Hermeneutics

of Slavery:
A Bible-Alone Faith and the Problem of Human Enslavement1
by Darius Jankiewicz

Not long ago, while driving on the freeway to Chicago, I noticed an old family van,
the back door of which was plastered with all sorts of stickers bearing religious messages.
One of these, prominently displayed at the center of the hatch, boldly stated: The Bible
says it! I believe it! That settles it! It was obvious to me that the owner of the van took the
Bible seriously and conscientiously adhered to its directives. Such devotion to the
normative text of Christianity should certainly be applauded. After all, I am myself a
devoted Christian who accepts the Bible as an inspired document, which is normative for
Christianity. I read my Bible on a regular basis, accept its teachings and attempt to live up
to its standards. As I passed the van I looked at the driver and our eyes met. I wondered, if
we ever had the chance to meet and talk, just the two of us, both committed to the Word of
God, how much would we really agree on? Most likely, it would not be much. Apart from
the general beliefs that all Christians share, such as that God exists, that the Bible is the
inspired Word of God, and that Jesus died for our sins and rose again, we would most likely
find plenty to disagree on. Unfortunately, these disagreements might preclude our
fellowshipping together as Christians, even though the Bible is at the core of our belief
system.
The fact that my hypothetical meeting with the driver of the van would most likely
result in various disagreements perhaps even strong disagreements shows the
limitations of the truism: The Bible says it! I believe it! That settles it! While such a
declaration may initially convey the impression of deep piety, it ultimately proves to be a
hollow and selfish premise, which promises much but does not deliver. This is because a
simplistic approach to Scripture does not take into consideration the very complex set of
conditions and circumstances that guide human encounter with the Word of God.
It is true that, on the one hand, the overall message of the Scriptures is simple and
may be understood by all: viz., that God created the world; that sin disrupted the
relationship of God with humanity; that through Jesus Christ God set in motion a plan of
reconciliation; and that one day Jesus will come back to take His children home.2 A deeper
and prayerful study may lead to a discovery of specific doctrinal precepts that may guide a
community of believers into a greater knowledge of God and result in, for example, a
Trinitarian confession of God. On the other hand, however, it must also be acknowledged
that the Bible was written over a period of about 1500 hundred years and addressed to a
variety of peoples and cultures separated from our time by two or three millennia. As such,
the Scriptures also contain pronouncements that are difficult to interpret. This, in turn,
leads to divergent interpretations and strongly held opinions. It is these difficult-tointerpret concepts that cause majority of disagreements among Christians and that would
likely lead to disagreement between the driver of the van and myself. Thus, while the

1This article first appeared in Journal of Adventist Mission Studies 12:1 (Summer 2016): 47-73.
2This is not to say that Christians always agree on teachings of the Scripture that can be described as

plain. Some arrive at opposite conclusions, even on such plain scriptural truths as the Second Coming of
Christ.

overall message of the Bible may be considered simple, human interaction with the Word
of God cannot be described as simplistic.3
Encountering such issues, thoughtful Christians are forced to ask questions such as
these: Why do I interpret a particular biblical passage in this way and my fellow pew
dweller interprets it in another? How do I know that my interpretation of a particular,
difficult passage is the correct one? What if what I think the text means actually means
something different? To what extent am I reading my own ideas into the text? Such
questions make the slogan The Bible says it! I believe it! That settles it too simplistic to
embrace.
Even a perfunctory examination of Christian history reveals that the problem I
encountered on my way to Chicago constitutes a micro-representation of a historical
phenomenon, which has occurred with increasing intensity among Christians since the
death of the apostles. Christian history is littered with disagreements over the
interpretation of the biblical message; disagreements that often led to schisms,
persecutions, excommunications, wars (some of which lasted decades), much killing and
many other atrocities. It seems that most people involved in such conflicts would agree
that they were basing their particular point of view on the teachings of Bible.4 Such
thinking was exhibited during one particular conflict that resulted in the soaking of
American soil with millions of gallons of American blood, viz., the American Civil War
(1861-1865).

Hermeneutical Foundations of the Pro-Slavery Position
It is well documented that the causes of the American Civil War are historically
complex and cannot be easily reduced to a single phenomenon.5 There appears to be little
doubt, however, that religious concerns flowing from a particular way of reading the Bible
were at the root of Southern Christianitys defense of slavery as a biblically and morally
sanctioned practice that could not, and should not, be abolished. Thus, at the beginning of a
foundational Christian pro-Slavery document, A Southern Address to Christendom, which
purposed to answer the question Is slavery a sin? we find these words:


3Clement Mok once stated: Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on
most. In Bill Jensen, Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster (New York:
Basic Books, 2000), 12.
4One of the longest and most destructive religio-political conflicts in European history was what
became known as the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), which resulted in millions of human casualties,
famines, destruction of commerce and manufacturing, as well as stagnation of intellectual life. The ultimate
result was that religion was greatly maimed. Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1970), 389-396.
5 Dale Anderson lists various reasons that led to the Civil War, including deep distrust between North
and South, as well as different economic and social situations; however, Anderson asserts that the major
reason was slavery. Causes of the Civil War (Milwaukee: World Almanac Library, 2004), 5-8. Two excellent
sources for further information could be listed here: Alan Farmer, Access to History: The American Civil War:
Causes, Courses and Consequences (London: Hodder Education Publishers, 2008), and J. G. Randall and David
Donald, The Divided Union (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961).

In answering this question, as a Church, let it be distinctly born in mind that the only
rule of judgment is the written word of God. The Church knows nothing of the
intuitions of reason or the deductions of philosophy, except those reproduced in the
Sacred Canon. She has a positive constitution in the Holy Scriptures, and has no
right to utter a single syllable upon any subject, except as the Lord puts words in her
mouth. She is founded, in other words, upon express revelation. Her creed is an
authoritative testimony of God, and not a speculation, and what she proclaims, she
must proclaim with the infallible certitude of faith, and not with the hesitating
assent of an opinion.6

This statement sets a hermeneutical foundation for the Southern way of reading the Bible.
For the Southerners, the Scriptures were to be read in the plainest way possible, with the
husks of human reason, culture, philosophy and all other influences peeled away.
Accordingly, because the Bible never condemned slavery, the Southerners considered the
abolitionist cause unbiblical, and the fact that slavery was not practiced in the North a
result of shifting cultural trends rather than a position founded on the Scriptures. James
Henley Thornwell (1812-1862), a prominent Southern Presbyterian minister, theologian
and religious writer, persuasively expressed this sentiment when he stated that Christian
beliefs must be founded only upon explicit Word of God and not a speculation.7 The
abolitionist position was, for him, an example of such speculation, based on culture rather
than on the explicit teaching of the Scriptures. Thus, he did not hesitate to utter strong
words of condemnation for the abolitionist cause:

The parties in this conflict are not merely Abolitionists and Slaveholders; they are
Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and the
friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the
battleground. Christianity and Atheism the combatants, and progress of humanity is
at stake.8

Similarly, the influential Episcopal bishop Henry Hopkins argued that it was
impossible to sustain an abolitionist cause without an extra-biblical appeal to modern
cultural trends. The Bible, he asserted, sanction[ed] the practice of slavery, so long as it
[was] administered in accordance with the precepts laid down by the Apostles.9 Antislavery campaigners, he argued, were delusionary and engaged in a willful or conscious

