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Biblical Christianity vs. Atheism on Racism and Slavery
Have you heard someone say, or thought yourself, something like: “Christianity is a racist white man’s religion. Haven’t you heard about slavery? I reject the Bible and Christianity and am a secular and enlightened atheist, because of racism.” The USA’s largest atheist organization claims: “[W]hite supremacy [is] interwoven with Christianity … inextricably intertwined.”[1]
Do you think this way yourself, or have you run across others who think this way? Here are some facts to consider.
The Bible Rejects Racism
The Bible teaches that all people are descendants from the first humans, Adam and Eve (Rom 5:12-19), and are thus created with eternal value as beings in the image of God (Gen 1:27). God infinitely loved (1 Jn 4:10) and Christ shed His precious blood for all people (1 Jn 2:2). His redeemed will praise their crucified and resurrected Lord, saying: “Thou art worthy … for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests” (Rev 5:9-10). The Bible teaches that there is only one race—the human race—and all members of that one human race were so loved and valued that God gave His only begotten Son to suffer an infinitely painful death to rescue them from sin.
The Christian Churches of Bible Times and Afterwards Rejected Racism
In line with God’s demonstration of love for all humankind, the early churches believed and practiced that one’s skin color or national origin did not affect one’s value to God (Gal 3:28). Thus, the churches of the New Testament were multi-ethnic, reflecting the diversity of the communities in which they lived. For example, several of the “prophets and teachers” and the church at Antioch were from Africa: “Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul” (Ac 13:1). In this church, “all” the leaders listed are “from either Asia or Africa.”[2] The prophet and teacher Simeon’s surname was “a Latin name ‘black,’ Niger”[3]; in other words, this early church leader was “Simeon the Black.” Likewise, Cyrene, Lucius’ city of origin, is in Africa.[4] As with the church at Antioch, the very first church at Jerusalem was a multi-ethnic congregation that included African preachers (Ac 11:19-21). An African helped Christ carry His cross (Mr 15:21), and the Christians of that African family were close friends with the author of the largest number of New Testament books, the Apostle Paul (Rom 16:13). People with “great authority” from “Ethiopia” were among the earliest members of the Christian community (Acts 8:27). The New Testament’s teaching of racial equality (Gal 3:28) is entirely in line with the Old Testament’s teaching of the spiritual value of all people, evidencing itself, for example, in God’s calling Israel into nationhood by freeing that people from slavery in Egypt (Ex 20:2), in Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman (Num 12:1), and in laws opposing slave trading and oppression such as: “He that stealeth a man, and selleth him … he shall surely be put to death” (Ex 21:16) and: “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.” (Dt 23:15-16).
Christianity in the Western world was powerfully impacted by the Africans Tertullian (AD 160-240) and Augustine (AD 354-430);[5] indeed, the African Augustine is the most influential leader in Christian history after Bible times.[6] Historians speak of the “formation” of European “Christianity in the school of … Africa.”[7] Thus:
Africa played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture. Decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood first in Africa before they were recognized in Europe and [it was a] millennium before they found their way to North America. Historically, Africa played a vital role in the first five centuries of the church. … Christianity would not have its present vitality in the Two-Thirds World without the intellectual understanding that developed in Africa between AD 50 and 500. … [D]uring the first five centuries … the African mind was highly honoured and emulated. … We cannot minimize the significant role that Africa has played in the history of the church … the early centuries were immensely shaped by … African thinkers. … African Christianity was a powerhouse.[8]
Ancient non-Catholic Christians, the Anabaptists or Baptists, were called “Novatians” or “Donatists” in the early centuries of Christianity after the African Anabaptist leaders Novatian and Donatus.[9] Modern Baptist churches are the children of these ancient non-Catholic groups led by Africans, as non-Baptist historians recognize: “The Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists … may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through all ages.”[10] “From the days of the apostles until the present time, there have not been wanting those persons, either separately or collected into churches, and known under different names, who, if now living, would be universally recognized as Baptists. … [T]hey have come to the surface in the Novatians, the Donatists … [the] Waldenses, the … Anabaptists … and are seen today in the Baptists distributed all over the world.”[11] Thus, “Christian traditions in Africa … are among the oldest in the world.”[12] Far from being tied solely to people from Europe, God raised His Son from the dead in Israel—where Africa, Asia, and Europe unite—and Christianity immediately began to spread in “all the world” (Mr 16:15), quickly reaching from Africa to China to India to Britain.[13] Christianity has always been a global religion—one for all people, since God’s purpose is that through Christ “all the nations of the earth [will] be blessed” (Gen 26:4). The Biblical view of humanity, which eliminates racism, has continued among Bible-believing churches from the first century until modern times.[14]
