Calvinism Drove Slavery? How Do You Figure That?

[Reformed1689]

I was reading an article regarding Albert Mohler's announcement that he will accept a nomination to be SBC President in June. While reading the article, I came across a very interesting, and absurd, accusation. The accusation is that Calvinism somehow drove slavery. How do they figure that?

Calvinism is the theology that drove slavery in America, and provided a false theological justification for its existence.

Response to Albert Mohler’s Nomination for SBC President

 

[Reynolds]

I was reading an article regarding Albert Mohler's announcement that he will accept a nomination to be SBC President in June. While reading the article, I came across a very interesting, and absurd, accusation. The accusation is that Calvinism somehow drove slavery. How do they figure that?



Response to Albert Mohler’s Nomination for SBC President

It didn't. Good propaganda though. Calvinism hit with the race card .

 

[Reformed1689]

It didn't. Good propaganda though. Calvinism hit with the race card .

Yeah, my mouth about hit the floor when I read the article.

 

[StefanM]

I don't think it's reasonable to blame Calvinism as the theology driving slavery. That being said, one can definitely twist Calvinistic theology in an attempt to justify something like slavery as "God's will," and I do think this occurred in some cases. Some with a pro-slavery agenda could portray the slave holder - slave and/or race-based social hierarchy as being ordained/predestined by God and that it would be rebellious against God not to accept the status quo.

Less deterministic theological perspectives could counter this narrative, but that doesn't mean that we are talking about a nuanced discussion of theology. Any application of Calvinistic theology for personal benefit by upholding the institution of slavery, or by justifying racism is a sinful, flawed application of that theology.

Of course, anyone can twist any theology for their own personal benefit, and we definitely know people will twist Scripture.

 

[StefanM]

It has been over a decade since I've even touched this book, but this massive tome provides a lot of insight into Southern slaveholders' worldview and their theological beliefs:

The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Master-...ind+of+the+master+class&qid=1573149002&sr=8-1

These authors (now deceased) started their academic careers with a generally Marxist ideology, which they later repudiated. I don't have my copy of the text any more, but it most definitely was not a hit job against "elites" of the old South. Do not let the title fool you!

 

[Revmitchell]

I was reading an article regarding Albert Mohler's announcement that he will accept a nomination to be SBC President in June. While reading the article, I came across a very interesting, and absurd, accusation. The accusation is that Calvinism somehow drove slavery. How do they figure that?



Response to Albert Mohler’s Nomination for SBC President

McKissic is far worse than Trump with his mouth. He shoots off all kinds of trolling accusations. He has no credibility except over at the very liberal SBC Voices. Let it go.

 

[Katarina Von Bora]

I asked Mr. McKissic why he would say such thing, given John Newton's and William Wilberforce's fight against slavery.

I believe that McKissic enjoys being a self victim. Stirring the pot and developing conspiracy theories.

 

[Jerome]

I asked Mr. McKissic why he would say such thing, given John Newton

Newton was really an anomaly among Puritans and their heirs!

per Puritanism scholar Dr. Richard Bailey:

Joe Thorn • 1689 Baptist Confession blog

"I...found myself wrestling with the ways puritans viewed 'race' and slavery."

"saying something like, 'We must understand these puritans were simply men of their times'...[is] such a copout....the puritans were often among the 'worst men of their times'....they were sinners. Sinners that needed a Savior"

"there were a few puritans and 'sons of puritans' speaking out against slavery. But woefully few."

"hymn writer John Newton is one....After being captured and sold into slavery in Africa, Newton became a Christian and lived with the contradictions of slavery as he captained several slave vessels. Some thirty years after his retirement, Newton spoke out against the African slave trade"

"[But] in general puritans supported the enslavement of other humans in finances, in theory, and in practice."

"nearly all of them deemed slavery (and race-based slavery in particular) as part of the way that God had ordered the world."

"Puritans on both sides of the Atlantic secured slaves...it was more common for English puritans in the Americas to do so simply because slaves were so prevalent there. Puritan ministers and leaders were often the people in a given community who had the necessary capital to purchase other humans....The accounts of how puritan ministers abused their 'human property' are there and such accounts are mindboggling."

