Twisting Scripture to Defend Racial Slavery

How Southern Evangelicals Defended Slavery—and Why They Were Wrong

Introduction

One of the most painful realities in American church history is how many Southern evangelicals once used the Bible to defend racial slavery. With Bibles open and pulpits ablaze, pastors preached a vision of social order that reduced men, women, and children, made in God’s image, to property. They created theological systems that gave moral c…