6A Southern Address to Christendom, in American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation With
Representative Documents, ed., H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy and Lefferts A. Loetschner (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1963), 206 (emphasis in the original).
7James Henley Thornwell, quoted in Mark Noll, The Bible and Slavery, in Religion and the American
Civil War, ed. by Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, Charles Reagan Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), 64 (emphasis in the original). Thornwell also served as a professor of theology in the Presbyterian
Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina.
8James Henley Thornwell, quoted in Eugene Genovese, James Henley Thornwell, in The Southern
Front: History and Politics in the Cultural War (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995), 37.
9John Henry Hopkins, Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery (New York: W. I. Pooley
& Co., 1864), 5.

opposition to the truth. These people, he charged, were seduced by the feelings of a false
philanthropy, which palliate[d], if it [could] not excuse, their dangerous error. The
abolitionists, he believed, did not know how to study their Bibles or how to be faithful to its
teachings. Consequently, they opened themselves to the influence of the newspapers, the
novel, and the magazine.10 On the contrary, he argued, the teachings of Scripture on the
matter of slavery are plain, and who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set
aside the Word of God, and . . . invent for ourselves a higher law that those holy Scriptures
which are given to us as a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths, in the darkness of a
sinful and a polluted world?11 The teachings of both the Old and New Testament
Scriptures are so plain, righteous, consistent, and palpable, argued John Bell Robinson,
that I cannot exercise a sufficient stretch of charity towards such men to believe them
sincere. But infidelity is at the bottom of the whole scheme of abolitionism. Thus the antislavery ministers who do not understand such plain teachings, he concluded
emphatically, are not fit for the Gospel ministry, and should be silenced for their
ignorance.12
No less strong in his convictions was the most distinguished representative of the
famous Princeton school of Theology,13 Charles B. Hodge (1797-1878),14 a deontologist
who believed that being right in the eyes of God meant strict adherence to divinely
established practices without consideration for outcomes or consequences. His support for
slavery proceeded from the deeply held conviction that slave holding was in accordance
with divine law.15 This conviction arose from his high regard for Scripture as the complete,
infallible and inerrant revelation of God.16 In his Bible Argument on Slavery article
published in the monumental, 900-page, pro-slavery volume Cotton Is King he wrote: we
recognize no authoritative rule of truth and duty but the word of God.17 Thus, anything
that could only be established by some abstract principles, such as the abolitionist cause,
could not be truth. Men are too nearly upon a par to their powers of reasoning, and
ability to discover truth, he wrote, to make the conclusions of one mind an authoritative

10Ibid., 17.
11Ibid., 16.
12John Bell Robinson, Pictures of Slavery and Anti-slavery (Philadelphia: North Thirteenth Street

Publishers, 1863). 91, 96.

13Princeton School of Theology was founded in 1812 as a protest against the encroachment of
theological liberalism, which undermined the authority of the Scriptures. Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through
the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 479.
14Charles B. Hodge Hodge was a staunchly Calvinist scholar who is widely regarded today as one of
the fathers of modern American fundamentalism. He is known as a systematician of Princeton theology, who
defended the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures. Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology
(Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1999), 559-558; cf., Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1940), 155-171.
15David Torbett, Theology and Slavery: Charles Hodge and Horace Bushnell (Macon: Mercer University
Press, 2006), 75.
16At this point it must be clarified that verbal inspiration and inerrancy does not necessarily
correlate with support for slavery. During Hodges own time, and later, many conservative theologians
supported verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures but strongly objected to slavery.
17Charles Hodge, Bible Argument on Slavery, in Cotton Is King, ed., E. N. Elliott (Augusta: Pritchard,
Abbott & Loomis, 1860), 847.

rule for others. It is our object, therefore, not to discuss the subject of slavery upon
abstract principles, but to ascertain the scriptural rule of judgment and conduct in relation
to it.18 The abolitionist cause, he believed, was based on mere impulse of feeling, and a
blind imitation of cultural trends, especially those coming from England, rather than on
the Bible itself.19
This brief review of the pro-slavery hermeneutical position makes it clear that
Southerners viewed the abolitionist position as antithetical to the very Word of God and
His established order, influenced more by modern culture than the Bible. They claimed
that the only rule of judgment is the written word of God,20 and the only safe hermeneutic
a conscientious adherence to the the plain and obvious teachings, of both Old and New
Testament, which are given with such irresistible force as to carry conviction to every
mind, except those wedded to the theory of a Higher Law than the Law of God.21 The
Higher Law, of course, was a reference to the abolitionists conjecture that, while
permitting the practice, the God of Scripture would, in essence, oppose slavery. For the
pro-slavery group, such a belief was based on human philosophy rather than the Word of
God. The only way to counter (and destroy) abolitionism, it was argued, was to strictly
adhere to the plain teachings of Bible on the matter. Thus, the noted Presbyterian
theologian, Robert Lewis Dabney, wrote: Here is our policy, then, to push the Bible
argument continually, to drive abolitionism to the wall, to compel it to assume an antiChristian position. By doing so we compel the whole Christianity of the North to array
itself on our side.22 James Henley Thornwell agreed when he wrote that the church is not
at liberty to speculate [regarding slavery] . . . When she speaks, it must be in the name of the
Lord, and her only argument is Thus it is written.23 James Stirling, a British scholar who
visited the Southern states during the 1850s, puzzled over this. He wrote: How those who
adhere to a literal interpretation of the Bible, and consider every direction contained in its
pages as applicable at all times to all men, are to reconcile these facts with modern antislavery notions, it is, thank goodness, no business of mine to find out.24

The Biblical Case for Slavery
Having established their hermeneutic as based on the plain and obvious teachings
of the Bible, and rejecting all traces of human reasoning, philosophy, contemporary cultural
trends and abstract principles, Southern pro-slavery theologians proceeded to make a
biblical case for slavery. They began by addressing the abolitionist argument that slavery
was sinful. Their answer was simple: standing on the foundation of the written Word of

18Charles Hodge, Slavery, in Essays and Reviews (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857), 480.
19Hodge, Bible Argument on Slavery, 842.
20A Southern Address to Christendom, 206.
21E. N. Elliott, Introduction, in Cotton is King, xiii.
22Thomas Cary Johnson, The Life and Letters of Lewis Dabney, vol. 3 (Richmond: Presbyterian

Committee of Publication, 1903), 129.

23James Henley Thornwell, Relation of the Church to Slavery, in The Collected Writings of James
Henley Thornwell, vol. 4., eds., John B. Adger and John L. Girardeu (Richmond: Presbyterian Committee of
Publication, 1873), 384 (emphasis in the original).
24James Stirling, Letters from the Slave States (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1857), 120.

God, they asserted that the Church had no authority to declare Slavery to be sinful, as
nowhere did the Bible, either directly or indirectly, condemn the relation of master and
servant as incompatible with the will of God. To argue the opposite was to hold in
contempt the naked testimony of God.25 Opposition to slavery, they argued, has never
been the offspring of the Bible and thus slavery cannot be considered sinful.26
In the earliest pages of the Scripture, they argued, God established human
hierarchical order when He declared, through the inspired mouth of Noah, Cursed be
Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers (Gen 9:25). May it not be said in
truth, wrote E. N. Elliott, that God decreed this institution before it existed; and has he not
connected its existence with prophetic tokens of special favor, to those who should be slave
owners or masters? He is the same God now, that he was when he gave these views of his
moral character to the world.27 We should not then be surprised, pro-slavery theologians
taught, that the patriarchs, most notably Abraham, not only did not condemn slavery but
actually owned slaves who were purchased with his money (Gen 17:13).28 Did not Job,
the man whom God said there is no one on earth like him also own slaves? (Job 1:3).
Moreover, was not slave ownership codified in the Ten Commandments? By commanding
slave-owners to give their slaves a day of rest, the fourth commandment indisputably
supported the institution of slavery, as did the tenth, which commanded against the
coveting of others slaves. Joining the debate and offering a Jewish perspective, Rabbi M. J.
Raphall argued:

