Slavery

Abstract Evangelicals developed ideas that made the evangelicalism of slaves possible. At the same time, they produced a theology that justified the institution of slavery itself. Meanwhile, early African and Native converts challenged those who would define whiteness as Christianity, and the early abolition movement in England was empowered by the tireless efforts of religious activists. Early evangelicals developed proto-versions of the “positive good” pro-slavery argument. But the premises of evangelicalism, followed to their logical conclusion, also could undermine that very argument, particularly when set within the context of a liberal democratic society in America and parliamentary efforts in England to end the slave trade. And yet American evangelicals in the South produced the most sustained religious defense of slavery, one never successfully refuted by abolitionists. Early evangelicalism, then, had a complicated relationship with slavery, one that varied considerably between England and America/the United States. The evangelical role in early anti-slavery in England produced a massive change in sentiment toward slavery internationally, but American evangelicalism became a crucial part of the most powerful slave society created in the modern world.