Thirteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Christian denominations in the Americas were marked from the beginning by racialized hierarchies which continue to underpinned political and economic decisions made in the public sphere. The often explicitly Christian African American Civil Rights movement sought to re-articulate, on and in their own terms, the basis of their full citizenship and their ambitions and place within Christ’s kingdom and US society. This is the familiar story. The less familiar story: To sustain race-based categories, which clearly delineated who would be eligible for full protection of the law and the widest access to opportunities and power, some white Americans were prepared to respond to any attempts at racial equality with Biblical arguments for their own racially superior status in the hierarchy of God’s kingdom as well as on earth. This paper explores the less familiar story in two eras when religious arguments by White Americans have been used to reinforce the inferior status of Black Americans in the public sphere. The first section explores antebellum arguments between Whites who wanted to convert enslaved Africans on US soil to Christianity and those who opposed them doing so. These arguments had distinct implications for the public sphere, where the legal, economic, social and educational status of enslaved people would be determined. The second section explores White religious responses to the African American Civil Rights movement into the present day. Current scholarship has identified numerous paths through which White Christian religionists in the US have sought to reinforce White supremacy and suppress Black Americans.