The Relationship Between Slavery And Christianity

The master’s view of slavery and Christianity was dismal. Many of these masters did not seek to convert their slaves to their own religion of Christianity. This paragraph will seek to explore why the relationship between slaves, their masters and their converting, or lack thereof, to Christianity was so tense. Initially, slavery was justified on the premise of missionary activity particularly among the Catholics of France and Spain in the New World, though certainly not only relegated to them. Charles II of Great Britain in 1660 decreed for the active converting or missionary activity (here on both are interchangeable with evangelism and baptizing) among both Indians and ‘negro’ slaves to the Protestant religion. By and large the British
Consequently, many justifications such a lack of evangelism among the slaves and emerged and are twofold in reason and many were combined. One of the two reasons revolved around a perceived egalitarianism stemming from Christianity likely referenced by Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” It was seen that a spiritual equality “in Christ” would manifest seek to manifest itself not only in a spiritual realm but in reality. Such meant they could be truly free if they “Christ hath made us[them] free.” These slaves would possibly demand, it was believed, the right to be free “according to the laws of the British nation and the canons of the church.” Legally, it was believed that had these slaves been baptized they would subsequently have to be freed being a member of the Church of England. The economic order would be flipped on its head and profitably would go down the proverbial
Rather, it was later stipulated that freeing a slave after baptism was unnecessary but, more on that later on. As a result more subtle justifications for not baptizing or converting slaves stemmed from this particular reason of the “egalitarianism implicit in Christianity.” It was thought, that if these black slaves were converted Christianity would “make them ‘saucy’” and that the slaves would “think themselves equal to white folks.” These thoughts from coming from a now converted slave would ruin this hierarchal relationship with his or her master and thus blurring the pecking order if not overturning it completely. It was thought that the slave would not feel the need to work or at least work as