erican Slave
Douglass felt that Christianity was used by slaveholders to justify the
cruelty of their actions and to somehow purify them against the evilness of
their hearts. He felt that being the slave of a Christian slaveholder was
as bad as slavery itself. “Were I to be again reduced to the chains of
slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a
religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me.” (p. 731)
Douglas points out in his appendix that the Christianity of Christ and
Christianity of this land are at opposite points on the spectrum of good
and evil.
Douglass writes that the Christianity of Christ as being pure
and the Christianity of this land as being purely evil. (p. 749) Douglass
criticizes the Christian slaveholders of the same kind as the Pharisees and
Sadducees of Jesus’ time. They use their religion to deceive themselves
and others of their truly wicked ways. Douglass describes them as
hypocrites that fill the pews on Sunday with their pious talk and loud,
lengthy prayer. “We have men-stealers for ministers, women-worshippers for
missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members.
” (p. 749) Douglass
expressed that the Christian slaveholders use Christianity as a tool to
show they were doing the work of God by driving out laziness or evilness
from the slaves. I believe they also felt they were somehow showing
compassion by having slaves who they consider chattel or heathens and
giving a better life of penitence for their savagery. Douglass I feel
believe in Christianity and I know he felt he was call by God to be more
than a slave and that he felt a divine intervention that led him through
life. After reading his narrative, I believe he was more of a Christian
than his proclaimed slaveholders. His writing reflected I believe a sort
of pity towards them in that he did not depicted them as the animals I
believe they really were.
Word count 334. .