A curious feature of American society going back to the colonial period is that the institution of slavery thrived alongside an increasing emphasis for religion. Starting with the Great Awakening of the 1730s, and continuing into the early 19th century with the Second Great Awakening, Americans embraced religion with increasing fervor. And this created a problem as it related to slavery. The teachings of Jesus would seem to be antithetical to the institution of slavery. It took real effort to square the Beatitudes with the idea of one person owning another. And, indeed, it was this Second Great Awakening of the early 19th Century that fueled the emergence of the abolitionist movement, which began with clergymen, mostly in the North, preaching the evils of slavery.

In fact, the Christian Bible itself began to be seen by slave-owners as a dangerous document. From the very beginnings of chattel slavery in the Americas, it had been considered important to baptize all newly enslaved Africans into the Christian religion, even before they stepped onto slave ships bound for American ports. But now there was a worry that too much unadulterated Christianity could be a problem among the enslaved. There were so many stories in the Bible about freedom, about the oppression of the Pharaohs, and of God interceding on the side of the enslaved. And so, in 1809 a heavily redacted version of the Bible was published in England for use with enslaved people in the sugar plantations of the West Indies. In the American South especially, many white preachers emphasized certain passages that seemed to reinforce the God-given master/slave relationship, such as: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.”  Ephesians 6:5

From its inception as a state, Kentucky debated the role of slavery in its constitution and laws, with clergy at the forefront of the conversations. There had been a failed effort by Presbyterian minister David Rice to include a prohibition against slavery in Kentucky’s first two constitutions in 1792 and 1799, and two Baptist ministers, David Barrow and Carter Tarrant, formed the Kentucky Abolition Society in 1808. On the other hand, in the Catholic counties of Central Kentucky, there were some of the highest rates of enslavement in the country, with several religious orders owning enslaved people as well as the archbishop himself. In 1845, the nation’s largest denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, broke in two over the issue of slavery at a national convention held in Louisville. And when Kentucky again considered amending its constitution in 1849 to either outlaw or strengthen slavery in the state, constitutional delegates used passages from Scripture to support their opposing arguments.

In fact, the intersection of religion and slavery is so critical to Kentucky, we decided to make it the focus of a special series of episodes in the second season of The Reckoning podcast, which we also intend to offer to public radio stations as a series of special programs. Not only will we cover the ways that different religions tackled the issue of slavery in the Americas, we will also look at how various religions and religious institutions today are addressing their historical ties to slavery and post-slavery racial oppression. Pending sufficient funding, we expect to launch the radio and podcast series during 2022.