- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Tables
- I Introductory
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Theology in Colonial America
- 3 The Long Life and Final Collapse of the Puritan Canopy
- II Synthesis
- 4 Republicanism and Religion
- 5 Christian Republicanism
- 6 Theistic Common Sense
- 7 Colonial Theologies in the Era of the Revolution
- 8 Innovative (But not “American”) Theologies in the Era of the Revolution
- III Evangelization
- 9 The Evangelical Surge . . .
- 10 . . . and Constructing a New Nation
- 11 Ideological Permutations
- IV Americanization
- 12 Assumptions and Assertions of American Theology
- 13 The Americanization of Calvinism
- 14 The Americanization of Calvinism
- 15 The Americanization of Calvinism
- 16 The Americanization of Methodism
- 17 The Americanization of Methodism
- V Crisis
- 18 The “Bible Alone” and a Reformed, Literal Hermeneutic
- 19 The Bible and Slavery
- 20 Failed Alternatives
- 21 Climax and Exhaustion in the Civil War
- 22 Conclusion
- Appendix
- Glossary
- Select Bibliography
- Index
The Bible and Slavery
The Bible and Slavery
- Chapter:
- (p.386) 19 The Bible and Slavery
- Source:
- America's God
- Author(s):
Mark A. Noll (Contributor Webpage)
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Central to the slavery debate was the issue of how to use the Scripture. Three major positions emerged on the Bible and slavery. Theological conservatives usually defended a literal reading of the Scripture, which was held to provide a divine sanction for slavery. Radicals who wanted to abolish slavery sometimes agreed that the Bible sanctioned slavery, but that acknowledgment led them to disparage the Bible. In the middle were a distraught contingent of Bible readers who were troubled by their conclusion that the Bible sanctioned slavery, and who failed unsuccessfully in trying to combine faithfulness to Scripture and opposition to slavery. All factions, but especially the middle group, were constrained in their understanding of the Bible by the confluence (distinct to America) between traditional Christianity and commonsense republican principles.
Keywords: abolitionists, Albert Barnes, Henry Ward Beecher, Bible, Jonathan Blanchard, Civil War, William Lloyd Garrison, N. L. Rice, slavery, Thornton Stringfellow, James Henley Thornwell, Theodore Dwight Weld
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Tables
- I Introductory
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Theology in Colonial America
- 3 The Long Life and Final Collapse of the Puritan Canopy
- II Synthesis
- 4 Republicanism and Religion
- 5 Christian Republicanism
- 6 Theistic Common Sense
- 7 Colonial Theologies in the Era of the Revolution
- 8 Innovative (But not “American”) Theologies in the Era of the Revolution
- III Evangelization
- 9 The Evangelical Surge . . .
- 10 . . . and Constructing a New Nation
- 11 Ideological Permutations
- IV Americanization
- 12 Assumptions and Assertions of American Theology
- 13 The Americanization of Calvinism
- 14 The Americanization of Calvinism
- 15 The Americanization of Calvinism
- 16 The Americanization of Methodism
- 17 The Americanization of Methodism
- V Crisis
- 18 The “Bible Alone” and a Reformed, Literal Hermeneutic
- 19 The Bible and Slavery
- 20 Failed Alternatives
- 21 Climax and Exhaustion in the Civil War
- 22 Conclusion
- Appendix
- Glossary
- Select Bibliography
- Index