[The tenth commandment places slaves] under the same protection as any other
species of lawful property. . . That the Ten Commandments are the word of God, and
as such, of the very highest authority, is acknowledged by Christians as well as by
Jews. . . How dare you, in the face of the sanction and protection afforded to slave
property in the Ten Commandmentshow dare you denounce slaveholding as a sin?
When you remember that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jobthe men with whom the
Almighty conversed, with whose names he emphatically connects his own most holy
name, and to whom He vouchsafed to give the character of 'perfect, upright, fearing
God and eschewing evil' . . . that all these men were slaveholders, does it not strike
you that you are guilty of something very little short of blasphemy?29

If the Ten Commandments, the foundation of the moral law of God, endorsed
slavery, how could Christians argue against it? Moreover, did not the Levitical law regulate
rather than abolish slavery? In Leviticus 25:39-46, they asserted, Moses clearly implied
that slaver ownership was part of the human condition. All Israelites, including priests,

25Thornwell, Relation of the Church to Slavery, 384.
26Ibid., 393; Hodge, Bible Arguments on Slavery, 849. Similar sentiments are expressed by John Bell
Robinson who wrote Therefore, if slavery be unscriptural, it cannot be tolerated by the Bible; and I cannot
see how the Bible can tolerate anything that is contrary to divine law. Robinson, 133.
27E. N. Elliot The Bible Argument: Or, Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation, in Cotton is King, ed.,
E. N. Elliott (Augusta: Pritchard, Abbott & Loomis, 1860), 463.
28Hodge, Bible Argument on Slavery, 859.
29M. J. Raphall, Bible View of Slavery (New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1859), 28-29.

were permitted to buy and own slaves (Lev 22:10-11; Num 31:25-26). While Israelites
were never to be sold as slaves they could only be treated as hired workers and released
at the time of Jubilee foreign slaves could be purchased and held for life. Furthermore,
slave owners were not to rule over fellow Israelites ruthlessly, suggesting that ruthless
rulership over foreign slaves was not necessarily an evil practice (Lev 25:46).
From the New Testament, pro-slavery theologians observed that while Jesus had
many opportunities to speak against slavery, He did not condemn it. In Matthew 8:10, for
example, Jesus never questioned the right of the centurion to own a slave. Instead, he
healed the slave and commended the centurion for his faith: Truly I tell you, I have not
found anyone in Israel with such great faith. Furthermore, he often used slavery to
illustrate His teachings. Many of his parables featured the theme of Masters and servants.
For example, Suppose one of you has a slave (doulos) plowing or looking after the sheep.
Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, Come along now and sit down
to eat? (Luke 17:7). Considering this lack of condemnation of slavery from Jesus, it is not
surprising that slave owners, believing that non-condemnation translated into approval, at
times used Jesus own words to instruct their slaves on obedience to their masters.30
Furthermore, pro-slavery theologians asserted that the Apostles also did not
condemn slavery. Did not Paul teach that each person should retain the place in life that
the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him (1 Corinthians 7:17)? And did
he not instruct slaves to not let it trouble them if they were slaves when called by God
(v. 21)? Moreover, rather than being troubled by the plight of slaves, Paul appeared to
emphasize spiritual equality among believers, asserting that all were baptized by one
Spirit so as to form one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free (1 Corinthians
12:13). Thus, Galatians 3:28 did not refer to the social situation of slaves, but rather, to the
salvation available to all. Accordingly, Paul instructed slaves to obey [their] earthly
masters . . . and serve them wholeheartedly (Ephesians 6:5-9); to consider their masters
worthy of full respect, so that Gods name and our teaching may not be slandered (1
Timothy 6:1-2); and to be subject to their masters . . . so that in every way they [would]
make the teaching about God our Savior attractive (Titus 2:9-10).
These passages formed the foundation for the Southern theologians opposition to
abolitionism. While they conceded that Scripture regulated slavery, and thus slaves in
Christian homes enjoyed special privileges, they did not believe that Scripture condemned
slavery. Thus, they concluded, the owner-slave relationship was not dissolved in the New
Testament, as was the case, for example, with polygamy. While God tolerated polygamy
during Old Testament times, this changed in the New Testament. That Christ did give a
new law on this subject, argued Hodge, is abundantly evident; however, this certainly
was not the case with slavery.31 Similarly, Richard Furman, an influential Baptist minister
who initially opposed slavery but was converted by the force of biblical arguments, stated:

The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by
precepts and example . . . Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be
supposed, that the inspired Apostles, who feared not the faces of men, and were

30Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 94.
31Hodge, Bible Argument on Slavery, 860.

7

ready to lay down their lives in the cause of their God, would have tolerated it, for a
moment, in the Christian Church. . . . In proving this subject justifiable by Scriptural
authority, its morality is also proved; for the Divine Law never sanctions immoral
actions.32

What of the Golden Rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you
proclaimed by Christ (Matthew 7:12)? A conventional approach would suggest that such a
principle would certainly advocate against slavery, as no human being would want to be
treated as a slave. Not so for the pro-slavery theologians. In fact, these theologians
advocated that, rather than abolishing slavery, the Golden Rule established it. Ending
slavery, they argued, could harm the established religious, social and economic order, and
could potentially destroy society, especially as slavery had been divinely instituted.33 Thus
Dabney wrote: I cannot conceive of any duty arising from the command to love my
neighbor as myself which compels me to inflict a ruinous injury on that neighbor, and such
would be immediate freedom to the slave.34 Abolitionism would also be harmful to former
slaves, who could not function in a civilized society and would most likely meet the fate of
the Native Americans.35 Furthermore, the Golden Rule demands that free men ask
themselves what they would consider reasonable and just if they were slaves.36 Thornwell
asserted: We are not bound to render unto them what they might in fact desire. Such a
rule would transmute morality into caprice. Instead, masters must grant their slaves that
which is just and equal, viz., to continue master-slave relationship established by God.37
Accordingly, pro-slavery theologians argued, slaves were to be grateful for their role
in the grand scheme established by the perfectly just God.38 The Africans of this
country, stated William A. Smith, in common with minors, imbeciles, and uncivilized
persons, have a right to be governed and protected, and to such means of physical comfort
and moral improvement as are necessary and compatible with their providential
condition.39 Considering the spiritual and social conditions of the savages in their
homeland of Africa, the pro-slavery theologians asserted, we cannot but accept it as a
gracious Providence that they have been brought in such numbers to our shores, and
redeemed from the bondage of barbarism and sin.40 We all know, wrote Kate Cumming,
what the negro is free and as a slave. In the latter capacity he is better, morally and
physically, than in the former, and he is much more respected in his place. Who is it that
can not relate story after story of the degradation of the negro in the North . . . . Why,

32James A. Roger, Richard Furman: Life and Legacy (Macon University Press, 1985), 277, 278-79.
33 A Southern Address to Christendom, 206.
34Johnson, 68.
35Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in
the Southern Slavehorders Worldview (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 621.
36Ibid.
37Ibid.
38Ibid., 622
39Ibid.
40Southern Address to Christendom, 209.