Christian Churches and the Bible Destroy Slavery
Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Official Medallion of the British anti-slavery society
The New Testament, while supporting peaceful change rather than violent revolution and bloodshed, encourages masters to set their slaves free (Phm 21). “[W]hen one considers the actual conditions in the Roman empire [of New Testament times],” it is hard to “suggest a better plan than the one pursued [in the New Testament letters] for the ultimate overthrow of slavery.”[15] From very early periods “Christianity spread freely among the slaves[.] … Not a few slaves died martyrs … as Onesimus, Eutyches, Victorinus, Maro, Nereus, Achilleus, Blandina, Potamiaena, Felicitas. … Callistus, who was originally a slave … rose to [become head pastor of the church] in Rome” between AD 218-223. Pagans reproached Christianity because it “so readily” received “slaves … women, and children.”[16] Examining tombs from the first centuries of Christianity, “it is impossible … to examine the pagan sepulchral inscriptions … without finding mention of a slave or a freedman … [but there is not even] one well-ascertained instance among the inscriptions of the Christian tombs.”[17] Thus, “Christianity is unique among religious traditions in the way it quickly came to disapprove of slavery and inspire antislavery movements.”[18]
Anti-Bible, Anti-Christian Secular Movements Spread Racism
in the World and Supported Slavery
As noted above, early Christianity was despised by paganism for supporting equality for slaves. This Christian view of equality continued in the Middle Ages, when Christendom regarded “slavery … as a sin practiced by Muslims and people living on the edge of civilization.”[19] The “transatlantic slave trade … was conducted despite the opposition of” Christendom,[20] while “Baptists were an integral part of the debates and ultimate banning of the English slave trade,”[21] and in the United States the “Baptists … were strongly opposed to slavery, and ardently desired, and pledged themselves to make use of every legal measure to secure its extirpation. They [were] … the first religious society in the South to declare explicitly in favor of the abolition of slavery.”[22] The “antislavery movement … [was] led by evangelical Christians … [a]t its core was the Biblical teaching that all people were created by God and that humanity shares common ancestors.”[23]
By contrast, the anti-Biblical historical movement known as the “Enlightenment … was anything but progressive for Blacks. … [M]odern racism originates in the Enlightenment.”[24] Based on “secularism and the theory of evolution,” this anti-Bible movement “claim[ed] … Africans and other native peoples … were lower on the evolutionary scale than Europeans. They were not fully human, but were more closely related to monkeys than to men and women. Therefore, slavery and other forms of discrimination and exploitation were fully justified. … Christians rejected such arguments as … justifications for an evil trade.”[25] For example, the anti-Christian philosopher Voltaire, in accordance with his rejection of Biblical creation, taught that “the Negro race is a species of men … greatly inferior.”[26] David Hume, a classic opponent of Biblical miracles, said that “[N]egros … [are] naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white.”[27] The philosopher Hegel, whose “influence lies behind such movements as Marxism, postmodernism, and even some forms of fascism,”[28] taught that in “Negro life … consciousness has not yet attained to … objective existence … [W]e must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality. Among Negroes moral sentiments are quite weak, or more strictly speaking, non-existent … Africa … is no historical part of the world.”[29] The famous evolutionist and creation skeptic Charles Darwin looked forward to white extermination of blacks and other “lower races”: “The … Caucasian races have beaten … [others] in the struggle for existence. … [At] no very distant date … the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”[30] Thus, “it is clear that the leading figures of the Enlightenment, and of the subsequent Romantic Movement, held a very low opinion of Africans.”[31] Later leading opponents of the Bible, such as Karl Marx, the atheist founder of communism, proclaimed: “[T]he common Negro type is the degenerate form of a much higher one.”[32] Marx wrote: “Let us … speak of the beautiful side … of the slavery of the blacks in the East, in Brazil, in the Southern States of North America. … [S]lavery is an economic category of the highest importance. Without slavery … you would have … the complete decadence of modern commerce and civilization. … [S]ave slavery … [c]onserve the good side of this economic category.”[33] Nations that have been influenced the most by the Bible and Christianity have all abolished slavery, while the atheist and communist country of North Korea has the highest percentage of its population as slaves in the world,[34] and millions are enslaved and brutally exploited in atheist and communist countries such as China.[35]
Do You Have Everything Backward on Racism and Slavery?