 

[Martin Marprelate]

"hymn writer John Newton is one....After being captured and sold into slavery in Africa, Newton became a Christian and lived with the contradictions of slavery as he captained several slave vessels. Some thirty years after his retirement, Newton spoke out against the African slave trade"

I think only someone who has not read Newton's biography could write such a thing.
It did indeed take Newton a few years after his conversion to understand the horrors of slavery, but after that he was opposed to it all through his ministry. The writer is possibly think of his testimony given just before the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, which was just before his death, but he had preached and written against it long before that.
I cannot speak with any authority about the situation in America, but it was Calvinists who spearheaded the campaign against it in Britain, which saw first of all the proclamation that a man became free when he stepped onto the shores of England (Achieved around 1775 by Granville Sharp), the abolition of the slave trade within the Empire in 1807 (William Wilberforce et al), and finally the freeing of the slaves in the West Indies and elsewhere in 1834. Google up the name William Knibb in connection with that. He was a Baptist missionary to Jamaica.

They were all Calvinists. That doesn't mean that no Calvinist ever supported slavery, or that no Arminian was ever opposed - not all all! John Wesley was resolutely opposed to slavery.

 

[Jerome]

"there were a few puritans and 'sons of puritans' speaking out against slavery. But woefully few....hymn writer John Newton is one"

"After being captured and sold into slavery in Africa, Newton became a Christian and lived with the contradictions of slavery as he captained several slave vessels. Some thirty years after his retirement, Newton spoke out against the African slave trade"

I think only someone who has not read Newton's biography could write such a thing.
It did indeed take Newton a few years after his conversion to understand the horrors of slavery, but after that he was opposed to it all through his ministry.

The writer is possibly think of his testimony given just before the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, which was just before his death, but he had preached and written against it long before that.

Sigh...

John Newton

"In 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphlet Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade, in which he....apologised"

 

[Jerome]

I asked Mr. McKissic why he would say such thing, given John Newton's and William Wilberforce's fight against slavery.

it was Calvinists who spearheaded the campaign against it in Britain....They were all Calvinists.

Sigh...

Wilberforce a Calvinist ?
What?

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Sigh...

John Newton

"In 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphlet Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade, in which he....apologised"

One's view of this will depend on whether one believes that Newton was a Christian in 1754. Your Wiki article correctly observes: He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."
And the fact that he did not write a pamphlet on the subject of slavery until 1788 does not mean that he was a supporter of it until that time.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Over the years, I've concluded two philosophical factors enabled American style race-based slavery.

• Calvinism misused made the slave predestined to their lot. Add into that some holding that Blacks were under the curse of Ham.
• Darwinism supporting the idea that Blacks were an inferior race,

 

[Katarina Von Bora]

Sigh...

Wilberforce a Calvinist ?
What?

Wilberforce was a Anglican. The 39 articles of the Anglican Faith was drafted by Anglican Calvinists in 1801. I will concede that the Anglican Church had many factions including the Puritans.

Anglicans Online | The Thirty-Nine Articles

 

[Jerome]

I asked Mr. McKissic why he would say such thing, given John Newton's and William Wilberforce's fight against slavery.

it was Calvinists who spearheaded the campaign against it in Britain....They were all Calvinists.

Wilberforce a Calvinist ?
What?

Wilberforce was a Anglican. The 39 articles of the Anglican Faith was drafted by Anglican Calvinists in 1801.

1801?
I really must chuckle at that one.

The truth:

Wilberforce: "I am no predestinarian"

Wilberforce: "every year that I live I become more impressed with the unscriptural character of the Calvinistic system"

Hear, hear!

 

[Katarina Von Bora]

Yet still, he does not come to the conclusion that Calvinistic doctrine had anything to do with slavery.

Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect

Wilberforce was a leading member of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Anglican Christians with a strong bias towards social improvements, who worked for the abolition of the slave trade and promoted missionary work.

BBC - Religions - Christianity: William Wilberforce

The Forty-two and Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church

The 39 articles prior to 1801

The 39 Articles form the basic summary of belief of the Church of England. They were drawn up by the Church in convocation in 1563 on the basis of the 42 Articles of 1553. Clergymen were ordered to subscribe to the 39 Articles by Act of Parliament in 1571. As part of the via media of Elizabeth I, the Articles were deliberately latitudinarian but were not intended to provide a dogmatic definition of faith. It is clear that they are phrased very loosely to allow for a variety of interpretations. The Church of England still requires its ministers publicly to assert their belief in these Articles.

The articles were based on the work of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (1533-1556). Cranmer and his colleagues prepared several statements of faith during the reign of Henry VIII but it was not until the reign of Edward VI that the ecclesiastical reformers were able to make more thorough changes. Shortly before Edward's death, Cranmer presented a doctrinal statement consisting of forty-two points: this was the last of his major contributions to the development of Anglicanism.