The Many Faces of God

          We have learned that the institution of slavery left no part of this nation untouched. The institution offered whites of every social class a chance for something better—some new, hopeful opportunity. As Johnson discusses, the fantasies and dreams of whites were explored and mapped on the bodies of slaves. Slavery challenged the white man to become a “benevolent master.” Somehow, dehumanization and commodification became acceptable and necessary—even morally just. Religion has always loomed large in the understanding of human morality. I am curious of the role that Christianity played in the minds of slaveholding whites and in the responses of slaves. How did ideas of God shape and influence the idea of a “benevolent master”? How did the white Church articulate the justification of slavery? How can a “benevolent God” and a “benevolent master” come to thrive alongside oppression? How did slaves respond with a different notion of God?

            In Scholasticism and Politics, French philosopher Jacques Maritain writes that “God is invoked…and He is invoked against the God of the spirit, of intelligence and love—excluding and hating this God. What an extraordinary spiritual phenomenon this is: people believe in God and yet do not know God. The idea of God is affirmed and at the same time disfigured and perverted.”

            Slaveholding whites did not wish to abandon their benevolence. In fact, many saw no conflict between their ownership of slaves and their own good will—their own Christian morality. While Johnson does not describe this, I think that among many other affirmations of identity, white men affirmed their notions of God in asserting dominance over slaves. Many argued that slavery was justified by narratives in the Old Testament. The stories of the Old Testament suggest that slavery is a normal part of human society. In requiring the obedience of a slave, white slaveholders affirmed their ideals about the nature of God. The God of slaveholding whites chastised the disobedient and rectified the wayward sinner. Slaveholding whites were participating in theological assertions while dominating those that they owned.

            In fighting slavery, slaves not only began to believe the “freedom rhetoric” that circulated but also began to learn more about Christian principles in light of their own experiences. They imagine a God who delivered the oppressed and defended the poor. They constructed a much different morality—a much different Christianity. The God they invoked was loving and the suffering they endured would be rewarded one day.

            Fredrick Douglass wrote extensively on these conflicting understandings of Christianity. He states:

What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.

It seems to me, that as Maritain suggested, this really is a spiritual phenomenon. The fact that religious principles—moral, “benevolent” values—could come to justify and affirm such destruction truly speaks to the power and magnitude of the institution.