slavery is heaven to it in comparison.41 While abuse of slaves certainly occurred, such

situations were isolated and needed to be addressed; however, this was not a reason for
war. Instead, Northern politicians would do much better to legislate for the good of their
country and all in it, including slaves.42 Thus, for pro-slavery Southern theologians,
slavery did not contradict the Golden Rule of Christ.
Considering their approach to Scripture, it is not surprising that pro-slavery
theologians considered abolitionism to be a movement influenced by the benumbing
influences of culture and human philosophy, which they considered likely to pervert
judgment, rather than on Scripture.43 Ultimately, the abolitionist cause came to be
equated with unfaithfulness to the Bible.44 As Hodge asserted, We see no way of escape
from the conclusion that the conduct of the modern abolitionists, being directly opposed to
that of the authors of our religion, must be wrong and ought to be modified or
abandoned.45
The biblical foundation for the pro-slavery position was elucidated in the
quintessential document, A Southern Address to Christendom, issued the same year the
Civil War began.46 Nowhere in southern literature may one find the proslavery argument
developed with greater force or lucidity.47 While desirable, it is impossible to present the
document here in its entirety and the reader is referred to the original source in the
footnotes; however, it is important to present here some of what it is found therein. The
statement begins with a strong affirmation about its reliance on the Bible alone and follows
with these words:

The antagonism of Northern and Southern sentiment on the subject of slavery lies at
the root of all the difficulties which have resulted in the dismemberment of the
Federal Union, and involved us in the horrors of an unnatural war. . . And here we
may venture to lay before the Christian world our views as a Church, upon the
subject of slavery. We beg a candid hearing.
We have said enough to vindicate the position of the Southern Church. We have
assumed no new attitude. We stand exactly where the Church of God has always
stood from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, from Christ to the Reformers,
and from the Reformers to ourselves. We stand upon the foundation of the Prophets
and Apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief cornerstone. Shall we be excluded
from the fellowship of our brethren in other lands, because we dare not depart from
the charter of our faith? Shall we be branded with the stigma of reproach, because

41Kate Cumming, Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 2015), 158.
42Ibid., 158, 176.
43James Henley Thornwell, The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, vol., 4 (Richmond:
Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1873), 544.
44Smith, Handy and Loetschner, American Christianity, 177.
45Hodge, Bible Argument on Slavery, 849.
46Southern Address to Christianity, in Smith, Handy and Loetschner, 206-210. The first draft of the
document was composed by James Henley Thornwell.
47Ibid., 206.

we cannot consent to corrupt the Word of God to suit the intuitions of an infidel
philosophy? Shall our names be cast out as evil, and the finger of scorn pointed at us,
because we utterly refuse to break our communion with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
with Moses, David and Isaiah, with Apostles, Prophets and Martyrs, with all the
noble army of confessors who have gone to glory from slave-holding countries and
from a slave-holding Church, without ever having dreamed that they were living in
mortal sin, by conniving at slavery in the midst of them? If so, we shall take
consolation in the cheering consciousness that the Master has accepted us. We may
be denounced, despised and cast out of the Synagogues of our brethren.
But while they are wrangling about the distinctions of men according to the flesh,
we shall go forward in our Divine work, and confidently anticipate that, in the great
day, as the consequence of our humble labors, we shall meet millions of glorified
spirits, who have come up from the bondage of earth to a nobler freedom that
human philosophy ever dreamed of. Others, if they please may spend their time in
declaiming on the tyranny of earthly master; it will be our aim to resist the real
tyrants which oppress the soul Sin and Satan. These are the foes against whom we
shall find it employment enough to wage a successful war. And to this holy war it is
the purpose of our Church to devote itself with redoubled energy. We feel that the
souls of our slaves are a solemn trust, and we shall strive to present them faultless
and complete before the presence of God.48

It was sentiments such as these that eventually led the Southern church to support
the Civil War. God, they were convinced, was on their side. As Charles Hodge exclaimed, If
the present course of the abolitionists is right, then the course of Christ and the apostles
were wrong.49

Hermeneutical Foundations of the Anti-Slavery Position
Abolitionism was a complex and multifaceted movement involving people of all
walks of life.50 There were many abolitionists who could hardly be considered Christians
and whose behavior was questionable to Christian anti-slavery activists, even though they
shared the same cause.51 It cannot be denied, however, that, like the pro-slavery
theologians, Christian theologians who fought against slavery found their inspiration in the
Bible. The modern abolitionist movement emerged among English Quakers and other
evangelical groups,52 and the first modern anti-slavery activists were unquestionably
committed, Biblebelieving Christians. The star of the British anti-slavery movement,

48Ibid., 206-210.
49Hodge, 849.
50Richard S. Newman in his The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the

Early Republic (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002) provides an excellent overview of
the movement in the North America.
51Allen Carden, Freedoms Delay: Americas Struggle for Emancipation, 1776-1865 (Knoxville: The
University of Tennessee Press, 2014), 151.
52Clare Midgley, Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780-1870 (London: Routledge,
1992), 15.

10

William Wilberforce, was indubitably a born-again Christian.53 His friend and mentor, John
Newton, was a former slave ship captain who experienced conversion through the reading
of Scripture, subsequently abandoning the slave trade and becoming a Christian minister.54
In the United States, anti-slavery sentiments received a significant boost during the
Second Great Awakening, an evangelical movement that swept throughout North America
from the 1790s through to the early 1840s. While directed primarily towards spiritual
awakening, this movement also focused on social and personal reform, i.e., it aimed at
perfecting both the social order and the individual so that the millennium could begin.55
Unlike the First Great Awakening (~1720-1750s), which was led predominantly by
Calvinist thinkers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, both of whom owned
slaves,56 most of the leaders of the Second Great Awakenings leaned toward
Arminianism.57 In contrast to the Calvinist emphasis on the sovereignty of God and
predestination, Arminianism focused on love as the primary attribute of God, as well as
human free will. Arminianism thus encouraged social transformation as an outgrowth of
the Gospel message. This theological persuasion steered many toward the anti-slavery
position.58
Like the pro-slavery theologians, the anti-slavery movement, which grew out of the
Second Great Awakening, also emphasized the centrality of Scriptures. Now the Bible is
my ultimate appeal in all matters of faith and practice, wrote Angelina Grimk in her 1836
Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, and to this test I am anxious to bring the
subject at issue between us.59 Similarly, the authors of the Annual Report of the prominent
Sheffield Ladies Anti-Slavery Society insisted: the Bible, and the Bible alone is the touch
stone to which we would bring slavery. On the basis of their study of the Bible alone, they
concluded: Away with such things.60
While many Christian anti-slavery activists adopted the starting point of the Bible
and the Bible alone, their approach to the Bible was starkly different to that of the pro
53William Wilberforce, Private Letters of William Wilberforce (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897), 178.
54William E. Phipps, Amazing Grace in John Newton: Slave-ship Captain, Hymnwriter, and Abolitionist

(Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001).

55George Knight, A Search for Identity (Hagerstown: Review and Herald, 2000), 36-37; cf., John
Bicknell, American 1844: Religious Fervor, Westward Expansion, and the Presidential Election that Transformed
the Nation (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2015), 19.
56Thomas S. Kidd, George Whitefield: Americas Spiritual Founding Father (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2014), 111.
57Arminianism traces its roots to the teachings of a Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius
(1560-1609). For a quintessential treatment of Arminian theology see Roger Olson, Arminian Theology:
Myths and Realities (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006).
58Barry Hankins, The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists (Wesport: Greenwood
Press, 2004), 85-87; cf. Mark Noll, In the Beginning was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 208, 231.
59The full version of Angelina E. Grimks Appeal to the Christian Women of the South may be found
on the following website: http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abesaegat.html (emphasis in the original).
60Sheffield Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, Annual Report, 1827, 11, quoted by Alison Twells, We
Ought to Obey God Rather than Man: Women, Anti-Slavery, and Nonconformist Religious Cultures, in
Women, Dissent and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America, 1790-1865, eds., Elizabeth J. Clapp, and Julie Roy
Jeffrey, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 75.

