{"id":3278,"date":"2017-11-15T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T20:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/?p=3278"},"modified":"2017-11-15T20:16:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T20:16:47","slug":"james-henley-thornwell-on-the-rights-and-duties-of-masters-lessons-from-the-civil-war-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2017\/11\/15\/james-henley-thornwell-on-the-rights-and-duties-of-masters-lessons-from-the-civil-war-era\/","title":{"rendered":"James Henley Thornwell on “The Rights and Duties of Masters”: Lessons from the Civil War Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’m very interested in the theological debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War.\u00a0 I’ve read many of the sermons, books, and tracts written by pro-slavery preachers and theologians from that era.\u00a0 I find them a fascinating, and chilling, reminder of how a theological system in one era can justify something that comes to be clearly seen as an evil in another era.\u00a0 Here’s the text of a paper I recently wrote on a famous sermon by James Henley Thornwell<\/a>\u00a0(pictured at left), titled The Rights and Duties of Masters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

James Henley Thornwell, called by some of his contemporaries \u201cOur Southern Giant\u201d and \u201cthe Calhoun of the Church,\u201d was a leading figure among Antebellum Southern Presbyterians.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 He served as Professor of Sacred Literature and the Evidences of Christianity at South Carolina College starting in 1840, and became a strong advocate of \u201cOld School\u201d Presbyterianism.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 He was a founder of the Southern Presbyterian Review<\/em>, a prominent orthodox Presbyterian publication, and later became president of the South Carolina College, a highly prestigious position in South Carolina life at that time.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Like other conservative Southern Presbyterians, Thornwell offered a vigorous theological defense of African Slavery.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 This defense is set out most directly in his sermon \u201cThe Rights and Duties of Masters.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Thornwell preached the Sermon on May 26, 1850 in Charleston, South Carolina, at the dedication of a church \u201cerected for the religious instruction of the Negroes.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 In many ways Thornwell\u2019s arguments are typical of other pro-slavery preachers and theologians, but in some respects, particularly relating to his political theology, his arguments are more subtle than those of other apologists.\u00a0 This paper argues that the subtleties of Thornwell\u2019s arguments flow from his nuanced views about the relationship between faith and reason.\u00a0 This study demonstrates how difficult it is to assess a pro-slavery theologian such as Thornwell from a modern perspective, and also how difficult it can be for a capable apologist such as Thornwell to notice his or her moral blind spots.<\/p>\n

Thornwell\u2019s Biblical But Not Biblicist Defense of Slavery<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pro-slavery apologists argued that both the Old Testament and New Testament sanctioned slavery and that the abolitionists therefore were distorting the plain sense of scripture.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 These arguments usually were offered in what today seem like naively Biblicist terms.\u00a0 In his book A Defence of Virginia<\/em>, for example, Southern theologian Robert Louis Dabney thundered that<\/p>\n

Our best hope is in the fact that the cause of our defence is the cause of God\u2019s Word, and of its supreme authority over the human conscience.\u00a0 For, as we shall evince, that Word is on our side, and the teachings of Abolitionism are clearly of rationalistic origin, of infidel tendency, and only sustained by reckless and licentious perversions of the meaning of the Sacred text.[8]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dabney argued that the Old Testament explicitly recognized and sanctioned slavery (in the examples of the Curse on Canaan, Abraham, Hagar, the Mosaic Law, and the Decalogue), and that in the New Testament, slavery was never condemned by Christ and was approved by Paul.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 This was a typical laundry list of pro-slavery Bible passages.\u00a0 In the literate, polemical context of the Bible wars over slavery, however, \u201c[s]outhern preachers had to be careful with biblical citations\u201d because \u201c[a] mere grumble from a few congregants would send others scurrying to check their Bibles.\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Thornwell knew this and tied his Biblical arguments to a broader political philosophy.<\/p>\n

