Book Review: Christians and Slavery

Ian Shaw. Day One Publications (2025). RRP £15.
https://trade.dayone.co.uk/products/christians-and-slavery

Ian Shaw is a social scientist and Professor Emeritus at the University of York. He is the author or editor of more than thirty books. He is also a member of York Evangelical Church. Some of this book draws on articles he wrote for Affinity’s Foundations in the last couple of years on slavery, the slave trade and Christians.

Shaw’s book, Christians and Slavery, is structured in two parts. Part 1 forms the bulk of the book and is about how Christians engaged with slavery and the slave trade. Part 2 seeks to apply lessons from this history to contemporary challenges.

In Part 1, Shaw seeks to provide an account of how Christian leaders in both Britain and America responded to slavery in the 17th century and beyond. The first chapter outlines a history of the transatlantic slave trade and the dreadful inhumane treatment of slaves by both traders and owners. He notes that in 1783, Prime Minister, William Pitt estimated that slave trade profits accounted for 80% of British overseas income (p38). Slavery was so accepted that supporters were incredulous at proposals to outlaw it (p39).

The following chapters demonstrate with extensive research and quotations what Christians of various stripes and times have said and argued about slavery and the slave trade. First, Shaw tackles the Puritans, noting Calvin’s general abhorrence of slavery. While Samuel Rutherford criticised slavery in the strongest terms, others (such as Baxter and Cotton Mather) accepted it whilst criticising the harsh and degrading treatment of slaves as a hindrance to the gospel.

Moving on to the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards famously owned slaves, seeming to regard slavery as a necessary evil. Edwards allowed for domestic slavery but ruled out slave trading. His reluctance to defend the practice, however, helped pave the way for the next generation, including his son, to campaign against the practice. George Whitfield also held slaves in his Georgia orphanage.

There is a chapter on black evangelicalism and American slavery – a topic not often discussed. Somewhat counter-intuitively, he finds that these often-enslaved Christians had a high view of God’s sovereignty. Representative is the quote from Equiano: “Through the mysterious ways of Providence, I ought to regard [slavery] as infinitely more than compensated by the introduction I have thence obtained to the knowledge of the Christian religion.” (p133).

A chapter on the abolitionist movement and its Christian motivations discusses the involvement of William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, John Newton, John Wesley, and many others. He also discusses how the Particular Baptists responded to slavery, noting that Robert Robinson preached a sermon in 1788 on slavery in which he lamented: “If there be such a thing as a national sin . . . I fear, I fear, the African slave trade is of this kind.” (p150).

Shaw moves on to discuss various theological responses to continuing slavery in 19th century America. Here we see the likes of Robert Dabney seeking to justify slavery by reference to the curse on Canaan. Others, such as Charles Hodge, sought to defend the institution of slavery as divinely ordained whilst abhorring the ill-treatment of slaves. While B.B. Warfield was ahead of his time in criticising racism, he did not completely condemn slavery as an institution. Even into the twentieth century, Gresham Machen sought to differentiate between the institution of slavery and the abuses of it. 

A final chapter in part 1 discusses the British abolition of slavery and its aftermath. Here, Shaw highlights the work of William Knib who linked speaking out on slavery with preaching the gospel. He also quotes extensively from the sermons of Charles Spurgeon on the subject.

Part 1 is well-researched and informative, and lays bare the horrors of slavery and the acquiescence or even encouragement of the church in its evils. Part 2 moves on to discuss what we can learn from this to apply to contemporary challenges. Shaw asks, and proposes some initial answers to, eight pertinent questions. These questions are well worth pondering, and I list them here for the reader:

• What does the history of slavery and the slave trade tell us about Christians and political engagement?
• How do we keep close to God while being publicly involved?
• What can we learn when Christians fall short?
• How should we understand and respond to Christian disagreements on slavery?
• What are we to think about questions of reparations and restorative justice?
• Are we called to national repentance?
• What and how should Christians remember?
• How has the Bible been interpreted?

Shaw’s discussion of these questions in the light of his research in Part 1 is enlightening. I won’t attempt to summarise his thoughts on each of them, but the question on reparations is very topical (and discussed further in Biggar’s book; reviewed below). Shaw argues that, while culpability for sin is personal, the corruption of sin is corporate, so that in the Bible nations and churches are called to repent of sins for which not every member was culpable. He quotes extensively from Thabiti Anyabwile’s article ‘Reparations Are Biblical’. Anyabwile argues that the decrees of Cyrus in Ezra 1 and of Darius in Ezra 6, allowing the Israelites to return to the land with the temple vessels, and then insisting that the rebuilding of the temple is paid for by royal revenues, are reparations for the sacking of Israel by the Babylonians two generations earlier. 

This is an interesting argument; however, I am not sure that I am entirely persuaded. Reparations are not mentioned at all in the context of these decrees in Ezra. It is far from clear that these Persian rulers felt any duty of reparation for the sins of the Babylonians. It is worth noting, however, that Jeremiah did say that “after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity” (Jer 25:12). Therefore, punishment was inflicted on people two generations later who did not participate in the destruction of Jerusalem. Surely this punishment was primarily the fall of Babylon in 539 BC?

The unique contribution of this book is its focus on how Christians of all kinds engaged with slavery and the slave trade, both in Britain and America, and both before and after abolition. There is no attempt to discuss how the Bible should be properly interpreted in relation to slavery – and this felt like an omission, given the focus on theological responses. However, Shaw’s book is a reminder that many prominent Christian leaders failed to properly respond to the evils of slavery. It is an aid to reflecting on what we can learn today from the history of Christian engagement with slavery.