Biblical teaching and the practice of faithful churches establish that rejecting Christianity for atheism because of alleged Christian racism and support for slavery is entirely unreasonable. Both God and His infallible revelation, the Bible, reject racism. True and faithful Christian churches have universally opposed racism, while Christianity has been the driving force behind the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, racism and slavery are deeply intertwined with the ugly historical development of secular atheism. Racism is obliterated by the Christian truths that God created the human race as a unity, loved the entire human family enough to send His Son to die for and redeem them, and commanded all people to follow His pattern of love (Mt 22:36-40). Atheism, in contrast, has no consistent basis for objective morality at all, while anti-God evolutionary ideas provide a “rational” basis for dividing the human family into separate races, some more highly evolved and superior to others. These allegedly “higher races” can then oppress or even exterminate other humans in their evolutionary struggle for existence. You should fight racism by rejecting atheism and recognizing the Bible as the Word of the God who made the one human race.[36]
Spiritual Slavery—Your Greatest Problem
Whatever your ethnic or cultural background, you face a terrible problem. God commands you to be as pure and sinless as He is Himself: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet 1:16), but as a result of the disobedient fall of the first man, you continually sin—fall short of God’s standard in your acts, thoughts, and nature (1 Jn 3:4). “[B]y one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Ro 5:12). Indeed, you are born enslaved to sin with a depraved and evil nature. You can say: “I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5), for your “heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9). Scripture warns: “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. … For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:10-12, 23).Your sinful nature corrupts all your deeds, making even what you think is “good” displeasing to God: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isa 64:6). Christ said that one moment of unrighteous anger is like murder, and one lustful thought is like adultery (Mt 5:21-22, 27:28), so you are a murderer and an adulterer. You have told a lie before—indeed, you have told many lies in your life—but God warns that “all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev 21:8). The fact that you are a liar validates that the devil is your spiritual father, not God: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. … When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (Jn 8:44). Covetousness or discontent is the root of breaking all the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17; Col 3:5), so if you have ever complained or been bitter, your heart has shown it has within itself the filthy root from which all rebellion against God, blasphemy, dishonor of parents, theft, sexual immorality, and murder comes forth. If you have ever loved money, consider that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:10)—you are guilty of the sin that led people to kidnap and sell others into slavery! If you have every been proud, instead of exercising a perfect and lowly humility before God and others, consider that pride is an abomination to God (Pr 6:16-17), the first sin of Lucifer (Isa 14:12-15), and is the root from which racial pride and prejudice arise—you have committed the sin that leads to racism!
Your problem is not just that you have done a few bad things—you are sinning continually. Nor are you in danger from just your many acts of sin—your thoughts and even your nature itself are sinful, thoroughly corrupt. You are enslaved to sin (Jn 8:34), with your mind itself in rebellion against God and unable to submit to Him (Rom 8:7)—in your entire life you never have, and even now you “cannot please God” (Rom 8:8). Nothing you do is pure (Tit 1:15)! Your desire to live your own way instead of submitting to Christ as Lord is so deeply rooted in your nature that left to yourself you “cannot” submit to God (John 8:43). Your slavery to sin and Satan is total—you are unable to free yourself from sin’s bondage, but are already “dead in trespasses and sins … fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind … by nature the chil[d] of wrath” (Eph 2:1-3). Sinner, awake! Satan is far stronger than you, and keeps you in bondage. Your sinful heart enslaves you and you are unable to free yourself. How will you escape?
