While many if not most white Baptists in the South believed that the enslavement of blacks was ordained by God and necessary for the southern, agricultural-based economy, the Baptist defense of a slave-dependent culture was not monolithic. Slaveholders comprised up to about 20-25% of the white southern population, yet some 1% of slaveholders owned the…
During the American Civil War, many northerners and southerners, soldiers and civilians alike, projected God as their nation’s ally and salvation. In the midst of the religious rhetoric, many Baptists – especially in the South – hedged on their foundational principle of the separation of church and state and embraced Christian nationalism. Historically, Baptists championed…
by Bruce Gourley From its earliest days, the colonial experience in the New World was infused with human inequality. Theocratic colonies through both government institutions and establishment churches refused to allow freedom of conscience or religious liberty. Many poor whites were indentured servants and many blacks either indentured servants or slaves. White women were denied…