11

slavery theologians. As evidenced above, pro-slavery theologians tended to concentrate on

individual statements in Scripture, constructing a theology of societal order that was
applicable at all times to all men.61 In contrast, anti-slavery Christians tended to focus on
the grand themes of Scripture, such as the love of God, His moral law, creation in the image
of God, freedom, equality, redemption and restoration. It was these grand scriptural
themes or abstract principles62 so reviled by pro-slavery theologians that provided a
hermeneutical lens for interpreting difficult passages of Scripture. Seen through this lens,
slavery was an utterly repulsive instrument of satanic oppression. This hermeneutical lens
was clearly evident in the 1818 report adopted by the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States, which condemned slavery in the most blistering
terms:63

We consider enslaving of one part of the human race by another, as gross violation
of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with
the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves . . . Slavery
creates a paradox in the moral system it exhibits rational, accountable, and
immortal beings, in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of
moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of others, whether they shall
receive religious instruction; whether they shall know and worship the true God;
whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the Gospel; whether they shall perform
the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and
children, neighbours [sic] and friends; whether they shall preserve their chastity
and purity, or regard the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the
consequences of Slavery consequences not imaginary but which connect
themselves with its very existence.64

Thus, while adopting a Bible and Bible alone stance, anti-slavery Christian activists
believed that universal, Bible-based principles of humanity and religion65 applied to all
human interactions; and that the difficult biblical passages regarding slavery should be
interpreted through the lens of these universal principles. So what were some of the antislavery arguments used by Christian abolitionists?

The Biblical Case Against Slavery
As outlined above, anti-slavery biblical arguments began with the concept of God as
love. Anti-slavery theologians proclaimed that God ha[d] no attribute in favor of slavery,
and that a God of love and grace can not love slavery.66 As George Thompson wrote, The

61Stirling, 120.
62See footnote 15 above.
63Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, in

American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents, ed., H. Shelton Smith,
Roberth T. Handy and Lefferts A. Loetschner (2New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1963), 179-180.
64Ibid.
65Ibid.
66Charles Elltiott, The Bible and Slavery (Cincinnati: LK. Swormstedt & A. Poe, 1857), 121.

12

religion of Christ is a religion of love, and thus it never has, it never can, sanction for a
moment, so foul, so inhuman, so impious, and murderous a system as that of . . .
SLAVERY.67 Furthermore, anti-slavery theologians emphasized the biblical teaching that
all humans were created in the image of God, making a compelling case that nothing
[could] annul the birth-right charter, which God ha[d] bequeathed to every being upon
which he ha[d] stamped his own image.68 As Frederick Douglass wrote: [Slavery] is an
attempt to undo what God has done, to blot out the broad distinction instituted by the
Allwise between men and things, and to change the image and superscription of the
everliving God into a speechless piece of merchandise. Such a decision cannot stand. God
will be true though every man be a liar.69 Anti-slavery theologians argued that the
creation of all humanity in the image of God negated racism, inequality and oppression of
any kind;70 and that all those created in Gods image [should] be included in We the
people.71 Moreover, they asserted that while Adam and Eve received dominion over all
creation, they were not given dominion over other human beings. Man then, I assert never
was put under the feet of man, by that first charter of human rights which was given by God
. . . therefore this doctrine of equality is based on the Bible.72
Having established a foundation for Christian abolitionism in the biblical account of
Creation, anti-slavery Christian activists moved to dismantle the pro-slavery position point
by point. Did Noahs curse established slavery? In his meticulously researched and written
masterpiece, The Bible and Slavery (1837), prominent Christian pastor and abolitionist
Theodore Dwight Weld asserted that, first, the curse was a prediction rather than a
normative declaration; second, the prophecy was fulfilled in Israels subjection of the
Canaanites some 900 years later, implying that the prophecy spoke to national rather than
individual servitude; third, it was service, rather than slavery, that was prophesied; and
that, finally, it could not be indubitably established that all Africans descended from Ham. 73
Accordingly, Weld maintained that this particular prophecy was not applicable to all men at
all times. Indeed, Abraham owned slaves; however, their situation was nothing like that of
the Southern slaves. For example note that Abraham though so great a man, [went] to the
herd himself and fetch[ed] a calf from thence and serv[ed] it up with this own hands, for
the entertainment of his guests. No aspect of biblical servitude, according to Christian
abolitionists, resembled slavery practiced in the American South.74 Furthermore, while the

67George Thompson, The Substance of Mr. Thompsons Lecture on Slavery Delivered in the Wesleyan

Chapel (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1836), 18 (emphasis in the original).

68John F. Kilner, Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 11.
69Frederic Douglass, quoted in Kilner, 11-12.
70Grimk, 3.
71Richard Wayne Wills, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Image of God (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 15.
72Grimk, 3.
73Theodore Dwight Weld, The Bible Against Slavery, Pittsburgh: United Presbyterian Board of
Publications, 1864), 95-98.
74Grimk, 4.

13

law of Moses permitted slavery, it was subject to stringent regulations, and in no way
established an antecedent for American slavery.75
The fact that Jesus and the apostles did not actively oppose the institution of slavery
did not mean that they condoned it. Nineteenth-century writer Ellen G. White closed the
door on this argument when she wrote:

It was not the apostles work to overturn arbitrarily or suddenly the established
order of society. To attempt this would be to prevent the success of the gospel. But
he taught principles which struck at the very foundation of slavery and which, if
carried into effect, would surely undermine the whole system.76

In this passage, White asserted three things: first, she suggested that it was not the role of
the Apostles, which would include their Master, to oppose the cultural conventions of the
times in which they lived, as doing so would undermine the preaching of the Gospel;
second, she emphasized the overarching principles, so reviled by pro-slavery theologians,
which undermined human inequality and other unjust social practices; and third, White
implied that the preaching of the Gospel would inevitably result in social change. This was
also pointed out by anti-slavery Christian writer W. E. Channing, who stated:

Slavery, in the ages of the Apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately
interwoven with it . . . that a religion, preaching freedom to the slave, would have
shaken the social fabric to its foundation, and would have armed against itself the
whole power of State. Paul did not then assail the institution. He satisfied himself
with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its
destruction.77

This brings us to the Magna Carta of the abolitionists movement, Pauls statement in
Galatians 3:28: There is neither, Jew not Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is
neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Pro-slavery advocates believed
that this passage referred only to the commonality of faith and the equal offer of salvation
to all, regardless of their social standing.78 They believed that this social standing was
established by God and thus could not be changed; and that Pauls inclusion of slave and
free in the same sentence indicated that Pauls intent was not to abolish the master-slave
relationship.79 After all, this same Paul wrote: Slaves, obey your masters. Would not

75Weld, 104-114.
76Ellen G. White, Acts of the Apostles (Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911),

459-460.
77W. E. Channing, The Complete Works of W. E. Channing (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1870),
599 (emphasis mine).
78E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil
War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 497.
79Josiah Priest, Bible Defense of Slavery: And Origin, Fortunes, and History of the Negro Race (Glasgow:
Rev. W. S. Brown, M.D., 1852), 533-534.

