Start with what is not in dispute. Slave owners in America quoted the Bible to defend slavery and racism, and churches often helped them. The open question is what that history proves. It tells us a great deal about the slave owners. On its own, it cannot tell us where Christianity came from or what its Scripture teaches. Those are separate questions, and each has its own evidence.
The work here comes in four steps. You map the argument so its hidden premises show. You test one passage, Genesis 9, against the use slave owners made of it. You weigh the hardest objection. Then you practice the conversation. Alone, work through the sections with a notebook. In a group, plan on about an hour, or split it into two sessions after the Genesis 9 reading. The material draws on the Jude 3 Project curriculum Faith That Makes Sense, chapter one, and on the biblical text.
For leaders: this question often arrives with grief and anger, sometimes carried across generations. The curriculum gives leaders a short instruction, “Validate before you theologize.” Let people say what the history means to them before anyone starts sorting premises. Mapping the argument is not a way to dodge the pain. It is a way to take the claim seriously enough to examine it.
Map the argument before you answer it
Write the charge as a chain of steps. In its strongest form it runs like this.
- Slave owners in America used the Bible to justify slavery and racism.
- They did this as Christians, often with the support of churches.
- So Christianity is a white man’s religion.
The first two steps are true. The curriculum says so plainly: “The hard truth is that slave owners twisted Scripture to support their system.”
Look at the gap between step two and step three. The conclusion needs an unstated premise linking what users did to what the religion is. The phrase “white man’s religion” also hides two different claims.
- An origin claim: Christianity came from Europe or belongs to white people.
- A nature claim: Christianity, at its core, teaches white supremacy or exists to serve it.
The origin version assumes that whoever uses a faith most powerfully must be where it came from. The nature version assumes that a faith means whatever its most powerful users say it means.
Exercise 1. Write both hidden premises in your own words. Beside each, write what kind of evidence would test it. You should end up with two different answers. The origin claim is historical, settled by where and when the faith first took root. The nature claim is textual, settled by reading what the Bible says. Neither is settled by studying what slave owners did.
On origin, the evidence runs against the charge, which is why Jude 3 teaches that the claim is historically inaccurate: Christianity took root in Africa centuries before it reached much of Europe. The curriculum points to the Ethiopian official in Acts 8:26-40, who hears the gospel from Philip and believes. It points to early Christian communities in Ethiopia and Egypt, and to North African teachers such as Augustine and Tertullian. It notes that “Jesus was not European. He was a Jewish man from the Middle East.” That leaves the nature claim, which takes more work.
Test the premise against its own evidence
If use defines meaning, the rule should hold for every user of the text, not only the powerful ones.
The curriculum names a second group who used the same Bible in the same period: enslaved believers and abolitionists. In its words, “Many enslaved Christians became ‘better readers of the Bible’ than their oppressors because they approached Scripture to seek God’s heart; not to excuse sin.” The same book was read in opposite directions at once. If use defines meaning, the Bible teaches both slavery and freedom, which no one can hold. The premise fails under the very history offered to support it.
The better question is who read it accurately. The curriculum names two ways of reading. Eisegesis means reading your own ideas into a text. Exegesis means drawing the meaning out of a text in its context. Its diagnosis of slavery’s defenders is that “the real issue was not the text. It was sinful people forcing their biases into it.”
A careful skeptic will see a weakness here. Saying “they read it wrong” is easy for any defender of any tradition. The claim only earns its weight if you can open the text and show the misreading.
Read Genesis 9:18-27 slowly
The so-called Curse of Ham was one of the main texts used to claim that God had marked African people for slavery. Read Genesis 9:18-27 in full. In a group, have someone read it aloud while others follow along.
Exercise 2: observation before interpretation. Answer from the passage alone.
- Who speaks the curse? Does God speak anywhere in verses 20-27?
- What condition is the speaker in just before he speaks?
- Who is named as cursed?
- Does the passage mention a continent, a skin color, or a race?
Now check your answers. Genesis 9:22 introduces “Ham, the father of Canaan.” The curse, in Genesis 9:25, reads: “And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” The speaker is Noah, waking from drunkenness. The one named is Canaan, not Ham. The curriculum states it directly: “Noah, not God, speaks a curse.” It adds, “There is nothing in the passage about Africa, Black people, or skin color.”
Go back a few verses. Genesis 9:1 reads: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” God’s own word over Ham is blessing. The passage is narrative. It reports what Noah said, which is not the same as God commanding it.
So the enslavers’ reading needed four additions. Noah’s words had to become God’s words. The curse had to move from Canaan to Ham. Ham had to become the father of all Africans. And race had to be read into a passage that never mentions it. That is the difference between saying “they read it wrong” and showing it.
