The Origins of Proslavery Christianity

by Irons, Charles F.

• ISBN13: 9780807831946
• ISBN10: 0807831948
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-19
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

In the colonial and antebellum South, black and white evangelicals frequently prayed, sang, and worshipped together. Even though white evangelicals claimed spiritual fellowship with those of African descent, they nonetheless emerged as the most effective defenders of race-based slavery.As Charles Irons persuasively argues, white evangelicals' ideas about slavery grew directly out of their interactions with black evangelicals. Set in Virginia, the largest slaveholding state and the hearth of the southern evangelical movement, this book draws from church records, denominational newspapers, slave narratives, and private letters and diaries to illuminate the dynamic relationship between whites and blacks within the evangelical fold. Irons reveals that when whites theorized about their moral responsibilities toward slaves, they thought first of their relationships with bondmen in their own churches. Thus, African American evangelicals inadvertently shaped the nature of the proslavery argument. When they chose which churches to join, used the procedures set up for church discipline, rejected colonization, or built quasi-independent congregations, for example, black churchgoers spurred their white coreligionists to further develop the religious defense of slavery.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Chief Cornerstone	p. 1
Fishers of Men, 1680-1792	p. 23
Growing Pains, 1792-1815	p. 55
The Flourishing of Biracial Christianity, 1815-1831	p. 97
The Spiritual Challenge of Nat Turner, 1831-1835	p. 133
The Sectional Church, 1835-1856	p. 169
Reluctant, Evangelical Confederates, 1856-1861	p. 211
Epilogue: Exodus, 1861-1870	p. 247
Evangelical Virginians in 1790 and 1850, by Race and Denomination	p. 261
Distribution of Virginia Evangelicals in 1860, by Denomination and County	p. 265
Church Governance	p. 275
Notes	p. 279
Bibliography	p. 327
Index	p. 361
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