The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

Religion commandeered both sides of the slavery issue. Lincoln made this point in his Second Inaugural: “Both [sides] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.”8 The bloodshed might have been stemmed were it not for the unmovable certainty religion breeds in the faithful. We might say today that abolitionists motivated by religion were correct to be certain on such an obvious issue, but their brethren south of the Mason-Dixon Line were just as certain, and they had the stronger side of the biblical argument. As William Lloyd Garrison, a leading abolitionist, put it, “In this country, the Bible has been used to support slavery and capital punishment; while in the old countries, it has been quoted to sustain all manner of tyranny and persecution. All reforms are anti-Bible.”9 This is not to say that religion caused slavery, but it did justify slavery and allow others to justify it. The bible gave slavery a divine sanction (see chapter 17). Diametrically opposed certitude on an issue like slavery, held without evidence or reason but instead on religious faith, is a blueprint for conflict.