In the Sermon, Thornwell focused his Biblical arguments primarily on one passage, from Colossians 3:22 – 4:1.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 As Thornwell summarized this text, \u201c[t]he Apostle briefly sums up all that is incumbent, at the present crisis, upon the slaveholders of the South, in the words of the text \u2013 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thornwell believed this command was not merely arbitrary because, although all persons, white and African alike, were equally human, God had ordained people to different stations and responsibilities.\u00a0 In response to the Abolitionist argument that the relationship of master and slave violates a fundamental human right of the slave, Thornwell argued that there is a distinction between basic human rights of all persons and the rights and duties of persons within specific relationships.[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Paul\u2019s injunctions to masters and slaves, Thornwell claimed, embedded a moral principle of duty particular to the roles God had providentially assigned:\u00a0 \u201c[l]et masters and servants, each in their respective spheres, be impregnated with the principle of duty . . . .\u201d[14]<\/a>\u00a0 Thornwell saw this kind of difference in right and duty based on contingent relationships throughout society, such as between parent and child or husband and wife.\u00a0 The slave is just another \u201cactor on the broad theatre of life\u201d whose reward depends on playing his role appropriately.[15]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thornwell conceded, however, that slavery was not an intrinsic good. \u00a0\u201cSlavery,\u201d Thornwell argued in the Sermon, \u201cis a part of the curse which sin has introduced into the world, and stands in the same general relations to Christianity as poverty, sickness, disease or death.\u201d[16]<\/a>\u00a0 Colossians 3:22 – 4:1 encoded a form of positive law relating to a set of relationships \u2013 master and slave \u2013 that was contingent on the present fallen state of the world and that would be erased in the eschaton.\u00a0 Slavery, like other differences in social condition, was \u201cfounded in a curse, from which the Providence of God extracts a blessing.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/p>\n

Even more directly, Thornwell conceded that the initial enslavement of Africans, like the beginnings of any enslavement, was violent and morally wrong.\u00a0 But, he insisted, \u201cthe relations to which that act gave rise, may, themselves, be consistent with the will of God and the foundation of new and important duties.\u201d[18]<\/a>\u00a0 In fact, Thornwell claimed, in the present fallen state of the world, \u201can absolute equality would be an absolute stagnation of all enterprise and industry.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thornwell equated the demand for \u201cabsolute equality\u201d with \u201c[t]he agitations which are convulsing the kingdoms Europe,\u201d a reference to the Revolutions of 1848.[20]<\/a>\u00a0 For Thornwell, the parties in the conflict over slavery \u201care not merely abolitionists and slaveholders \u2013 they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other.\u201d[21]<\/a>\u00a0 This appeal to established order was a \u201ccentral theme\u201d in Old School Presbyterianism, and Thornwell certainly echoed this theme.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thornwell\u2019s focus on this principle of duty appealed to the Southern honor culture and removed his Biblical reference from the category of mere Biblical proof texting.\u00a0 It tied together a kind of natural law argument with Calvinist theology in a systematic defense of slavery as at least a contingent feature of some social structures.\u00a0 It also allowed Thornwell to sidestep some of the roiling \u201cscientific\u201d arguments over the origins of Africans and to claim that in the end his intent was to defend blacks as fully human along with whites.<\/p>\n

Thornwell\u2019s Response to Polygenism and the Curse of Canaan<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Scholarly Old School Presbyterians such as Thornwell were deeply interested in the emerging natural sciences and believed proper scientific methods would verify their beliefs about social order.[23]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Thornwell departed from pro-slavery scientists and clergy who argued that black Africans were cursed or sub-human, either because of the \u201ccurse of Canaan\u201d or through some theory of biological polygenesis.<\/p>\n

There was an interesting tension in Thornwell\u2019s day between apologetics for African slavery based on polygentic theories and \u201cBiblical\u201d defenses of African slavery based on the \u201ccurse of Canaan.\u201d[24]<\/a>\u00a0 Polygenetic theories developed by figures such as Samuel George Morton in the \u201cAmerican School of Ethnology\u201d drew on the emerging evolutionary science of the day to argue that the present races had different biological origins \u2013 not a monogentic origin in a literal \u201cAdam and Eve\u201d \u2013 and that these differences in origin accounted for presumed differences in mental and cultural capacity.[25]<\/a>\u00a0 Some Southerners were happy to use these theories in their defense of African slavery, but conservative theologians and churchmen thought these theories contradicted the Biblical account of humanity\u2019s origin in a single couple.[26]<\/a>\u00a0 Many of these Southern religious conservatives argued that black Africans did descend from Adam and Eve, but that the Africans were a degenerate race because of the \u201cCurse on Canaan\u201d narrated in Genesis 9.<\/p>\n

Genesis 9 describes events shortly after the great flood of Noah.\u00a0 The hero of flood story, Noah, plants a vineyard, gets drunk on the resulting wine, and passes out naked outside his tent.[27]<\/a>\u00a0 Noah\u2019s son Ham sees Noah\u2019s nakedness and tells his brothers, Shem and Japeth \u2013 perhaps meaning to make a scene or mock his father.\u00a0 Shem and Japeth cover Noah, taking care to cover their eyes in the process.\u00a0 When Noah awakes, he curses Ham\u2019s son, Canaan:<\/p>\n

