Nat Turner’s Rebellion as a Process of Conversion

Abstract

This article considers Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion as the culmination of a process of conversion. In adopting this stance, this article argues that Turner is right in his understanding that the praxis of his rebellion was a participation in God’s grace, even when the nature of that praxis fell outside the ethical norms of mainstream theology. This work places Turner’s Christian faith within the context of the Christianity lived out by slaves, and then engages Keller’s theological reflections on apocalypse and an implicit theology of conversion in Marcella Althaus-Reid’s work to show that the concurrence of a process of conversion and rebellion has important theological implications. Seeing Turner’s rebellion as a praxis of conversion can prompt a move towards a theological understanding of conversion that understands a commitment to God made within a community of faith to be more fundamental than the assimilation of one’s praxis to conventional ethical norms.