Spiritual Slavery—Its Terrible Consequences
Your nature, acts, and thoughts of sin will bring upon you terrible punishment: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), including “the lake of fire … the second death” (Rev 20:14-15). It “is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27); when you stand before God on judgment day, every public and secret sin of your life will be exposed to your inexpressible shame and horror before the entire universe (Rev 20:11-15). All the sins you thought you hid from everyone will be openly revealed (Ec 12:14). Instead of rejoicing in a blessed eternity with God, you will hear the terrible words: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41); then “these shall go away into everlasting punishment” (Mt 25:46). Your “damnation is just” (Rom 3:8), and, along with “your father the devil” (Jn 8:44), you will “drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and … shall be tormented with fire and brimstone … and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night” (Rev 14:10-11). All who are enslaved to sin when Christ returns or when they die will be in hell forever. Consider the Lord Jesus’ solemn warning: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Mt 23:23)!
Spiritual Freedom: God Has Provided a Ransom!
Only your Creator is able to save you from your spiritual slavery (Jude 25), for God is both “Almighty” (Rev 1:8), and so has the power to deliver you from your sins and from both spiritual and physical death, and “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), so, despite your many sins against Him, He is willing to save you. The one true God exists eternally in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (1 Jn 5:7; Mt 28:19). In order to provide a ransom to purchase you out of your slavery, God the Father sent His eternal Son, Jesus Christ, to unite a human nature to His Divine Person. The Son of God became a Man, lived a sinless life in perfect obedience to God’s Law in the strength of God the Holy Spirit, and then died a substitutionary death for your sins, satisfying the penalty you owed. Christ then rose from the grave, showing that His infinitely valuable sacrifice was sufficient to satisfy God’s justice against sinful mankind, and conquering sin, death, and hell. He then ascended to heaven, from whence He will return again soon to eliminate all oppression and rule in righteousness (Mt 26-28; Php 2:5-11; 1 Cor 15:1-8). The Lord Jesus Christ is the only Savior: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5-6). The payment He made is sufficient to take away your sin and enable God to account you as righteous, not because you are so in yourself, but because the Lord Jesus, as your perfect Substitute, is perfectly righteous: “For he [God the Father] hath made him [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor 5:21). Through the death and shed blood of Christ, “by one offering he hath perfected for ever” those who receive the benefit of His ransom (Heb 10:14); “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16).
Spiritual Freedom: Will You Be Ransomed?
How can you receive the benefit of Christ’s ransom, and be set free from your spiritual slavery? Christ preached: “the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mr 1:15). The gospel is the good news that you can be saved based on Christ’s redemptive death and resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-4). You must repent: “Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Eze 18:30). “Let the wicked forsake his way” (Isa 55:7), and “repent and turn to God” (Ac 26:20). Turn from your way to Christ; submit to Him as your Lord. Bow to Him as King and become His servant, instead of being the slave of sin and Satan!
You also must believe: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (Jn 3:36). Believing on Christ is not just recognizing facts about Him as true (Jam 2:19). It means to “put your trust in the LORD” (Ps 4:5). You must forsake all hope in any good deeds you think you have done in the past, are doing now, or plan to do in the future, reject all confidence that religious rituals like baptism or communion will save you, and trust in Christ alone, recognizing that His death on the cross is perfectly sufficient to save you: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:8-9). While “the wages of sin is death,” “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23). You have earned damnation as the wages of your sin, but you cannot earn “the gift of God”; the Son of God has paid the price for the gift of eternal life, and you must receive it for free, or you will never receive it at all; “ye shall be redeemed without money” (Is 52:3), “being justified [declared righteous] freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24). Only when you stop working to be saved can you trust Christ to save you: “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom 4:5). Trusting allegedly good actions for salvation is rejecting Christ: “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal 2:21); “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Rom 3:28).
You must turn to Christ immediately. The Lord Jesus could return today, or you could be dead before the sun goes down, and then it would be too late: “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov 27:1). Furthermore, your sinful heart is so evil that you will only repent and believe “if God permit” (Heb 6:3). While Christ promised “he that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” He also warned: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (Jn 6:37, 44). Do not resist the Father’s drawing you to Christ through His Word by the Holy Spirit, for it is “impossible” for you to come to “repentance” unless He “renew[s]” you (Heb 6:4-6). “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb 3:15). Do not refuse God’s offer to ransom you from your spiritual slavery, lest He turn you over irrevocably to Satan and your sinful nature!
