Slaveholding = Heresy?

The founding faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS)—James P. Boyce, John A. Broadus, Basil Manly Jr., and William Williams—all owned slaves. Due to this stain on their legacy, there has recently been some debate concerning whether SBTS should remove its founders' names from their buildings and cease to honor them at all. Some critics of the SBTS founders have gone so far as to call them heretics, saying that slave-holding is a heresy.

For my part, I'm not too worried about what the SBTS buildings are named. I am more concerned about accurate theological/historical evaluations. Also: I do believe that Boyce's Abstract of Systematic Theology is an excellent work, and I would not want people to reject it, unread, due to the thought that Boyce is a heretic.

"Heretic" is a term for someone who denies a central tenet/first-order issue/core doctrine of the faith, as defined by creeds or confessions. "Hypocrite" is a term for someone whose lifestyle does not match his or her professed beliefs. This distinction is important. If you call someone a "heretic", but you cannot point to a specific core theological/Christological/soteriological doctrine as defined by a creed/confession, which the person in view explicitly denies, then you are using the term incorrectly. A person can be a hypocrite, or hypocritical in some area of life, and need repentance, without being a heretic, counted as outside the Christian faith. It is sinfully divisive to count people as heretics based on individual evaluation of a person's sin. Such heresy-hunting activity will inevitable magnify or else overlook others' sin depending on what is more or less offensive to one's own particular clique or tribe.

The hypocrisy of the antebellum slaveholders was particularly vile, and it is understandable that people today might wonder if slaveholding, being so serious, should be counted as a heresy. Note, however, that not all slaves themselves saw slaveholding (in itself) as indication that the slaveholder was necessarily a false Christian. For example: in Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped into slavery after have been born a freeman in New York, and who experienced and witnessed truly horrific examples of family separation and torture, nevertheless wrote of at least one slaveholder whom he encountered that seemed to have a genuine, active, transformative faith in Christ. Consider Northup's words concerning William Ford:

In many northern minds, perhaps, the idea of a man holding his brother man in servitude, and the traffic in human flesh, may seem altogether incompatible with their conceptions of a moral or religious life. From descriptions of such men as Burch and Freeman, and others hereinafter mentioned, they are led to despise and execrate the whole class of slaveholders, indiscriminately. But I was sometime his slave, and had an opportunity of learning well his character and disposition, and it is but simple justice to him when I say, in my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford. The influences and associations that had always surrounded him, blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of Slavery. He never doubted the moral right of one man holding another in subjection. Looking through the same medium with his fathers before him, he saw things in the same light. Brought up under other circumstances and other influences, his notions would undoubtedly have been different. Nevertheless, he was a model master, walking uprightly, according to the light of his understanding, and fortunate was the slave who came to his possession. Were all men such as he, Slavery would be deprived of more than half its bitterness.

Northup wrote of his friend and fellow-slave Sam being converted to faith in Christ under Ford's influence.

Of course, Northup's is not the only view of the matter. I do think that it is also important to read the Appendix to Frederick Douglass' Narrative in which he asserts that "the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America" are so tainted by their hypocrisy in allowing slavery that they are really a part of a grossly Pharisaical religion. He seems to doubt that someone unrepentantly enmeshed in the business of man-stealing (or its rotten fruits) could be a genuine believer.

HOWEVER: I do think that it is important to note that EVEN IF Douglass' evaluation is correct, the Pharisees themselves were not HERETICS.

The Pharisees were characterized by hypocrisy and had woes pronounced against them by Jesus; they needed repentance due to their hearts being wrong before the Lord. However, their fundamental belief system, though needing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, was correct, overall: to the point that even post-conversion Paul could say "I am a Pharisee" (see Acts 23:6).

MY POINT is that even the worst evaluation of the SBTS founders should not properly be considered as rendering them HERETICS. This is important because I believe that these flawed men, especially through Boyce's Abstract of Systematic Theology and SBTS' Abstract of Principles, have correctly handed down the faith once for all entrusted to the saints; the Church should treasure these writings. If these documents were produced by HERETICS, then these writings should be rejected. I believe that it would be a great loss to American Christianity if theologians like the founders of SBTS and Jonathan Edwards (another slaveholder) were discarded as heretics due to their involvement in the (admittedly diabolical) institution of American chattel slavery.

Related to this, I would also recommend the article, "Jonathan Edwards and His Support of Slavery: A Lament" by Jason Meyer.

On a Danger of Pragmatics in Voting for President

One of the main reasons to make major decisions based on principles rather than pragmatics is that making decisions based on sound moral/ethical principles is always commendable, whereas you can't see the actual results to which your pragmatic decisions may lead.

Voting Trump as a Pragmatic Decision

At the 1998 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, in the wake of the scandals plaguing Bill Clinton's presidency, the messengers to the Convention passed a "Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials". This resolution called on "all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honesty, moral purity and the highest character."

More recently, many Southern Baptists and other evangelicals have voted for Donald Trump, who is a serial divorcee and admitted serial adulterer (he has bragged about his exploits in his books), and who regularly uses language in a way that demonstrates a gross lack of self-control.

When challenged on their vote for Mr. Trump, many Southern Baptists and other evangelicals refer to the importance of seeing conservative Supreme Court justices take the bench as a reason to disregard our earlier Resolution.

This is an example of pragmatic, ends-justify-the-means type of thinking. A problem with this type of thinking is that we can't really know the end of this process. We are at the verge of possibly seeing Mr. Trump have a third Supreme Court justice seated: a situation that may secure a solid conservative majority on the Court. If this occurs, Southern Baptists and other evangelicals will understandably feel vindicated. It will seem that their pragmatic decision paid off in just the way that they had hoped.

HOWEVER, it now seems a real possibility that the Democrats are poised to end the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court with additional liberal justices: a move that would negate the seeming conservative victory. Donald Trump's lack of character is a major reason why the Democrats are emboldened in this direction, feeling that they can (in some way) claim the moral high ground and avoid serious voter backlash.

Voting Biden as a Pragmatic Decision

Some evangelicals have reacted against the pragmatic vote for Donald Trump with the idea that we should pragmatically vote for Joe Biden in an attempt to reset American politics and break the Republican Party from a Trump-controlled agenda. A leading voice in the regard is David French. French and others like him make a credible claim of conservatism based on their past writings, but they are planning to cast a protest vote for Biden. They disregard the fact that Biden greatly values his endorsements by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League, and that he has vowed to expand government funding of abortion and to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law; Joe Biden says that abortion is a woman's right and a form of healthcare. French writes that "The power of the president over abortion is profoundly limited"; HOWEVER, this disregards the Mexico City Policy and the influence that the president has over his fellow party members in Congress regarding legislation that could bolster or repeal the Hyde Amendment. OF COURSE, the statement that "The power of the president over abortion is profoundly limited" also entirely disregards the president's role in nominating Supreme Court justices, and this is an especially egregious omission when the Democratic Party is floating the idea of placing additional justices on the bench.

Conclusion: Principles over Pragmatics

I still agree with my 1998 self and with the statement we made at the Southern Baptist Convention that year. I still call on call on "all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honesty, moral purity and the highest character". Don't neglect this call based on pragmatics. I know that pragmatic voters want to make things better, but the immediate outcome of a pragmatic decision that runs contrary to principle may place a gross blemish on your own character as well as having the actual effect of making the situation in this country WAY WORSE.