14

using Galatians 3:28 as an anti-slavery passage force Paul to contradict himself?80 Thus,
pro-slavery theologians did not interpret this passage in terms of social justice; rather, they
suggested that a Christian slave should not be discouraged by his bondage, for by faith in
Christ he is a freeman in the highest and best sense of the term, a brother and fellow-heir,
with his believing master, of eternal glory in heaven. . . All earthly distinctions and blessings
vanish into utter insignificance when compared with the eternal realities of the kingdom of
God.81 Accordingly, they asserted that Paul spoke only of equal access to salvation for all
believers, leaving the divinely instituted distinction between the bond and the free
intact.82
Christian abolitionists could not have read Galatians 3:28 more differently. While
they agreed that Paul spoke of the commonality of faith and equal availability of salvation
for both slave and free, and while they agreed that the passage did not explicitly abolish
the institution of slavery, they were convinced that in proclaiming neither bond nor free,
Paul planted the seed for future abolitionism. How could a Christian, who had received
salvation by the blood of Jesus, continue keeping others in slavery? Rather, they asserted
that, if truly embraced, Pauls doctrine would lead to universal emancipation. . . If all
masters and all slaves became Christians, slavery would at once cease and no oppression
of human by another human would continue.83 Thus, abolitionists viewed this passage not
only as a proclamation of spiritual equality but also the seeds of social and racial equality.
With reference to Galatians 3:28 and similar passages, Goldwin Smith wrote:

[They] do not inculcate social or political apathy; they do not pass, upon the
Christian world a sentence of social or political despair. The faculties for social
improvement, and the desire to redress inequality and injustice, which God had
given us, the Son of God did not take away. On the contrary, He and His Apostles
increased those faculties and that desire a thousand-fold by the principles of mutual
affection and duty which they instilled into the heart of man, and by the new force of
self-devotion which they added to his moral powers.84

Many black American slaves embraced this understanding of the Gospel of Christ,
and the liberating hermeneutic of the abstract principles so reviled by pro-slavery
theologians enthralled them. The equality of all people before God or gospel equality
became the hermeneutical key to understand[ing] both scripture and their social

80David M. Whitford, The Curse of Ham and the Early Modern Era: The Bible and the Justifications for

Slavery (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 30.

81John Richter Jones, Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1861), 25;
cf., William Dool Killen, The Ancient Church: Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution (New York: Charles
Scribner, 1859), 324-325.
82G. D. Armstrong, The Christian Doctrine of Slavery (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1857), 6570; cf., George Junkin, The Integrity of Our National Union, vs. Abolitionism: An Argument from the Bible
(Cincinnati: R. P. Donogh, 1843), 50.
83Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the New Testament: II Corinthians and Galatians
(Glasgow: Blackie and Son, 1844), 354.
84Goldwin Smith, Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery? (Cambridge: Sever and Francis, 1863),
84-85.

15

situation.85 Unsurprisingly, many slave owners endeavored to limit the religious

education of their slaves, lest they imbibe such abstract principles and buy into the
liberating hermeneutic of the Gospel of Christ.86 Opposing such educational practices,
and with a good dose of irony, Charles Elliott wrote:

If the relation of the master and slave is one recognized in the Bible, then the Bible is
the right book to put into the hands of the slaves; and the slave should immediately
be taught to read, that he may read the Bible, which, they say, sanctions slavery. If
the Bible never speaks of slavery as sinful, then the best thing that could be done to
support slavery would be to teach all the slaves to read it, that slavery may have the
sanction of the Bible, as some pretend to affirm that it has.87

In addition to Galatians 3:28, anti-slavery Christian activists explored a plethora of
biblical passages that they saw as addressing the problem of slavery. They asserted that
Moses proclamations in Exodus 21:16 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16 should alone be
sufficient to put an end to slavery. They declared that Jesus mission of preach[ing] good
news to the poor and proclaim[ing] freedom for the prisoners (Luke 4:18) was
incompatible with the institution of slavery.88 To the argument that Onesimus was
returned to his owner they countered that christianity [sic], in this, as in many other cases,
has provided, without express precepts, a sure and inoffensive corrective of all oppressive
institutions, by the gradual influence of its liberal and benignant maxims; which did, in
point of fact, dissolve the bonds of slavery in most parts of the Christian world.89 They
saw the principle of human equality of all humans in Pauls declaration that From one man
he made every nation of men (Acts 18:26). This, they argued, was the foundation of the
American Declaration of Independence.90
Having surveyed all the scriptural evidence, the authors of the Address to Christians
of All Denominations on the Inconsistency of Admitting Slaver-Holders to Communion and
Church Membership (1831) concluded that the modern system of negro slavery finds no
support in the scriptures [sic], either of the Old or New Testament, and is directly at
variance with the spirit and design of the gospel of Christ. Slavery, they concluded, will
soon cease to be a curse upon our country, and a disgrace to our nation. Then will the

85Demetrius K. Williams, And End to this Strife: The Politics of Gender in African American Churches

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 103.

86James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among
Northern Free Blacks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 19-20.
87Charles Elliott, Sinfulness of American Slavery, vol. 1 (Cincinnati: L. Swormstedt & J. H. Power,
1850), 127 (emphasis in the original).
88Address to Christians of All Denominations on the Inconsistency of Admitting Slaver-Holders to
Communion and Church Membership (Philadelphia: S. C. Atkinson, Printer, 1831), 10, 11.
89Ibid., 12.
90Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 2006), 41.

16

blessing of him that was ready to perish, come upon us, and the soul of the emancipated
slave will be made to sing for joy.91
Analysis
Even a cursory perusal of Christian history shows that the Bible played a pivotal role
in shaping its narrative. On the one hand, Christians consider this collection of ancient
documents an inspired fount of knowledge about God, human origin and destiny, as well as
Gods offer of salvation in Christ Jesus. This knowledge has been an enduring source of
Christian comfort and hope, as well as a source of the moral code of countless societies. At
the same time, however, the Christian Scriptures have been a source of intense
disagreement. There has never been a period when Christian thinkers, scholars and
believers did not argue about the meaning of individual passages and words. At times,
these disagreements have ended peacefully, with adherents of various interpretations
willing to agree to disagree and live side by side in peace. At other times, these
disagreements have led to war. From the early post-Apostolic era, millions of human
beings have lost their lives as a result of disagreeing scriptural interpretations.
This was also a major factor during the American Civil War, in which, according to
some estimates, over one million people lost their lives. Conflicts of such magnitude are
usually caused by a variety of historical, geo-political and social circumstances, which are
beyond the scope of paper. Instead, the reader is referred to the many volumes that
explain the Civil War and its causes. The main reason for this paper is to bring attention to
the fact that theologians and Christian activists on both sides of this conflict claimed to use
the Bible alone to buttress their position on slavery. Both considered the Bible to be Gods
revelation and thus the only authoritative document for Christian doctrine and practice;
both claimed adherence to its teachings and advocated reading it in a plain manner; and
yet both arrived at dramatically different conclusions. How could this be?
The most probable answer to this question lies in the two related but divergent
approaches to hermeneutics adopted by these two groups. At the risk of
oversimplification, but for the sake of clarity, I would like to label these two approaches as
static and dynamic hermeneutics. A static hermeneutic stops at the level of the text
thus embracing a literalistic approach to controversial biblical passages. Such a reading of
the text is then considered to transcend all cultural barriers, and its conclusions to be
applicable at all times to all men.92 Before continuing, it is necessary to distinguish
between the terms literal and literalistic. Jii Moskala offers this helpful explanation:
Literal means that one reads the biblical text in its context with its intended message
meanwhile literalistic reading means that the biblical text is taken in a very narrow
dogmatic way without applying its contextual and larger theological considerations.93


91Address to Christians of All Denominations on the Inconsistency of Admitting Slaver-Holders to

Communion and Church Membership, 12, 19.