If you come to Christ in repentant faith, He will not only deliver you from the penalty of your sin in hell, but also free you from sin’s control.
Believers are “made free from sin, and become servants to God,” and “have [their] fruit unto holiness” (Rom 6:22). He promises: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Eze 36:26), for “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17). Once you are saved, you are always saved, both from sin’s penalty and its power, for Christ promises His people “hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (Jn 10:27-28). Instead of slavery to sin and Satan, you will be God’s servant, and more than His servant, His beloved and adopted child (Jn 1:12). Will you perish, eternally enslaved to sin, or receive Christ’s ransom today?
For more information, or to start a one-on-one Bible study to learn more about how you can be saved from your spiritual slavery, visit, call, or write to:
Bethel Baptist Church
4905 Appian Way / El Sobrante, CA 94803
(510) 223-9550 / faithsaves.net
bbcelsobrante.org / bcaelsobrante.org
YouTube.com/c/KJB1611Baptist/; Rumble: KJBIBLE1611 channel
Discover how you can personally know the true God:
faithsaves.net/salvation/ & faithsaves.net/Bible-studies/ & faithsaves.net/testimonies/
Discover evidence for God and the Bible:
faithsaves.net/Gods-Word/ & faithsaves.net/science/
Learn about different world religions and groups in Christianity:
faithsaves.net/different-religions/
[1] “Fundraising for Kyle Rittenhouse Reveals American Christianity’s White Supremacy Problem,” Andrew L. Seidel, September 2, 2020, elec. acc. https://religiondispatches.org/fundraising-for-kyle-rittenhouse-reveals-american-christianitys-white-supremacy-problem/. Mr. Seidel is the Director of Strategic Response for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the USA’s largest atheist organization. For debates between the FFRF president and Christians on the accuracy of the Bible and the existence of Jesus Christ, see https://faithsaves.net/Gods-Word/.
Among many egregious misrepresentations in Mr. Seidel’s article, he neglects to mention that the person he accuses of being a white supremacist murderer actually was found not guilty by a multi-racial jury on all counts after shooting three white (not black) men in self-defense who were trying to kill him. Mr. Seidel likewise neglects the fact that this alleged racist supports the Black Lives Matter movement, that he has not made any racist statements, and that even the prosecuting attorney at his trial made no attempts to paint him as a racist since there was no evidence for it. (Pointing out Mr. Seidel’s misrepresentations should not be taken as an endorsement of either the person or the actions of the defendant in the legal case Mr. Seidel is inaccurately commenting on—it is a comment on Mr. Seidel and his atheist organization’s unfortunately characteristic disregard for truth.)
[2] Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary & 2: Introduction and 1:1–14:28, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012–2013), 1984.
[3] Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Brothers., 1889), 425.
[4] “Cyrene … [the] [c]hief city of the ancient district of North Africa, called Cyrenaica or Pentapolis” (E. M. Blaiklock, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Article “Cyrene,” par. 11892).
[5] Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, ed. T. K. Cheyne and A. B. Bruce, trans. Neil Buchanan, vol. 5 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1899), 14-15.
[6] “No other … has produced so permanent effects on both … Catholicism and Protestantism … and no other stands in so high regard with both, as Augustine.” Tertullian likewise is “the common inheritance of both parties.” (Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3 [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910] 1016–1017). For an examination of the many places where, unfortunately, Catholicism follows human traditions instead of the Bible, and some of the times where Protestantism perpetuates Catholic traditions instead of the teaching of Scripture, see https://faithsaves.net/catholic/ & https://faithsaves.net/different-religions/.
[7] Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, vol. 5, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), v.
[8] Samuel W. Kunhiyop, “Challenges And Prospects Of Teaching Theology In Africa,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011) 65-66, citing Thomas C. Oden, How Africa Shaped The Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007), 9.
[9] See, e. g., John T. Christian, History of Baptists vol. 1 (Texarkana, TX: Bogard Press, 1922), Chapter 3; elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/ecclesiology/.
