Why did some Protestant ministers believe slavery was acceptable?

Answer 1

Slavery had existed in English-speaking America since 1619, but in the eighteenth century many were finding themselves uneasy with the institution. Quakers and some theologians such as Samuel Hopkins led the way in criticising the practice. By the end of the eighteenth century there was an increasing consensus, in both the North and the South, that slavery was in some ways a blot upon the republic.

Southern religious figures claimed not only that was slavery a positive good, but that it was a Christian institution. Meanwhile, northern Protestants faced the difficult question of just how slavery could be considered a sin. Did The Bible ever condemn slavery as sinful in its very nature? If not, were there actions which were sinful but which the Bible did not recognise as sin?

A close reading of the Bible demonstrated that the biblical authors seemed to accept slavery as an institution and nowhere explicitly condemned it. Particularly when opponents of slavery sought to disfellowship slave holders, some Americans questioned the appropriateness of dividing Churches over issues concerning which the Bible had no clear teaching. The Presbyterian theologian Chades Hodge (1797-1878) insisted, "nothing is obligatory upon the conscience but what [the Bible] enjoins; nothing can be sin but what it condemns."

Both in the north and the south, those who did not wish to take a lead in condemning slavery, as well as those who profited from it, could take refuge in the Bible.