"A Faith for Freedom": The Political Gospel of Abolition

Abstract

Historians have long held that roots, character, and conduct of abolition movement grew out of evangelical Protestantism. In his history of movement in 1853, reformer William Goodell wrote that missionary and evangelizing orators . . . were God's instruments for putting into minds of others 'thoughts that burned,' for emancipation of enslaved. Dwight L. Dumond echoed this point almost nine decades later, describing abolition as powerful religious crusade in which from first to last churches were forums, preachers most consistent and powerful advocates, and sin of slavery cardinal thesis of new social philosophy. Following Dumond's lead, Bertram Wyatt-Brown maintained that the abolitionist movement was primarily religious in its origins, its leadership, its language, and its methods of reaching people.' A large body of work has examined relationship between abolition and evangelicalism. One set of studies focuses on doctrinal influence of religion on antislavery, emphasizing importance of a belief in human efficacy and millennialism for life of faith as well as for acts of reform. Believers capable of accepting grace of God could also prepare way of Lord; faithful body that detected and immediately denounced sin, especially sin of