, a leading Puritan, affirmed this view, writing, “What law is it that sets the baptized slave at liberty? Not the law of Christianity.” Christianity simply “modified and moderated” slavery.
4. Evangelism at Any Cost
John Wesley first encountered the evils of slavery face to face on a trip to Georgia in 1735. In his words, “I had observed much, and heard more, of the cruelty of masters towards their negroes,; but now I received an authentic account of some horrid instances thereof.” He witnessed negroes nailed up by the ears, teeth pulled, beatings and abuse by sport, legs cut off and dunked by scalding water.
Yet it wasn’t until 38 years later that Wesley denounced slavery. Until then, his sole interest was in evangelizing slaves, not liberating them. For most of his life, his enthusiasm for “saving lives” had blinded him to the state of “lived lives” resulting in an incomplete understanding of God’s Kingdom’s message. Notably, in his arguments against slavery, this theological giant used justifications based on logic and natural law and avoided direct scriptural arguments, recognizing scripture was too often weaponized to defend it.
5. Escapist Eschatology
Wesley initially viewed the world as irredeemably flawed, believing only Christ’s return would set things right. But as his understanding of God’s kingdom deepened, Wesley’s vision shifted. He came to see that the reign of Christ was not merely a distant hope but a present reality breaking into the world. No longer could he accept slavery as an unfortunate consequence of a fallen world—it was an affront to the justice of God’s kingdom, a moral evil that demanded immediate action.
6. The Ends Justify the Means
George Whitefield, a leading evangelist, believed establishing an orphanage in Georgia was his divine calling. When financial struggles arose, he concluded slavery was necessary for its survival. As a result, he lobbied for slavery’s legalization in Georgia—a colony initially founded as slave-free. In Whitefield’s theological framework, the opportunity for enslaved people to hear the gospel outweighed their “temporal inconveniences” and suffering. When he died in 1770, 49 enslaved individuals needed for just 16 children—comprising 74% of his estate’s total value—were willed to a wealthy English benefactor rather than being freed.
7. “Ever Hearing but Never Understanding”
Jonathan Edwards, a brilliant Puritan theologian, was also a slaveholder. He believed that God had established various roles and social stations in life, including slavery, and given his standing as a member of the New England aristocracy, slave-owning for him was appropriate and aligned with biblical truth. Edwards, like many, was blinded by the assumptions of his time, illustrating how even the most brilliant theological minds can err when cultural biases shape biblical interpretation. Many argue he was merely a product of his time, yet contemporaries like Benjamin Lay and Anthony Benezet rejected slavery outright. Edwards’ blindness was a choice shaped by theological priorities and social allegiances.
8. The Gospel Is Merely About “Getting Saved”
Frederick Douglass recalled his master attending a Methodist camp meeting and “experiencing religion.” Douglass “indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane.” But instead, “it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways.” Before conversion, his master justified his brutality through personal depravity; after conversion, he found religious sanction for it.
9. Faith Without Love
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), an Anglican missionary organization, spread Christianity throughout Britain’s colonies. While professing a mission of evangelization, the SPG owned and operated a slave plantation in Barbados, funding missionary work through the forced labor of enslaved people. Their clergy ministered to slaves but did not challenge the system. Their failure was evident: between 1717 and 1726, they converted not a single enslaved person. Finally, in 1732, one of their attorneys got the bright idea that if they stopped branding the chests of newly purchased slaves with the letters S-O-C-I-E-T-Y, maybe their success rate would improve.
Fast Forward to the Present
If we think we are immune to such egregious errors and misapplications, we deceive ourselves. Many of these same nine sensibilities are alive and well today. Although they do not guarantee sin and error, they foster an increased likelihood of such error.
If we believe we are superior to past generations, we are foolish. Human nature remains unchanged, and theological error continues to shape both society and our individual beliefs in ways we often fail to recognize.
Hence, if we assume our current theological understandings are without fault, we are mistaken.
Here are some examples. Appeals to a plain reading of scripture are common today, misusing verses like 2 John 1:2: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health” to promote the prosperity gospel. The mantra “God is in control” can be distorted into a wide range of erroneous justifications, from passivity in the face of evil to indifference to grief or injustice and disinterest to pray or vote. Compartmentalized Christianity separates Christ’s teachings from “real” issues of life, allowing dishonesty, exploitation, or greed to drive our politics or commerce.
And an end justifies the means argument has become common in recent years as apocalyptic narratives about the end of America flourish.
Last Thoughts
Just as past generations misused theology to justify slavery, today’s church is at risk of similar distortions. When we baptize nationalism or culture war rhetoric as “Christian,” we repeat the errors of those who once sanctified oppression, war, and political control in God’s name.
If history teaches us anything, it is this. Whenever Christianity aligns itself too closely with political power, it loses its prophetic voice and becomes an agent of oppression rather than liberation. True faith does not seek to win worldly battles but to bring heaven’s justice to earth—not through coercion but through the transformative power of the gospel.
The past is not just history; it is a warning. Will we learn from it?