The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy

by Philip S. Gorski

the shift to Black slavery created a problem for English theologians, a problem that grew more acute as some enslaved Blacks converted to Christianity and enslavement was passed on from mother to child. On what grounds could Christians enslave other Christians—Christians, moreover, who were not captives of war? The old theological justifications provided no clear answer. New justifications had to be invented. What was needed, in a phrase, was a racist theology. The need was soon met. Writing in 1681, the Anglican priest Morgan Godwyn listed the two most common forms of racist theology. The first was “pre-Adamism,” the belief that there had been two separate creations resulting in two separate species: pre-Adamites and Adamites. Only the latter were humans with souls. The second was Noah’s Curse: because Ham had seen Noah drunk and naked in his tent, God placed a mark on Ham’s son Canaan and condemned his offspring to perpetual servitude.14 By 1700, proslavery theologians had woven these and other stories together into what historian David Whitford calls the “Curse Matrix.” It had three elements: (1) “black skin is the result of God’s curse”; (2) so is Africans’ supposed “hypersexuality and libidinousness”; and (3) slavery was actually a boon to Africans because it exposed them to Christianity and (white) civilization.15