Attacking Slavery with Evangelical Weapons
In the years before the American Civil War, political activists and social reformers often appealed to Scripture, confident that its themes and imagery would resonate with a biblically literate populace. Such appeals rang loudest, perhaps, in the movement to abolish slavery, whose leaders commonly invoked Israel’s deliverance from captivity and prophetic visions of justice.
Many books have shown how abolitionists made effective use of God’s Word, even as they varied widely in their own religious beliefs. A new book by Daniel Lee Hill, Bearing Witness: What the Church Can Learn from Early Abolitionists, goes one step further. Hill, a theologian based at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary, studies three figures—writer and activist David Ruggles, teacher and lecturer Maria Stewart, and Underground Railroad pioneer William Still—who advanced an unmistakably evangelical onslaught against slavery. In the process, he argues, they forged a model of public witness that today’s church would do well to reclaim.
Pastor and historian Obbie Tyler Todd, author of a recent account of one of America’s most storied Christian families, reviewed the book for CT.
“Hill stresses that each of these figures understood themselves as evangelical,” writes Todd. “They attacked the institution and ideology of slavery by using what Ruggles called ‘evangelical weapons.’ Among these weapons were Scripture, a biblical understanding of humanity, the moral law of God, close personal communities, personal piety, a willingness to bear one another’s burdens, and a commitment to preserving historical memory.
“As a result, these three abolitionists offer more than examples of heroism from the past. Because their witness was so theological in nature, we can recover it not simply for inspiration but for its value in aiding contemporary movements of church reform. ‘What is required,’ Hill insists, ‘is recognition, reflection, gratitude, and, ultimately, retrieval.’ Alluding to G. K. Chesterton’s famous quip about tradition and intergenerational democracy, he adds, ‘The dead have something to say indeed. It is time we let them vote.’
“We live at a moment when the precise meaning of evangelicalism is fiercely contested, with some questioning its very existence as a coherent tradition. We live, too, at a moment when critics indict the American founding itself for the founders’ complicity in slavery. In such a context, I appreciated Hill’s book for what it affirms about both evangelical and American identity.
“Ruggles, Stewart, and Still were not just critics of white evangelicals, according to Hill; they were animated by a common evangelical theology. Hill states unequivocally that by drawing on these abolitionists, he is ‘making an argument about the very bones of the evangelical Christian tradition.’
“Furthermore, their example can’t be confined within well-worn critiques of founding-era hypocrisy. By highlighting their opposition to the American Colonization Society, Hill shows that African American abolitionists understood themselves not just as evangelicals but as Americans who appealed to the Declaration of Independence and the Bible alike. To have a meaningful conversation about the nature of American evangelicalism, he insists, we must account for these oft-overlooked voices.”
Sorrowful Evangelism
When we share the gospel, we offer “good news of great joy,” to quote the angel who first proclaimed it to startled shepherds. We also invite hearers to strap crosses on their backs and trudge through dark valleys, with mockers and persecutors arrayed on all sides.
Evangelism rightfully insists on the unconquerable goodness of the Good News. It errs, though, when it ignores or downplays the inevitability of suffering. And it errs especially, according to author and seminary professor Andrew Root, when it fails to accompany sufferers in their sorrow.
In his latest book, Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness, Root argues that our evangelistic outreach should better adapt itself to the sadness pervading today’s world. He worries that too much of that outreach skips merrily along with cultural ideals about pursuing earthly happiness rather than limping beside those who stumble under their weight.
Myles Werntz, a professor at Abilene Christian University, reviewed the book for CT.
“Not only,” writes Werntz, “do people find themselves condemned to endlessly pursuing happiness and authenticity, but our evangelism can encourage these futile quests. Linking the gospel with visions of earthly well-being can only amount to a false promise: What happens when the call to Christ means unhappiness, suffering, or even death?
“As Root argues, we need ‘an evangelism that can address failing happiness-seekers.’ But the legacy Taylor describes runs deep. Root embarks on a tour through the work of philosophers Michel de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal, showing how the first treated pursuing personal happiness as the highest good, while the second called that mindset into question. He then turns to a quintet of theologians, including Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory’s sister Macrina, and Martin Luther, to develop a theology of God’s presence amid desolation.
“These figures emphasize God’s consoling nature, helping Root construct a version of evangelism that elevates God’s presence in our sorrow above our pursuit of happiness. As Root puts it, ‘Evangelism in these sad times is ultimately the confession that God meets us in our human sorrow and through our sorrow takes our person into Jesus’s own person. This is good news!’ We encounter Christ as one who has been raised from the dead, and Christ encounters us as those who are dead and need raising to life. Accordingly, God finds us not in the pursuit of happiness but in the shambles of our failure.”
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