Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 82:2 (Fall 2020)
Article: George B. Cheever And The Biblical Argument Against Slavery
Author: Michael E. Weaver

WTJ 82:2 (Fall 2020) p. 337

George B. Cheever And The Biblical Argument Against Slavery

Michael E. Weaver

Michael E. Weaver is Associate Professor of History at the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy of the United States government, the Department of Defense, or Air University.

Presbyterian pastor and American abolitionist George B. Cheever (1807–1890) argued persuasively just prior to the Civil War that the Bible did not sanction slavery but in fact outlawed it as the equivalent of perpetual manstealing, an act the apostle Paul explicitly prohibited in 1 Tim 1: 9–11. This article analyzes Cheever’s 1860 book The Guilt of Slavery and the Crime of Slaveholding, Demonstrated from the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, and contrasts it with pro-slavery arguments put forth by theologians, particularly James Henley Thornwell. Cheever addresses translation and usage of words such as doulos “servant,” often translated as “slave.” Cheever also points out that ancient Israel could not have been a slave-owning society as there were no fugitive slave laws. There were instead sanctuaries from abusive employers. Cheever’s philological approach casts doubt on pro-slavery interpretations and presents anti-slavery exegesis as more consistent with specific passages of Scripture as well as more logical.

The great question which arises in discussing the slavery of the African population of this country is this: Is the institution of domestic slavery sinful? The affirmative assumes that an immense community of Southern people, of undoubted piety, are, nevertheless, involved in great moral delinquency on the subject of slavery. For nothing is more certain than this, that if it be sinful, they either know it, or are competent to know it, and hence are responsible.… No plea of necessity can justify an enlightened man in committing known sin.1

In the years prior to the Civil War, abolitionists asserted that slavery was a sin, thereby accusing the South of institutionalizing an act God condemned. Southern Christians, like the Methodist William A. Smith quoted above, knew the implications of this argument. If true, they would have to abolish slavery or face God’s judgment. Most Southern theologians believed the Bible

WTJ 82:2 (Fall 2020) p. 338

endorsed slavery, and wrote extensive treatises with the Bible as the foundation for their defense of slavery. Abolitionist Christians responded with biblical arguments against slavery. Although the Southerne...