[10] See https://faithsaves.net/Baptist-historical-succession/ for the source of this quote and for more information. Also see J. T. Christian, History of Baptists, vol. 1-2, for Baptist history from the times of Christ their Founder to modern times (available online for free at https://faithsaves.net/ecclesiology/).
[11] Clarence Larkin, Why I Am a Baptist (Washington DC: American Baptist Publication Society, 1902), 8–9.
[12] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 33.
[13] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 343. It is possible that Christianity also spread from Britain to America many centuries before Columbus. However, many Native American tribes did not maintain written records, so certainty about their ancient history is no longer possible.
[14] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 38.
[15] A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), Phm 21.
[16] Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 347–354.
[17] Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 352.
[18] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 79.
[19] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 39. The Quran strongly supports slavery, allowing Muslim men to commit adultery with as many slave girls as they wanted, in addition to having relations with up to four wives (Quran 4:24; 70:30); the most authoritative Muslim Hadith validate that Muhammed owned, acquired, and traded vast numbers of slaves, including black slaves (Sahih Muslim 10:3901), and otherwise happily supported slavery. Slavery is eternal for the Quran—faithful Muslims will be masters who will own slaves even in Paradise (Quran 52:24; 56:17; 76:19). See https://faithsaves.net/QuranBible/ and further resources referenced there for more on Islam.
[20] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 79.
[21] William Sailer et al., Religious and Theological Abstracts (Myerstown, PA: Religious and Theological Abstracts, 2012); see Briggs, John H. Y. “Baptists and the Campaign to Abolish the Slave Trade.” Baptist Quarterly 42:4 (2007) 260–283 & Stanley, Brian. “Baptists, Antislavery, and the Legacy of Imperialism.” Baptist Quarterly 42:4 (2007) 284–295.
[22] J. H. Spencer, A History of Kentucky Baptists, ed. Burrilla B. Spencer, vol. I (Cincinnati: Spencer, 1886), 183.
[23] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 79.
[24] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 39.
[25] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 79–80. Note also that empirical science strongly supports creation rather than instead of atheistic evolution; see https://faithsaves.net/science/.
[26] François-Marie Arouet Voltaire, Additions to the Essay on General History, and the Manners and Spirit of Nations, vol. 22 in The Works of M. De Voltaire, trans. & ed. T. Smollett, T. Francklin, et. al. (London: J. Newbery, R. Baldwin, etc., 1763), 227.
[27] David Hume, NC 20n6.1, Mil 208 in “Of National Characters,” Essay 21 in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, part 1, elec. acc. “Hume Texts Online,” https://davidhume.org/.
[28] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 41. Hitler, of course, was an evil fascist; his racism is well known, unlike that of those quoted in the main body of this composition.
[29] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree, rev. ed. (New York: Willey Book Co., 1900), 96.
[30] Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, ed. Francis Darwin, vol. 1, letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881 (London: John Murray, 1887), 316. pg. 316.
[31] Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 41.
[32] Karl Marx, letter to Friedrich Engels, August 7, 1866, cited in Jonathan Sperber, Karl Marx: a Nineteenth-Century Life (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013), 413.
[33] Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy: being a translation of the Misere de la Philosophie, trans. H Quelch. (Chicago: Charles Kerr & Co., 1920), 121-122. Marx is quoting the view of another author, M. Proudhon, in this quotation, but Marx expresses no disagreement with Proudhon’s views of slavery. Marx also thought that eventually when a communist utopia arrived there would be no slavery. He may have thought that slavery’s abolition could contribute to the coming of the communist utopia, which would be good, in his mind; however, in the real world in which Marx lived slavery was of the “highest importance,” with a wonderful “good side.”
[34] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-still-have-slavery/
[35] https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/country-studies/china/.
[36] The facts mentioned above do not mean that no individual Christian has ever sinfully supported racism or slavery, nor that every individual atheist supports racism or slavery. The facts mean that a Christian who supports racism or slavery is inconsistently contradicting the Book he claims to recognize as God’s Word and the history of his own faith, while a racist or pro-slavery atheist is consistent with the historical roots of his belief system.
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