In the Antebellum South, Christians read the Bible, sang hymns built on the Bible, sat under biblical sermons, and prayed using biblical tropes. Bible-believers put their faith into action, inside and outside their churches. Their central message was evangelistic and evangelical, emphasizing human sin and the need for conversion through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 3; 1 Cor 15). The Bible was seemingly everywhere.
How did the Bible come to shape the Antebellum South?
In the early 1800s, the Antebellum South experienced a broad religious revival, the Second Great Awakening. This revival inspired the growth of Southern denominations, all of which placed the Bible front and center. Methodist circuit riders traversed the country, bringing messages directly from the Bible they carried in their saddlebags. Baptist churches sprouted everywhere, and their simple, Bible-based sermons often came from lay leaders. The Disciples of Christ emphasized that they followed “no creed but the Bible.” More established, formal, and liturgical denominations like the Presbyterians and Episcopalians spread more slowly, but their preaching and theology were likewise grounded in Scripture.
A Bible-centered faith increasingly spread among enslaved African-Americans. They heard the same gospel message as they sat in the white churches to which their enslavers brought them, but they also listened attentively to African-American preachers visiting their plantations. Black Christianity found unique expressions as enslaved believers met in “Hush Harbor” worship services—emotional meetings in secret locations away from whites—and transformed biblical themes into slave spirituals.
How did slavery divide Southern Bible readers?
With such extensive Bible usage, we might be tempted to assume that society unified around biblical ideals. In fact, southern Bible-reading culture tragically split on the issue of slavery. Different readings of Scripture gave rise to contradictory visions among Christians.
Many white southerners turned to the Bible to defend racial slavery. Advocates often started by listing the biblical verses that mentioned slavery, such as Eph 6:5. These passages accepted ancient slavery and so seemed to endorse Southern slavery. Preachers such as Richard Furman and James Henley Thornwell developed extensive systems justifying slavery, including applying Noah’s “Curse of Ham” (Gen 9:24–27) to everyone of African descent. Slavery’s defenders argued that American slavery (which was race-based and typically permanent) was equivalent to the slavery of ancient times (which was neither race-based nor necessarily permanent). They claimed the “letter” of the Scriptures was on their side.
Significant voices opposed slavery, and they, too, drew deeply on the Bible. The strongest argument came from enslaved people themselves. African-Americans bore powerful testimony that the biblical emphasis on liberty condemned the institution. Inspired by the Exodus story of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, they asserted that the tolerance of ancient slavery had been overshadowed by a Christian call to love one’s neighbor as one’s self (Mark 12:31). For Frederick Douglass, the Bible powerfully rebuked the hypocrisy of “pious” slave owners who never thought about how they mistreated others. The Scriptures also inspired resistance, as in the efforts of both Denmark Vesey (who spoke from the Bible in organizing a slave revolt in Charleston, South Carolina) and Harriet Tubman (who became a “Moses” to her people in helping them escape). The Bible deeply shaped the Antebellum South. It spoke to the hearts of many Southerners, and they responded. The tragedy of the period lies in the divergent—and ultimately divisive—ways that different groups read the Bible.
Bibliography
- Heryman, Christine Leigh. Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
- Noll, Mark. America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794–1911. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
- Raboteau, Albert. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Updated edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