\u201cCursed be Canaan!
\nThe lowest of slaves
\nwill he be to his brothers.\u201d[28]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The honor culture reflected in this narrative resonated with antebellum Southern readers, who were quick to identify black Africans as Ham and Canaan\u2019s descendants.[29]<\/a>\u00a0 Many Southerners adapted the New American School of Ethnology\u2019s \u201cscientific\u201d views about racial differences to a genealogy that preserved Adamic monogenism with a divergence via the curse on Canaan.[30]<\/a> \u00a0Some of the leading Southern theologians were reticent to make this connection, but still used this narrative as a key illustration.\u00a0 Robert Louis Dabney, for example, agreed that \u201c[i]t may be that we should find little difficulty in tracing the lineage of the present Africans to Ham,\u201d but thought the actual scientific evidence lacking .[31]<\/a>\u00a0 For Dabney, the overall shape of the narrative was more important than the scientific details:\u00a0 this was one example among many of the Bible\u2019s moral sanction of slavery in general.<\/p>\n

Thornwell was even more reluctant than Dabney to connect African slavery with any sort of genealogical or biological curse.\u00a0 In his Sermon<\/em>, Thornwell never mentioned the curse on Canaan and directly rejected polygenetic views.\u00a0 Instead, Thornwell argued that \u201cthe Negro is of one blood with ourselves\u201d and stated that \u201c[w]e are not ashamed to call him our brother.\u201d[32]<\/a>\u00a0 This reflects not only a tactical decision to \u201csoften\u201d Southern rhetoric, but also a commitment to integrate the Old Presbyterian theology with a form of contemporary science \u2013 that is, to reject the polygenist theories on Biblical and<\/em> scientific grounds while upholding African slavery.<\/p>\n

Thornwell stated in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Theology at South Carolina College, the \u201ctrue method\u201d of theology<\/p>\n

is to accept the facts of revelation as we accept the facts of nature. We are by enlightened interpretation to ascertain the dicta; these are to be received without suspicion and without doubt. They are the principles of faith. Then from these principles proceed to the laws, the philosophy if you please, which underlies them, and in which they find their explanation and their unity. In this way we shall reach truth, and shall be partially able to harmonize it with all other truth.[33]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here, Thornwell reflects a relatively strong, but not absolute, view of the \u201cintegration\u201d of faith and reason, including of the findings of the natural sciences.\u00a0 Like most of his Old Presbyterian contemporaries, Thornwell cautiously accepted the findings of the new Lyellian geology, which showed the Earth was far older than a simple reading of the Biblical records seemed to suggest. \u00a0In this sense, Thornwell\u2019s views were consistent with his contemporary at Princeton Seminary, B.B. Warfield.[34]<\/a>\u00a0 Thornwell departed somewhat, however, from the synthesis of Baconian science and common sense realism characteristic of Warfield by prioritizing \u201cfaith\u201d in his epistemology.[35]<\/a>\u00a0 Thornwell was careful to note that \u201c[a]ll knowledge begins in faith; principles must be accepted, not proved, and it matters not whether you call them principles of faith or reason.\u201d[36]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thornwell applied his subtle understanding of faith and reason not only to the natural sciences, but also to the newly developing social sciences.[37]<\/a>\u00a0 The notion that society could be studied according to principles of reason rooted in faith, particularly a Calvinistic faith in the slow, inexorable, often hidden workings of providence, underpinned Thornwell\u2019s belief that established social institutions such as slavery should not be upset by radical change.[38]<\/a>\u00a0 The same belief affected Thornwell\u2019s treatment of the role of the law law in relation to slavery in the Sermon.\u00a0 In his assessment of the law of slavery, the limits of Thornwell\u2019s method are evident.\u00a0 He could not countenance rapid legal change, and as a result \u2013 somewhat ironically in light of his views of scripture \u2013 he had to dance around the law\u2019s plain meaning.<\/p>\n

Thornwell, Slavery, and Law<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

