The Bible Christianity and Slavery

The Bible, Christianity, and Slavery
In class we talked a little about slaves and religion. I agree that religion played a significant role in the life of the slave. Religion allowed slaves to keep up the human spirit in their daily lives because however they interpreted the religious experience it gave them a sense of independence from the daily grind of their lives. The stories in the bible were often told amongst the slaves on plantations, and if a slave could read, he or she typically read these stories for the illiterate slaves. Whether or not they believed in Christianity was not as relevant as just understanding the biblical stories and applying them to their lives. Therefore, the bible became a kind of release because they could relate to many of these stories and accept them as part of God’s mission. The slaves could actually share these stories with one another and with their children. It gave the slaves something to talk about. The slaves could actually have something that no one could take away. It gave them a sense of purpose of moving on in life through the next day. To me this is what kept them going through the brutality of slavery and kept their hope for freedom alive.
On the other hand most of the slaves could not actually read the Bible, so these stories that they heard must have inspired some sense of hope and some type of faith that were true. Actually many white masters on the plantations wanted slaves to attend church with them (although they were separated by where they sat) because the whites did not trust what was being said in slave churches or by slave preachers. They were afraid these preachers were inspiring escape and violence as a way to obtain freedom. They even made the slave children attend Sunday schools to keep them believing what they wanted them to believe about the bible and that they should accept their condition and not attempt to run away. Whites believed religion would make slaves better and work harder if they accepted their condition and work against their desires to escape from the plantation.

Also I think that the slaves were not interested in every aspect in the Christian faith but more of the fact that inspired them to fight push through slavery because there is a way out of slavery.