Stoned-Campbell Disciple

Today, September 23, 1667 is a day that should have lived in infamy among Christians in America.

Sadly many do not know the darkness of this day. The 1660s brought a wave of racially motivated laws that would effect the course north America till our day in September 2020.

In 1667, Virginia enacted a radical new law that declared children born to a free white man and an enslaved “negro woman” shall inherit the condition of the mother. Prior to this ruling children (even of slaves) inherited the condition of the father and thus were born free. Perpetual slavery was now a reality.

On this Day of Infamy, September 23, 1667, literally centuries of Christian practice and jurisprudence was overturned in the north American colonies. It had been traditionally regarded unchristian for a Christian to enslave another Christian. In fact classical Christianity had practically abolished slavery in Europe, which was never based on race in the first place.

But race based slavery was slowly growing as a cancer within the psychology of north Americans. Thus, Christian tradition or not, the Virginia Assembly gathered on September 23 and handed down a decision with far reaching consequences. Historically, a person (including a black person), who had embraced the Christian faith through baptism, could not be enslaved. On this Day of Infamy, legislators threw this theological tenet out the window.

Baptism, they declared, may make you a Christian but it does not set you free from the shackles of slavery. The ruling reads as follows:

“WHEREAS some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made pertakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should be vertue of their baptisme be made ffree; It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly, and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or ffreedome; that diverse masters, ffreed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavor the propagation of christianity by permitting children, though slaves, or those of greater growth if capable to be admitted to that sacrament.” [sic].

This was the beginning of a long line of justifications of race based slavery that culminated with rabid “biblical” defenses of slavery prior to the Civil War and continued to live in Jim Crow America.

American Christians sold their soul to mammon. Now “owners” could continue to invest and make vast profits with no fear that the cross of Jesus would interfere with their fortune.

September 23, 1667. The day that should live in infamy, it was the day we traded baptism for slavery.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020 at 8:21 pm and is filed under American Empire, Baptism, Black History, Church, Contemporary Ethics, Culture, Discipleship, Race Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.