Who is to say?: How slavery was Justified through Christianity.

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 In modern America, many practicing Christians have an issue with slavery, specifically slavery in early America. Today Christianity promotes values of goodness, kindness, and love which are opposite of the values possessed by slave owners throughout American History. These slaveowners were also practicing Christians and were using the bible to justify the slave trade in America. 

The first thing to consider is that the issue of slavery is more complex than Christians having a difference of opinion on the interpretation of the bible on Slavery. Politics and economic standings played a major role in people's opinions on this matter, but the basis of the religious interpretation of slavery is the root of the disagreement. 

A notable text using Christianity to support slavery was written in 1843 by Josiah Priest. In this text, he claims that God created African people to be slaves. He claimed that each of Noah's sons was of a different race, and Noah's black son was named Ham. He claims that Ham was cursed from birth to be a servant as a consequence of his sins and that all of his offspring are to be slaves because of this as well. 


Another argument used to biblically defend slavery is the claim that the bible doesn't say that men should not have slaves, and there are even examples of slaves/servants in the bible. People claim that they are to live off of the commandments given to Moses in the old testament, which does not state any wrong about slaves. In addition, there are countless biblical examples of people owning slaves and participating in the slave trade. 

Lastly, many slave-owning citizens and states argued that the abolitionists had no authority to determine whether slavery was moral or not. William Harper, a known pro-slavery activist argued that the only one to condemn people for slavery is God. He claimed that everyone will stand in front of God one day, and only then will he be convinced that what they were doing was wrong. 

Ultimately, people especially slave owners twisted the bible to fit their agenda. Their political and economic standing played a huge role in their interpretation of the bible on this topic.



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