Weigh the Slave Bible carefully
The curriculum describes an edited Bible prepared for use among enslaved people. It says this edition “cut nearly 90% of the Old Testament” and about half of the New, “leaving only 232 of the Bible’s 1,189 chapters.” It says the editors removed passages about equality, liberation and justice, and concludes: “If the Bible truly supported slavery, they wouldn’t have needed to edit it.”
Exercise 3. Sort these statements into “follows directly,” “follows probably,” and “does not follow.”
- The editors believed parts of the full Bible worked against their aims.
- The full Bible’s overall message undercuts slavery.
- Every passage about servants and masters was misread.
The first follows directly. People do not cut texts they find useful. The second follows probably. The editors had a clear motive and judged Exodus and the prophets dangerous in the hands of the enslaved, but their fear does not replace reading those books yourself. The third does not follow at all. It needs separate work on the passages themselves. A skeptic will trust you more if you claim no more than the evidence carries.
The strongest objection
The hardest version of the challenge does not depend on slave owners. It asks why a good God’s Bible does not simply outlaw slavery. Laws in the books of Moses regulate slavery rather than abolish it, and Paul tells servants to obey their masters.
The curriculum answers that slavery in the ancient world was not tied to race, that “description is not endorsement,” and that some laws limited harm inside a fallen world. It compares them to what Jesus said about divorce: Moses permitted it because of the hardness of people’s hearts. It also traces a movement toward freedom through the Exodus, the prophets, and Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Paul’s instructions deserve more than a quick reply, and the curriculum mainly notes that oppressors misused them. Treat them as the open question for your own study. Read Ephesians 6:5-9 and note what Paul tells masters as well as servants, including his statement in verse 9 that God shows no favoritism between them. Then ask what that passage requires, what it permits, and what it never addresses. Faithful Christians also differ on how the laws of Moses apply today, so expect honest disagreement in the room.
What the objection cannot do is rescue the original charge. Even if this question stays hard for you, it is a question about the text. It is not evidence that the faith belongs to white people or was built to rank races.
Map the positive case
Two texts carry the curriculum’s positive argument. Genesis 1:27 reads: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Matthew 22:39 reads: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” The curriculum calls racial hierarchy “assigning worth that God has not assigned.”
Exercise 4. Build a short chain from these texts. Premise one: every human bears God’s image. Premise two: God commands love of neighbor as oneself. Conclusion: no one may rank people’s worth by race. Check whether each step follows. You should find that these texts undercut any racial justification for slavery outright. They do not, by themselves, settle the separate question of why the law regulated slavery. Keep those two questions apart, and you will avoid claiming more than you can show.
The curriculum then turns the question back: “If the Biblical God does not exist, how do we ground the equal value of every human being?” Do not leave that as a rhetorical point. Write down one rival answer you have actually heard, such as shared humanity, shared heritage, or a social agreement. Then test it the way you tested the original charge. What hidden premise does it need? Does it ground equal worth for every person, or only for people inside a certain group? Does it hold when the powerful disagree? An answer that passes those tests deserves respect, and your friend deserves to have it heard.
Discussion questions
- Before this study, which version of the charge did you hear most often, the origin claim or the nature claim? Had you noticed they were different claims?
- The enslaved believers’ reading works against the idea that use defines meaning. Does it settle the question for you? If not, what is missing?
- In your Genesis 9 reading, which observation carried the most weight? Is anything in the passage still troubling to you?
- The curriculum says, “Misuse of Scripture does not define Scripture.” Can you think of a case where repeated misuse should make us suspect the source itself? What separates that case from this one?
- What evidence would change your mind about whether the Bible supports racial hierarchy? Name a passage, a reading, or a historical finding.
- How would you hold that Christians did evil without sliding into the claim that Christianity is false, or ignoring the evil to protect your faith?
Leaders: some people will leave convinced the charge fails yet still angry that churches allowed what they did. Both responses fit, and neither needs to be resolved tonight. The failures of Christians are real and grievous. They are not the failure of Christ.
A practice for this week
The next time you hear the charge, do not answer right away. Write it as a chain of steps, as in Exercise 1, and mark where the hidden premise sits. Then ask one question that names what evidence would settle it: are you saying the faith came from Europe, or that the Bible teaches racism? Each has an answer, and the answers are different.
Then read Acts 8:26-40 on your own and ask what it does to the origin claim. Carry one question into the week: when you defend the faith, are you defending what the text says, or what its users did with it? You only owe a defense of the first.