92Stirling, 120.
93Jii Moskala, Back to Creation: Toward a Consistent Adventist CreationFallRe-Creation
Hermeneutic, paper presented to the Theology of Ordination Study Committee in July 2013. The full text of
the paper is available here: https://www.adventistarchives.org/back-to-creation.pdf (accessed on June 16,
2016)

17

Similarly to a static hermeneutic, a dynamic hermeneutic affirms that the text

can be read in a plain way but it also gives careful attention to the immediate and wider
context of the passage. Furthermore, it endeavors to frame controversial passages within
broader biblical principles. Accordingly, overarching themes, such as God is Love, back
to Creation narrative, love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others, be holy because I
am holy, etc., become part of the hermeneutical lens through which difficult scriptural
passages are interpreted. This is exactly what happened in the case of the Christian antislavery movement.
The Scripture itself provides support for this kind of interpretative procedure.94 In
Nehemiah 8:8 the Levites read from the Book of the Law of God to the people and then
interpreted it, or gave it the meaning, so that the people understood what was being read.
Once the people understood the Word of God, they were encouraged to put it into
practice. The same three-step interpretative process is evident in Luke 10:25-37, where an
expert in the law engaged Jesus in conversation. First, Jesus asked, What is written in the
law? a question that, on its own, would seem to support a literalistic approach; however,
Jesus immediately moved on to ask, How do you read it? a process that required
interpretation in view of the context. Only in light of this second step, in which the meaning
of the passage was understood, does Christ urge the expert to put His teaching into practice
(v.37). Finally, in Luke 24:13-35, Jesus appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Once again, the discussion began with a literalistic interpretation of the prophetic words
and a cherished opinion. Jesus then admonished the disciples: How foolish you are, and
how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! . . . And beginning with
Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures
concerning himself (v.27).95 Once the disciples eyes were opened through Christs
contextual interpretation, they immediately put to practice what they heard. These
passages point to a holistic way of interpreting difficult scriptural passages. First, one
begins with the text; then contextual and larger theological considerations96 such as
overarching biblical themes are taken into account, giving the passage meaning (Neh
8:8); and finally, the message is applied. It is evident that pro-slavery theologians bypassed
the second step, moving directly from a literalistic reading to application.
Can a dynamic or principled interpretation lead to a more subjective way of
interpreting Scripture? This cannot be denied. However, the foundation for such an
approach to scriptural interpretation lies in the fact that, albeit inferior, our understanding
of Gods attributes is analogous to the way God understands them. Take, for example, the
concept of love. If we make a sharp, qualitative distinction between Gods love and
human love, then we make God incomprehensible, and statements such as God is love or
God is just are meaningless. If such concepts are divorced from human experience, then
knowledge of God becomes humanly impossible. The reason why God revealed Himself in
the Scriptures was to help humanity comprehend what His love and His justice are like.

94I am indebted to Ron du Preez, who reviewed my paper prior to its publication and brought to my

attention the three-pronged interpretative approach (observation, interpretation, and application) as well as
the passages supporting it.
95Emphasis mine.
96Moskala, 10.

18

Furthermore, this revelation was given so that our damaged understanding of the moral
principles of Gods government could be corrected. It is such an approach to scriptural
interpretation that provided the foundational framework for those Christians who opposed
slavery. To suggest that God, who revealed Himself in the Scriptures through the life and
death of Jesus Christ, condoned the atrocity of American slavery was, for them, tantamount
to blasphemy. It was this cognitive dissonance that pro-slavery theologians were willing to
live with, whereas besmirching the character of God was a risk that abolitionist Christians
were not willing to take.
As I have reflected on this subject, a question kept returning to my mind: What
makes readers of the Bible choose one hermeneutical approach over another? Before
attempting to answer this question, I need to make an observation. In my 26 years of
Christian ministry, as a local church pastor, missionary and academic, I am yet to meet a
believer who uses only one hermeneutical approach consistently. This is also my own
experience. Shifting back and forth between hermeneutics is not necessarily undesirable.
A hermeneutically static approach to some scriptural passages may be appropriate,
whereas a dynamic approach may add a new dimension to our understanding of certain
texts. After all, God created us to use both reason and experience when interacting with
external data. Furthermore, none of us have complete knowledge of all things and we
continue to grow in our understanding. Thus, consciously choosing a consistent
hermeneutical approach might not be possible or desirable. Otherwise, how could anyone
ever experience a phenomenon of changing of ones mind? But I have also observed that
much of our intra-denominational conflict is caused by diverse hermeneutical approaches
to the same scriptural passage. Thus, we return to the question posed above: What is it
that makes us choose a particular hermeneutical approach over another when approaching
a difficult passage of the Bible?
The answer that makes most sense to me is that it is our worldview, based on a
variety of presuppositions, which tends to makes us choose a particular hermeneutical
approach. However we might deny it, it is incontrovertible that we bring ourselves into the
reading of the text. Once again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, having a
worldview is necessary if we want to approach Scripture in a meaningful way. For
example, a person who believes that the Bible is the Word of God will approach the text in a
different way than one who espouses atheism. We also bring ourselves into the reading of
text when we think of Gods attributes, such as His love. When I encounter the word
love in the New Testament, I subconsciously assume that what the author had in mind
matches my own concept of love. This, however, may not necessarily be true. After all, my
twenty-first century understanding of the concept of love may be different from the
original authors concept of love. And not only is the English word love used to
translate several different Greek words, but different cultures, families and religious
traditions, such as Calvinism and Arminianism, can understand the concept of love in
diverse ways.97 The same applies to other attributes of God, such as His justice,
goodness, sovereignty, etc. The bottom line is that we are not usually conscious of the
fact that we bring our worldview, or cultural presuppositions, with us when we approach

97John Peckham deals with this phenomenon in depth in his masterful study of Gods love. The Love

of God (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015).

19

the text of the Bible. I believe that this is the key to understanding what happened in
American society prior to the Civil War.
While researching material for this paper, I was astounded to find so many biblical
passages relating to slavery. If considered in their entirety, and in isolation from the
abstract principles of the Bible, these passages establish a powerful pro-slavery
argument. While I knew that these passages existed, I had always subconsciously applied a
dynamic hermeneutic to them, deeming them irrelevant to my life and the society I was a
part of. This was because the worldview I grew up with provided the subconscious
presupposition that slavery was an abhorrent and inhumane practice. Interestingly, this
presupposition did not come from the church, but rather, from public education in
communist Poland, where I grew up. The theme of slavery was so distant and so irrelevant
to my Christian life that I dont ever remember discussing it with fellow believers. It was
my atheist teachers who instilled in me repugnance for slavery. Later, my maturing
Christian worldview aligned with what I had been taught by my cultural environment.
Similarly, in modern America people are taught from childhood, at home, school and
church, through the newspapers, the novel, and the magazine,98 that any form of slavery
is evil. It is not surprising, therefore, that when we read the biblical passages on slavery,
we subconsciously choose a dynamic or principled hermeneutic.
Not so with the youth of the antebellum South, who grew up accustomed to slavery.
Surrounded by slave nannies, slave cooks, slave housekeepers and slave plantation
workers, children were taught that slavery was an inherent part of the economy, that their
wellbeing depended on slave labor, and that God had ordained it this way. They also grew
up believing that slavery benefited their slaves; that because slaves were a different
category of human beings, a permanently inferior and brutish separate human species,99
they needed bondage to bring out the best in them.100 Thomas Jefferson, one of Americas
Founding Fathers, believed that blacks ability to reason was much inferior to the whites,
while in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous and inferior to the whites in
the endowments of body and mind.101 For Jefferson, the equality of mankind could only
be achieved by excluding blacks.102 As a result, many Southern Christians viewed
Abraham Lincoln as an uncontrollable, hypocritical, anti-Christian villain who started an
unnatural war that would destroy the divinely established social order, rather than as a
hero;103 Uncle Toms Cabin as a powerful propaganda weapon for the North, rather than
as a literary masterpiece 104 and abolitionism as an ideology that struck at the heart of their

98See footnotes and 8 and 9 above.
99Waldo E. Martin, The Mind of Frederick Douglass (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1984), 231. Frederick Douglass dedicated his life to counter such misconceptions; cf., Discussions on
American Slavery: In Dr. Wardlows Chaper, Between Mr. George Thompson and the Rev., R. J. Breckinridge
(Glasgow: George Gallie Publisher, 1836), 136.
100 Cumming, 158.
101 Paul Finkelman, Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson (London: M. E.
Sharpe, 2014), 197.
102 Ibid.
103 Cumming, 14-15, 158-159, 174-176.
104 Ibid., 175.

