Slavery, Christian Freedom, and the People Called Methodists
Painting of Bishop James Varick at The World Methodist Museum, Lake Junaluska, NC.
Wesleyans have a checkered history of race relations that sadly includes too much division, too much compromise, and too little courage. It’s a mixed history of Christian courage and cultural compromise. Recently, Andrew Thompson explored this history by showing the historical Wesleyan witness and lack thereof on race.
Methodists and slavery
As Thompson reveals, prohibition and abolition of slavery was the conservative Wesleyan view even if it was countercultural. Undoubtedly, the original Wesleyan witness inspired the moral courage of someone like William Wilberforce to work relentlessly to abolish the slave trade. Nonetheless, the spirit of compromise and cultural accommodation on the part of too many Methodists quenched much of the courage. By the General Conference of 1800, the original position of the Methodist Episcopal Church, established in America in 1784, was failing to find enough support to pass concrete antislavery proposals.
Opposition to slavery as an official position of the new American denomination came directly from the General Rules of the Methodist renewal movement handed down by John Wesley himself. Wesley was passionately opposed to slavery and the racism upon which it stood. In 1800, however, the General Conference apparently could only settle for a statement on the evils of slavery to be published and read among Methodist societies rather than more concrete action. The statement, formulated by a committee led by Ezekiel Cooper, William McKendree, and Jesse Lee, attacked slavery as “repugnant to the unalienable rights of mankind, and to the very essence of civil liberty.” They also declared that it was hideously contrary to the “whole spirit of the New Testament” (see John Wigger, American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists, New York: Oxford Univ Press, 2009, 293; also see journal of General Conference 1800). Moreover, the statement decried the egregious inconsistency of American slavery with the value of American freedom so cherished and enshrined in the nation’s founding documents. They called for the gradual but universal emancipation of all slaves.
Eventually the address made its way into newspapers all over the country. The historian John Wigger writes, “If southerners were alarmed, they could reflect that it only mirrored wording contained in the Discipline for several years” (American Saint, 293). Recalcitrance against the conservative position, however, would continue to grow along with a spirit of compromise. Tensions increased. Division was eventually the inevitable result (see “Methodism Dividing” by Kevin Watson in First Things on the history of conflict over cultural compromise).
Countercultural Methodists, dismayed by compromise, would eventually separate from the original body. Indeed, many were forced out. The commitment to abolition along with other concerns over general holiness and polity led to the formation of new predominantly white denominations such as the Wesleyan Methodist Church (today’s Wesleyan Church). But separation had already begun among some black Methodists. Under the leadership of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones some left the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) because of racial discrimination to form the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in 1792. For the same reasons black Methodists also formed the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1821 with Rev. James Varick installed as its first General Superintendent.
Seeking Reconciliation in the Local Church
In 2008, I was appointed as a student pastor of Banks United Methodist Church in Granville County, North Carolina, near Durham. Banks UMC was founded as an Anglican parish in 1762. At the height of the Revolutionary War, parishioners ran off the Anglican priest, who remained loyal to the crown, and joined the fledgling Methodist societies. Across the road from the white frame chapel of Banks UMC stands the small brick chapel of Union Chapel AME Zion.
Before Union Chapel formed a Zion congregation, their ancestors worshiped at Banks chapel, but because of segregation they were forced to observe from outside. Banks and Union Chapel share a long and sad history. Before I served there, the two congregations had gathered together for outdoor Easter sunrise services, but not too much more from what I understand. While I was there, I got to know some of the church members and eventually met the pastor, who lived outside of the community. I began proposing that we do some joint fellowship meals and worship services together. The invitation was received gladly.
We first gathered at Union Chapel. After a wonderful meal and being showered with gracious hospitality, I preached during the worship service that followed. Afterwards, a twelve-year-old kid from my church—who now plays professional baseball—ran up to me and asked, “Pastor Cliff! Why can’t you preach like that every Sunday?” It wasn’t really me. It was the enthusiastic, vocal participation of Union Chapel church members. It was a Spirit-filled time together for sure.
The same was true a couple of months later when we broke bread and worshiped together at Banks UMC. After the meal we worshiped together in between the beautiful stained-glass windows and under the dark brown wood planked ceiling in the old sanctuary. As their pastor began to preach, she noted that this was the first time that a pastor from Union Chapel had ever preached from that pulpit. She expressed her gratitude for my initiating the fellowship, and she stood in the pulpit in awe that she was preaching in the sanctuary of a church that had at one time not even allowed her people to sit inside on the pews. Until then the full weight of the history and significance of this moment as a step toward reconciliation had not quite fallen upon me.
A year or so later, I invited members of Union Chapel to join us for a Maundy Thursday service at Banks. They also invited us to join them for a fish fry and Easter egg hunt that Saturday. During the Maundy Thursday service, I performed a foot washing. I first washed my wife’s feet, which greatly impressed and blessed the women from Union Chapel. After my wife, Christi, washed my feet, together we washed our children’s. Then she and I washed the feet of others in the congregation. On my knees in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, who although he is the Master of everything became slave of all (Phil 2:1-11; John 13), the weight of the history and the significance of the moment of partial reconciliation between the two churches again fell upon me as I poured water over and wiped that first Black foot. I wept softly and rejoiced greatly in my spirit. The “whole spirit of the New Testament” that the committee led by Copper, Mckendree, and Lee insisted militated in the strongest possible way against American slavery was made palpable in that moment. It is not found merely in some abstract notion of love. Jesus illustrated that love in the most concrete way, next to dying on the cross itself, by taking on the role of the lowliest slave and washing his disciples’ feet (John 13:1-35). Christian love takes the form of Christian slavery.
