Examples Of Letter To Onesimus

Many Christians in this age have a wrong view about what Christianity is and what it should be. I am writing this letter as a response to some wrong beliefs of some people. I am not writing this as a hypocrite, but to show other Christians all the correct truths of gospel. There are many different truths in the Bible that people have a different perspective on, such as love, doctrinal differences, negativity, and judging whether someone is a true Christian or not.

“Not only did slaves believe that they would be chosen by the Lord, there is evidence that many of them felt their owners would be denied salvation” (34). Levine claimed that the slaves uses their beliefs and religion as a “means of escape and opposition” because it gave them a “serious alternative to the societal system created by southern slaveholders” (54.)

Slavery, the “Peculiar Institution” of the South, caused suffering among an innumerable number of human beings. Some people could argue that the life of a domestic animal would be better than being a slave; at least animals are incapable of feeling emotions. Suffering countless atrocities, including sexual assault, beatings, and murders, these slaves endured much more than we would think is humanly possible today. Yet, white southern “Christians” committed these atrocities, believing their behaviors were neither wrong nor immoral. Looking back at these atrocities, those who call themselves Christians are

This leads to a major issue within the slave community. Slaves possess little knowledge of life outside the plantation or house in which they are working at. This means they have no idea how humans are supposed to be treated, and rather that a “god” would never allow for another to be beaten in such severity. This is an advantage that the slave owners held over the actual slaves. If the slaves were to gain an understanding of the world around them, the “religious” quotes recited by slave owners would quickly lose their worth and soon mean nothing as well as hold no influence over the slaves. Frederick Douglas was fortunate enough to understand this, and even addressed the issue in his life story, “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked(71).” Douglas understands that the Christianity practiced by the slave owners was far different from the Christianity intended by Jesus Christ. As Douglas referred to it, the “Slaveholding religion” was prominent throughout the slavery era, not only was this damaging for the slaves,

In his personal exposition, Furman relates bible texts of past slavery examples such as the Israelites buying slaves from Heathen Nations (Furman, 6). Roman and Greek empires also built off of slave labor and their success proves that slavery is necessary economically and as God’s will (Furman, 7). In his support for slavery, he argued that no sin is committed as the acts of slavery were brought about fairly. However, it is the masters’ duty to treat their slaves as a part of their family, with justice and humanity (Furman). For those who severely punish or mistreat their slaves, their master in Heaven will pass judgement soon. Furman also believed that education was the root to continue slavery by converting slaves into Christians to end rebellions and thrive as a

Everything he possessed in the shape of learning or religion, he made conform to his disposition to deceive”. This linked the readers by portraying an extremely clear sample of the ethical paradox of being a Christian and a slave owner.

“It should not be possible to treat a slave with Christian fairness and instruct him in the Christian faith as a just substitute for his pagan practices, without mollifying the relationship between master and slave. It has to be. Otherwise Christianity would not be able to spread. Otherwise the African would be deemed our equal simply because he shared out faith in one God and the Afterlife. We both know of the above to be false because of the evidence of how Africans live in their Primitive Land.” (p.111)

Slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for the awful ways they treated their slaves. Christianity played a major role on the increase of brutality and violence that spirited the slave owners. The scriptures in the Bible were twisted in the eyes of slave owners to how they wanted to interpret them. Douglass had a powerful experience with one of his masters, Thomas Auld. Mr. Auld was not a religious person and treated the slaves very poorly. In August 1832, Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting and that marked the day when he became religious, and suddenly even more cruel. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” After becoming religious, Auld uses scripture to justify his cruelty. Douglass thought that with discovering religion and using it, Auld would become more polite as how Douglass viewed Christianity. Unfortunately that was not the case. Auld justifies that being affiliated with religion would not change a person for the better. Being a slave, Douglass found that slave owners found religious sanction for their cruelty. “He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.", was what a slave owner had said to justify why he beat

In Paul’s epistle to the Romans he gives us the foundation of Christian life in regards to how we should not only see the world, but also how we should act in a world that rejects the gospel of Christ. In Romans 1-8 Paul teaches us how we are not able to come to a saving grace through our works, but that it must come from Christ alone, and not only to the Jews, but to the Gentiles also. Paul tells us however, that this will not be easy, but we that we need to remember who is ultimately in control of everything around us.

Christianity was new to most slaves who had been abducted from their native country and taken to the Americas. Some were hesitant to abandon their old traditions for the Christ their white captors taught of, but after several generations of slavery, most black slaves had succumbed to relentless preaching. However, the Christianity that took hold within the slave community was often interpreted differently, conveying different messages to pockets of slave population. The use of Christianity in slavery was a double edged sword, creating not only a tool for control, but a weapon of discontent in slave communities. Examining the works of Richard Allen and the stories of Nat Turner, create a narrative of how Christianity was applied differently to slaves.

Around 1811 John Jea, wrote a spiritual narrative called “The Life, History and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea”, in which he tells about the abuse of the slaveholders towards their slaves. He emphasized how Christian slave owners like his own master who would torture the slaves without any mercy: “…we were corrected with a weapon an inch and-a-half thick, and that without mercy, striking us in the most tender parts…” Nevertheless, not all the slaves that were converted became free. A man called Elias Neau, founded a school for slaves, that later would became famous, declared that Christian baptism could not alter civil condition; “Even if a slave was to somehow be converted, his conversion would not alter the fact that he was a slave.”

William Patton, an abolitionist and reverend, had a two-fold argument against the idea of Christianity supporting slavery which he laid out in his 1846 book “Slavery, the Bible, Infidelity”. His first argument, was that God could never support because, in simple terms, “God is just, and that slaveholding is unjust” (Patton, 6). Supporting this idea, Patton quotes Thomas Jefferson in saying in response of proslavery rhetoric, that “If your interpretation of the Bible be correct,it cannot be the word of God—for it gives him a character the very reverse of that which reason and conscience affirm.”(Patton, 6) Patton’s second argument, is that by holding proslavery views, these subsets of the church create infidelity (people of other faith) among both slaves and freedmen. To prove this, Patton quotes former slave-owner Reverend J.D. Paxton, who said that “It is often said… that there is a growing indisposition among slaves to worship with their masters and attend on the preaching of whites. Now that this prejudice in slaves, against worshipping with the whites, may be traced mainly to the system of slavery is to me most certain”(Patton, 10). Patton then quotes a letter written to the popular abolitionist newspaper, The Emancipator, where the writer was discussing religion with an infidel, and he writes that “The first argument he brought against the Scriptures was the assertion that they sanctioned slavery; and to prove it, quoted Gov. Hammond, and prominent Doctors of Divinity,

"I wish your thinking were as worthy of your Christianity as it is of your logic: "Let service to me prevail over service to God. As long as my slaves serve me better, let them live and die in the service of the Devil"!"

Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master; obey (152)!

Slavery, a word described as the state of one bound in servitude as the property of a household. This description, along with sadness and disbelief gets brought into peoples’ minds as the chilling sensation of the explanations begins to be sought out. The New Testament brings us many different views on how we percept our personal beliefs upon Slavery, and different problems arising as aspects on this topic are perceived by Paul the Apostle in Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.