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Christian worldview. This was what the children of the antebellum South were taught at
home, school and church, through the newspapers, the novel, and the magazine. This
shaped their adult worldview, their normal, the lens through which they read their Bibles.

Conclusion
In 495 AD, the Roman writer Plautus uttered the famous words Homo homini lupus,
i.e., Man is wolf to man. Since that time, this phrase has been used to describe the various
atrocities committed by humans against other humans. Throughout Christian history,
many such atrocities were committed in the name of Scripture. The modern slave trade,
which took millions of human beings from their African homeland to American slavery, was
one such atrocity; the horrific treatment of slaves by their Southern masters was another.
Even those who might be considered good masters believed slavery to be divinely
sanctioned. While they agreed that slaves should not be mistreated, they believed that
these isolated incidents could be dealt locally with and did not warrant a war.
We must always keep in mind that, in terms of human cruelty, American slavery is
on par with atrocities such as the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust or the genocide in
Rwanda. Not one of our modern, intra-church disagreements even comes close to the
inhumanity of these conflicts. In the case of Southern slavery, however, we must take into
account that most slave owners were Christians who justified their practices by what they
believed were the plain teachings of the Bible. Thus, while underscoring the inhumanity
of Southern slavery and embracing the a-priori position that modern slavery is
incompatible with the biblical principle of Gods love, it is important for us to draw some
lessons for today. Otherwise, we might be in danger of fulfilling George Santayanas
aphorism: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
So what can we learn from this investigation? Most importantly, we would do well
to recognize that we all approach the Bible with a variety of presuppositions, which are
shaped by our prenatal and childhood experiences, our personalities, our interactions with
families and friends, our education and by the media. As a result, we all approach Scripture
with a different set of intellectual tools. I am convinced that there are no two individuals
who are perfectly hermeneutically aligned. This is what I consider as hermeneutical
misalignment, a concept that there are too many variables in our individual development
for Christians to all arrive at identical understandings of controversial biblical passages.
After all all cannot see in the same line of vision.105 While a group of believers should
agree on the grand themes of the Bible and arrive at a set of fundamental teachings of
Scriptures based on these themes; and while it is reasonable to expect that all who belong
to a group or denomination agree with its fundamental beliefs; it is both futile and harmful
to the community to expect that everyone agree on the interpretation of all scriptural
passages. We cannot then take a position, wrote Ellen G. White, that the unity of the
church consists in viewing every text of the Scripture in the very same shade of light.106

105 Ellen G. White, Faith and Works (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1979), 14.
106 Ellen G. White, Biblical Counsel on Solving Church Difficulties, in Manuscript Release 15, no. 1158

(Silver Spring: E. G. White Estate, 1993), 150; cf., Ellen White, Selected Messages, vol.1 (Washington, D.C.:
Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1958), 22. For an excellent exposition of Ellen G. Whites views on
Scriptural interpretation, as well as the issues of unity and diversity, see Jerry Moons article Unity in

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Within the unifying boundaries of agreement on fundamental Christian doctrines,

hermeneutical misalignment is a good and desired phenomenon. It is, after all, a result of
Gods design for human individuality. Thus, Christians functioning in an environment
characterized by the grand themes of Gods love for humanity and human love for God and
for one another (John 3:16; Matt 22:37-39) should celebrate hermeneutical
misalignment.107 Within such an environment, believers can be encouraged to recognize
the reality of its existence and to explore its benefits, including mutual understanding,
possible adjustment of ones presuppositions, constructive conflict, theological
development, and the joy of belonging to a community of diverse people who believe in the
concept of present truth.
While necessary and beneficial, hermeneutical misalignment can also produce
unhealthy conflict. This occurs when the overarching principles of Gods love towards
humanity and humans love towards one another are neglected within the community.
Individual believers, or small group of believers within a denomination, become locked up
within the prison of their own worldview, at times even denying that they approach
Scripture from within a particular worldview. Under such circumstances, dogmatism
trumps other values; the aphorism my way or the highway becomes a reality; personal
and communal growth is stifled; theological development suffers; and the concept of
diversity becomes anathema. Ultimately, such communities tear themselves apart, all for
the sake of an ideology. A lonely driver with a sticker on his hatch door proclaiming The
Bible says it! I believe it! That settles it! becomes just that - a lonely driver on the highway
of his or her own presuppositions.
Second, considering the reasons outlined above, it behooves us to prayerfully
acknowledge the fact that none of us approaches the biblical text with a blank slate.108 We
must each ask for the Holy Spirit to help us to recognize, understand and, if necessary, give
us strength to align our presuppositions according to Gods will.109 Recognizing that our
worldview, as well as the worldview of those who oppose our positions, influences the
reading of the Scripture may help with healing wounds and moving forward.
Third, we must always be aware that eisegesis is an ever-present danger for all
students of the Bible. Like the Christians of the antebellum South, all who study the
Scriptures face the temptation to bring certain Scriptures together, and interpret passages
of the Bible, so as to give coloring to [our] views. We must thus be careful not to engage in
wresting the Scriptures to make them appear to say that which they do not say.110

Diversity in The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, ed. by Denis Fortin and Jerry Moon (Hagerstown: Review and
Herald Publishing Association, 2013), 1241-1244.
107 Ellen White thus wrote: One man may be conversant with the Scriptures, and some particular
portion of the Scripture is especially appreciated by him because he has seen it in a certain striking light;
another sees another portion as very important; and thus one and another presents the very points to the
people that appear of highest value. This is all in the order of God. White, Biblical Counsel on Solving Church
Difficulties, 149-150 (italics supplied).
108 White, Selected Messages, vol.1, 19-21.
109 Cf., Ellen G. White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students Regarding Christian Education
(Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1913), 463.
110 Ellen G. White, Counsels to Writers and Editors (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1946),
153.

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And finally, we must humbly acknowledge that God might choose culture to provide
a wake-up call for Christians. It is not always a one-way street. Christians are continually
admonished not to conform to the patterns of this world (Rom 12:2) and reject the
practices that are clearly contrary to the Word of God. At the same time, however, we must
be aware that God can use culture to nudge Christians to carefully re-examine their
cherished opinions111 in the light of Scripture. This is what happened during the Second
Great Awakening. The Northern culture of anti-slavery, whether influenced by the Bible or
secular humanism, ultimately prevailed in the South and throughout the Western world. A
testimony to this fact is that, today, atheists and Christians alike agree that slavery was an
inhumane institution and a stain upon the fabric of the American nation.

91.

111 Ellen G. White, Christ Object Lessons (Battle Creek: Review and Herald Publishing Company, 1900),

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