Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism

Ben Wright's Bonds of Salvation demonstrates how religion structured the possibilities and limitations of American abolitionism during the early years of the republic. From the American Revolution through the eruption of schisms in the three largest Protestant denominations in the 1840s, this comprehensive work lays bare the social and religious divides that culminated in secession and civil war. Historians often emphasize status anxieties, market changes, biracial cooperation, and political maneuvering as primary forces in the evolution of slavery in the United States. Wright instead foregrounds the pivotal role religion played in shaping the ideological contours of the early abolitionist movement. Wright first examines the ideological distinctions between religious conversion and purification in the aftermath of the Revolution, when a small number of white Christians contended that the nation must purify itself from slavery before it could fulfill its religious destiny. Most white Christians disagreed, focusing on visions of spiritual salvation over the practical goal of emancipation. To expand salvation to all, they created new denominations equipped to carry the gospel across the American continent and eventually all over the globe. These denominations established numerous reform organizations, collectively known as the ""benevolent empire,"" to reckon with the problem of slavery. One affiliated group, the American Colonization Society (ACS), worked to end slavery and secure white supremacy by promising salvation for Africa and redemption for the United States. Yet the ACS and its efforts drew strong objections. Proslavery prophets transformed expectations of expanded salvation into a formidable antiabolitionist weapon, framing the ACS's proponents as enemies of national unity. Abolitionist assertions that enslavers could not serve as agents of salvation sapped the most potent force in American nationalism Christianity and led to schisms within the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist churches. These divides exacerbated sectional hostilities and sent the nation farther down the path to secession and war. Wright's provocative analysis reveals that visions of salvation both created and almost destroyed the American nation.

About the Author :
Ben Wright is assistant professor of historical studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Review :
"Wright's distinction between purification versus conversion offers a helpful reframing of the relationship between Christianity and slavery in the early republic and antebellum period. While Wright's characterization of American Christianity remains fundamentally Protestant, his multi-denominational perspective shows how these church institutions inspired, limited, and opposed abolition. Moreover, his argument that many white Christians prioritized denominational stability over their own antislavery beliefs is a poignant and important insight that remains resonant today."--American Historical Review Bonds of Salvation illuminates a sharp conceptual divide in America's nineteenth-century Protestant denominations between those who viewed the United States as God's instrument for converting the world and those who viewed it as God's instrument for purifying the social order. Ben Wright shows how this difference influenced colonization schemes, the Baptist and Methodist north-south schisms of 1844 and 1845, reactions to the Compromise of 1850, and eventually secession itself. In the recent surge of outstanding scholarship on religion and the divisions leading to the Civil War, this book makes an outstanding contribution.--Mark A. Noll, author of The Civil War as a Theological Crisis "Ben Wright aims to recover an ideologi-cal context that shaped not only abolitionists and their opponents but also every American in between. . . . Bonds of Salvation is an imaginative, nuanced, and deeply researched reconstruction of the religious and moral assumptions that guided many Americans between the Revolution and the Civil War. Historians of American religion, abolitionism, and slavery will have to reckon with Wright's argument for years to come."--Journal of American History A clear and vivid account of the transformation of the American Christians' responses to slavery from the late eighteenth century to the antebellum era. Wright ushers onto the historical stage a memorable cast of players--black and white, northerners and southerners--who bring to life the intersections between religious thought and institutional change as the nation grappled with the problem of slavery. His book is a must-read for all historians of religion and reform in the early republic.--Christine Leigh Heyrman, author of American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam Wright describes how the majority of white Christians who knew slavery to be sinful and wrong limited their activism against this evil. In failing to join black Christians and white radicals in the struggle against slavery, the majority of white Christian denominations left enslaved people in reprehensible situations that would be ended only with the violence of the Civil War. Both history and cautionary tale, Bonds of Salvation demonstrates how difficult it is to move from awareness of wrongs to deliberate action, and encourages us to consider the places in our own lives where our ideals outstrip our movement toward justice.--Leslie M. Harris, author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863