Ex Uno Plures: Traditional Southern Presbyterian Thought on Race Relations

by et al B.M. Palmer, Greg Loren Durand (Editor)

A "racial reconciliation" movement is spreading within American Christianity. While such a goal is laudable in itself, it cannot be successful if based on "zeal without knowledge." It has become fashionable for White people to assume most, if not all, of the responsibility for the disharmony that exists between Whites and Blacks. For example, prominent voices in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) recently called for the denomination to repent of its failures during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, and the racial views of Presbyterian divines in the antebellum period. However, were these views indeed contrary to the Word of God? The thoughts of fourteen Southern Presbyterian leaders, whose ministries spanned over a century of American history, are presented here in order that the reader may arrive at a more balanced answer to this question.

256 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2015

Reviews

[Charles Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating collection of primary sources of Southern Presbyterians writing on slavery and segregation. Part I collects key writings from Old School Southern Presbyterians around the mid-19th Century writing on the slave question. These essays are all God-honoring and thoughtful in their approach. In essence, their argument is this: God has ordained two distinct powers, the Church and the State. Because slavery is a societal institution, it is up to the State/Civil Society to determine whether or not to abolish the system; but because the Scriptures do not condemn slavery as an institution, the Church cannot condemn it as a sin and must remain apolitical on the matter, focusing only on the respective duties of master and slave. In short, the slave issue is a political question that the church has not been commissioned to address, and so must remain silent.

Part II collects essays from the mid-20th century on the matter of segregation. These essays were, um, …something. Whereas the authors in Part I sought to ground their response according to the clear teachings of Scripture (remaining silent where the Scriptures remained silent), the authors in Part 2 took a very different hermeneutical approach. In short, they all argued for the segregation of whites and blacks based off (1) the so-called Curse of Ham; (2) the Tower of Babel; (3) the prohibition of *interfaith* marriages in the OT (which they all merely interpreted as interracial); (4) a rather forced reading of Acts 17.26; and (5) all interpreted within a particular pseudo-scientific (the sCiEnCe!!!) framework of early 20th century views of eugenics and physiognomy.

Part I is well worth reading to grasp why some Southerners embraced slavery without resorting to racist stereotypes, and even exhibited a great love and evangelical zeal for the conversion of slaves under their care. Some critics would simply dismiss their racism as an insincere paternalism, but I don’t think that does justice to what they’re trying to get at, even if I don’t agree with all their arguments. At the very least, it tears down the straw man portraiture one might have of “all” southern slaveholders. (Please note: I’m not advocating a return to slavery. What I found striking was that several repeatedly said they were OK if the system was abolished. What they were not OK with was condemning the whole institution, even admitting abuses within the system, because to do so would entail casting aspersion on the authority of Scripture, which many 19th C abolitionists were eager to do.)

Part II, however, is, at least in my estimation, total rubbish and worth skipping altogether.

Further questions worth exploring: although the Scriptures don’t condemn the institution of slavery (which would have included voluntary indentured servitude), they do condemn “man-stealing” (or as we might say today, human trafficking). Because the African slave trade was the product of involuntary trafficking vs voluntary servitude, shouldn’t this allow for the church to condemn this “peculiar” instantiation of chattel slavery? That’s certainly what the Covenanters and Seceders (that is, the Associate Presbytery of Scotland, not to be confused with the Secessionist CSA) thought, without having to resort to Abolitionist claims that the Scriptures were passé and outdated. I appreciate the Old School Southern desire to defend Scripture against the radicals; and their methodology, in my estimation, seems more consistent than (Old School Northern Presbyterian) Charles Hodge’s attempts to reckon with Scripture’s silence on slavery; but at the end of the day, think there’s something to be said about the contribution of the Seceder tradition on this point. (Recently recommended to me on this matter is Joseph Moore’s work, _Founding Sins: How a Group of Antislavery Radicals Fought to Put Christ in the Constitution_, which I still have yet to read.)