Becoming a Slave to Christ
Slavery as an institution is as old as the fallen world itself. It has been practiced in some form by almost every culture around the globe throughout history; it still exists today. The Babylonian creation myth taught that humans had been created by the gods to be slaves of gods in the heavens and those in human form on earth (see John Oswalt, The Bible Among the Myths, Zondervan, 2009, 101, Kindle). This seems to imply that slavery is the result of the natural order of things. Aristotle magnified this belief, teaching that some ethnic groups were more fit by nature to be slaves than others; he believed Greeks were superior to barbarians in this regard (Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland, Basic Books, 39, Kindle). Feelings of ethnic and tribal pride and superiority have been as common among humans around the world as the will to exert power over others. Jesus explicitly turned this way of thinking on its head.
And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” ~ Mark 10:42-45 ESV
The kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and came to establish is one where all are slaves to one another in love reigned over by the Master of everything, who himself became slave of all. What this means, in fact, is that no one is enslaved to another person, but all give of themselves to one another voluntarily, out of obedience to Christ. Here is the irony: just as Christ took the cross and turned it into a symbol of victory, so the New Testament, properly interpreted, uses the term “slave” to speak of the freedom we have in Christ. This subversive teaching did not lead to the immediate abolishing of slavery as an institution. That was as difficult to imagine in the ancient world as it is for modern people to imagine abolishing all police and prisons today. It did, however, work like leaven to establish a vision of human freedom and dignity that the church has embodied in its best moments.
You see this where Paul urges Philemon to receive back Onesimus, his runaway slave, as more than a slave but as a beloved brother in Christ (vv. 15-16). You also get a hint of it in Ephesians, where Paul reminds both slaves and masters that that before God “there is no partiality” (6:9—emphasis mine). This echoes Paul’s teaching in Galatians that baptism into Christ washes away the status distinctions between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and male and female (Gal 3:27-28). Also, his teaching that Christians are to use their freedom in Christ to serve one another in love (Gal 5:13-14).
It is not incidental that crucifixion itself was a cruel punishment reserved for violent criminals and rebellious slaves. The cross is a reminder of the cruelty of capital punishment and the brutality of slavery in the ancient pagan world. The Master of everything became slave of all to subvert and transform that pagan paradigm, and he calls us to allow his example to transform our being and doing (John 13; Phil 2:1-11).
Slavery and Sin
The Christian view of slavery is that it was a result of the fall and not God’s original design. Contrary to the pagan view and that of pagan philosophers like Aristotle, Christians like St. Basil the Great, his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas taught that humans by virtue of nature were created free and that the practice of slavery resulted from sin. The predominant view, however, that it was still a necessary evil of sorts to be regulated and mitigated as much as possible until the coming of Christ persisted. St. Gregory of Nyssa, even in the fourth century, called for its total eradication, albeit to no avail. He insisted that freedom, not slavery, was inherent to human nature (see Holland, Dominion, 39).
This view actually has its origins in Genesis 1:26-28, where in contrast to the Babylonian myth, humans are said to be created in the image of God to have dominion, to be royal representatives of the Creator rather than slaves of the mercurial gods of pagan pantheons. This, combined with the teaching and example of Christ, ultimately paved the way for it to be abolished. It’s not accidental that this happened first in Western Europe and the United States. Counter-cultural Methodists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the name of American principles of liberty rooted in natural law and in the name of the type of love that takes the form of mutual slavery, labored to that ultimate end. The combination of American freedom and Christian slavery eventually prevailed thereby fulfilling the ancient aspiration of St. Gregory. Along with repentance and forgiveness, mutual slavery submission in love under the Lordship of Christ is still vitally important for the ongoing work of racial reconciliation.
The way ahead
Many obstacles remain in the way, not least among them racial pride and bias. There are also theological differences and differences in denominational polity and worship style that get in the way, not to mention partisan politics. Despite these obstacles, I would love to see a merger between UM churches and AME Zion churches. I’ve dreamed of white United Methodist congregations merging with AME Zion churches in areas I’ve served. We’d all be much better together. But that is much easier said than done. We must, nevertheless, make every effort toward reconciliation.
We won’t be able to rely on a hyper-sensationalized media or politicians to lead us to reconciliation. Social media posts alone will never suffice. It will be up to us in our local churches and communities to initiate the conversations and to make space for real fellowship. White Christians must not make excuses for the horrors of our past and prejudices among us in the present. We also must deal honestly and openly with the false media narratives and political ideologies designed to divide. It will be up to Christians that are more committed to their identity in Christ as citizens of heaven and slaves to one another in love than they are to their Southern pride or Black power or political party affiliations or shallow notions of freedom as Americans to work toward full reconciliation. For Christian freedom from the tyranny of sin is not to be free for individual sovereignty to do as we please; it is to be free to serve one another mutually in love.
Rev. Cliff Wall is the Pastor of Clarksbury United Methodist Church in Harmony, North Carolina.