Reviewed by: Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism by Ben Wright Sean A. Scott Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism. By Ben Wright. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020. Pp. 280. Notes, index.) Slavery casts a wide shadow over U.S. history, and in this important monograph Ben Wright shows how differing emphases among religious Americans ultimately doomed initial attempts to abolish it in the early republic. Some Christians focused exclusively on spreading the gospel and [End Page 208] envisioned conversion as a necessary prerequisite that would subsequently produce broader social regeneration. Others believed that the nation itself must first be purified, specifically by eradicating the sins of slavery and racism, before the message of salvation would reach the global masses. Eventually these divergent agendas split the major Protestant denominations and foreshadowed the nation’s own sectional division. At first glance this narrative seems to retrace well covered ground, but Wright subtly reframes the historical conversation in several ways. In contrast to many studies that have explored the political motivations behind abolitionism, he demonstrates that an intellectual and ideological framework influenced many antebellum Christians to shun political activity and prioritize building denominations and creating other religious institutions that furthered their emphasis on spreading salvation. Organizations such as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions envisioned colonization of free African Americans as the best means for evangelizing Africa; therefore, many Christians of all denominational stripes supported the American Colonization Society and decried early proponents of abolition. Furthermore, by emphasizing how a person’s ideological commitment to winning souls or purifying society motivated his or her behavior, Wright moves beyond the gradualist versus immediatist dichotomy. Several scholars have explored various applications of millennial thought in the early republic, and this study underscores how its flexibility allowed both the proponents of salvation and purification to invoke it to justify their agendas. For example, Presbyterian Robert Finley envisioned denominational cooperation and networking as a means of furthering the gospel’s spread throughout the nation and thought partnering with the American Colonization Society would extend the message globally and help bring millennial dreams closer to fruition through spiritual conversions rather than by ending the suffering of enslaved people. In contrast, free African American David Walker vehemently opposed any direct linkage between colonization and salvation, and he invoked the cleansing fire of God’s wrath to be meted out on slaveholders before any millennial peace could be realized. Finally, Wright suggests that the individualist ethos that characterized the democratization of Christianity on the frontier during the early republic has overshadowed the denominational institution building that occurred simultaneously. Ironically, the initial push for salvation at the turn of the century “tightened the bonds of American slavery” but also created religious networks that birthed the reform societies, which by the 1830s “remade the bonds of the nation” through an urgent insistence on abolition (14). By refusing to acknowledge slaveholders as legitimate emissaries of salvation and demanding a pure church and nation unstained by the sin of slavery, these abolitionist reformers alienated northern antislavery moderates who had tolerated slavery among its southern members [End Page 209] to maintain denominational unity, and by the mid-1840s that tenuous thread of sectional forbearance for the sake of spreading salvation snapped under the strain of abolitionist demands for purification. Bonds of Salvation deserves a wide reading among all students of American history, and it should especially appeal to anyone interested in the intersection of slavery and race with religion. In fact, Wright’s elucidation of the early republic’s division between conversionists and purification-ists is quite relevant today as evangelical Christians are divided over how churches and seminaries should address systemic racism. Indeed, Wright’s excellent study confirms that the tension between prioritizing individual conversions versus seeking social transformation lies at the heart of U.S. religious history. Sean A. Scott Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities Copyright © 2021 The Texas State Historical Association
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Jan 1, 2024
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