For Thornwell the Bible did not sanction the ownership of one person by another person as \u201cproperty.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, the Bible, and the natural law, gave the master a kind of contractual right \u201cnot to the man<\/em>, but to his labor<\/em>. . . .\u201d[39]<\/a>\u00a0 This right came with corresponding duties, also reflected in Ephesians 4:5-9, upon the master to treat the slave properly.[40]<\/a>\u00a0 This relationship was not literally contractual, because it was grounded in Biblical and positive law, and the slave\u2019s obedience, rendered in response to the moral obligation of the natural and Biblical law, could properly be considered \u201cvoluntary.\u201d[41]<\/a>\u00a0 The motion of the slave\u2019s \u201climbs or organs of the body\u201d are voluntary in the literal sense, Thornwell argued, and the slave\u2019s internal \u201cmoral character\u201d determined whether his or her actions were \u201cvoluntary\u201d in an ethical sense \u2013 an ethical obligation that rested entirely on the slave.[42]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thornwell\u2019s argument was ingenious, but it was belied by the actual law of slavery.\u00a0 In the Sermon, he offered only a passing glance at \u201cthe technical language of the law, in relation to certain aspects in which slavery is contemplated\u201d before claiming that \u201cthe ideas of personal rights and personal responsibility pervade the whole system.\u201d[43]<\/a>\u00a0 The law in South Carolina and across the slave states, however, in fact held that \u201cslaves are chattels personal,\u201d that is, a form of personal property.[44]<\/a><\/p>\n

The slave codes did provide some limitations on how slaves should be treated.\u00a0 The slave codes also gave slaves some ability to form enforceable contracts and legitimated other aspects of commerce engaged in by slaves, but these provisions were designed to facilitate the use of slaves as business agents by the master, not to enable slaves to work for their own benefit.[45]<\/a>\u00a0 While the slave was in one sense a legal \u201cperson,\u201d the ascription of personhood was not in recognition of any basic human rights, but only for the benefit of the master.\u00a0 As one modern commentator has suggested, under South Carolina law and the Southern slave codes more broadly, \u201cslavery marked an ownership so utter that the status of property was insufficient to describe it.\u201d[46]<\/a>\u00a0 To the extent Thornwell actually was concerned about describing the social and legal structure of slavery in the Sermon, his description was wildly inaccurate.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

How could a well-educated intellectual leader such as Thornwell have been so wrong about slavery?\u00a0 Was he driven to self-delusion, or merely disingenuous, because of a cultural need to defend this Southern institution?[47]<\/a>\u00a0 In the intense hot-house of the slavery debate, some degree of delusion or dissembling cannot be discounted.\u00a0 Thornwell, however, was a rigorous and meticulous person, who was well read in historical theology and classical literature and who did not shy away from controversy.\u00a0 His arguments about the personhood of slaves, notwithstanding the \u201ctechnical language of the law,\u201d were rooted in deeper beliefs about the priority of the Bible, or more directly the priority of his theological system, in relation to what he considered the \u201cscientific\u201d understanding of society.\u00a0 Careful study of Thornwell\u2019s Sermon and its context might help us avoid overly simplistic, anachronistic judgments of Thornwell and his motives.\u00a0 Perhaps also it can serve as a cautionary tale about how social, political, theological and Biblical views can converge into a system that justifies oppression.<\/p>\n

Endnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> James O. Farmer, Jr., The Metaphysical Confederacy:\u00a0 James Henley Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values<\/em> (Macon:\u00a0 Mercer Univ. Press 1986), 41.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 57-58.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 58.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> See generally Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis <\/em>(Chapel Hill:\u00a0 The University of North Carolina Press 2006).<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Thornwell, James Henley, The Rights and Duties of Masters:\u00a0 A Sermon Preached at the Dedication of a Church Erected in Charleston, S.C. for the Benefit of the Coloured Population<\/em> (Charleston:\u00a0 Steam Power Press of Walker & James 1850) (hereinafter \u201cSermon\u201d).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., <\/em>Introduction.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis<\/em>, Chapter 3.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Robert L Dabney, A Defense of Virginia (and Through Her, of the South) in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional Party<\/em> (New York:\u00a0 E.J. Hale & Son 1867), 21.\u00a0 This book was was published two years after the conclusion of the Civil War.\u00a0 Dabney had staunchly supported the Southern cause before and during the War, and hoped and believed that God would raise the South again in providential judgment against the North.\u00a0 See ibid.<\/em>, 5.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 94-198.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> See <\/em>Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class:\u00a0 History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholder\u2019s Worldview<\/em> (Cambridge:\u00a0 CUP 2005), Kindle Loc. 14819.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Sermon, 15.\u00a0 In the modern NIV translation, Col. 3:22 and 4:1 read as follows:\u00a0 \u201cSlaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. . . .\u00a0 Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Sermon, 15.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Sermon, 40.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 41.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 44.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Sermon<\/em>, 31.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 33.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/a> Sermon<\/em>, 45.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 32.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 12.\u00a0 For background on the revolutions in Europe during this period, see generally R.J.W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds, The Revolutions in Europe 1848-1849:\u00a0 From Reform to Reaction<\/em> (Oxford:\u00a0 OUP 2000).\u00a0 For a discussion of how these revolutions affected the views of Southern slaveholders in the U.S., see Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class<\/em>, Chapter 2.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 14.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a> See <\/em>Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Inductive and Deductive Politics:\u00a0 \u201cScience and Society in Antebellum Persbyterian Thought,\u201d The Journal of American History<\/em> 64:3 (Dec. 1977), 704-722; Marilyn J. Westerkamp, \u201dJames Henry Thornwell, Pro-Slavery Spokesman Within a Calvinist Faith,\u201d The South Carolina Historical Magazine<\/em>, 87:1 (Jan. 1986), 49-64.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/a> See <\/em>Farmer, The Metaphysical Conspiracy<\/em>, Chapter 3; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class<\/em>, Chapter 18.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/a> See <\/em>David N. Livingstone, Adam\u2019s Ancestors:\u00a0 Race, Religion & the Politics of Human Origins<\/em> (Baltimore:\u00a0 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2008), 182-190.<\/p>\n

[25]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 173-180.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., 180-182.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/a> Gen. 9:20.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/a> Gen. 9:22-25.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/a> See <\/em>Stephen R. Haynes, Noah\u2019s Curse:\u00a0 The Biblical Justifications of American Slavery<\/em> (Oxford:\u00a0 OUP 2002), Chapter 4 (noting connection between Southern honor culture and the Genesis 9 narrative).<\/p>\n

[30]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[31]<\/a> Dabney, A Defense of Virginia<\/em>, 101-104.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/a> Sermon, 11.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/a> John B. Adger, The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, Vol. 1<\/em>, (Richmond:\u00a0 Presbyterian Committee of Publication 1871), Appendix A, 582, \u00b64.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/a> See <\/em>Mark A. Noll & David A. Livingstone, eds., B.B. Warfield, Evolution, Science and Scripture, Selected Writings <\/em>(Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Baker 2000).<\/p>\n

[35]<\/a> Farmer, The Metaphysical Conspiracy<\/em>, 141-151.<\/p>\n

[36]<\/a> Adger, Collected Writings, Vol. 1<\/em>, Appendix A, 579, \u00b63.<\/p>\n

[37]<\/a> See <\/em>Bozeman, \u201cInductive and Deductive Politics:\u00a0 Science and Society in Antebellum Presbyterian Thought,\u201d 704-722; Bozeman, \u201cJoseph LeConte:\u00a0 Organic Science and a \u2018Sociology for the South,\u2019\u201d The Journal of Southern History<\/em> 39:4 (November 1973), 565-582.<\/p>\n

[38]<\/a> Bozeman, \u201cJoseph LeConte:\u00a0 Organic Science and a \u2018Sociology for the South,\u2019\u201d 707.<\/p>\n

[39]<\/a> Sermon<\/em>, 24.<\/p>\n

[40]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 40-41.<\/p>\n

[41]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, 27.<\/p>\n

[42]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[43]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[44]<\/a> John Belton O\u2019Neall, The Negro Law of South Carolina<\/em> (Columbia:\u00a0 John G. Bowman 1848), 5.<\/p>\n

[45]<\/a> See ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[46]<\/a> John Samuel, Harpham, \u201cTwo Concepts of a Slave in the South Carolina Law of Slavery,\u201d Slavery & Abolition<\/em>, May 25, 2017, available at\u00a0 http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/0144039X.2017.1323704.<\/p>\n

[47]<\/a> Cf. <\/em>Farmer, The Metaphysical Confederacy<\/em>, 196 (noting that some modern historians \u201chave seen the proslavery argument as a clear case of self-serving rhetoric\u201d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m very interested in the theological debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War.\u00a0 I’ve read many of the sermons, books, and tracts written by pro-slavery preachers and theologians from that era.\u00a0 I find them a fascinating, and chilling, reminder of how a theological system in one era can justify something that comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-QS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3280,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278\/revisions\/3280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}