TonioTimeDaily

Autism is my super blessing! I'm a high-school valedictorian, college graduate, world traveler, disability advocate. I'm a Unitarian Universalist. I'm a Progressive Liberal. I'm about equal rights, human rights, civil & political rights, & economic, social, &cultural rights. I do servant leadership, boundless optimism, & Oneness/Wholeness. I'm good naked & unashamed! I love positive personhood, love your neighbor as yourself, and do no harm! I'm also appropriately inappropriate! My self-ratings: NC-17, XXX, X, X18+ & TV-MA means empathy! I publish shows at 11am! Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support

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episode 92: I kissed slaveholding religion goodbye forever!


"There were several occasions in the narrative where Douglass explains situations where Christianity was significant. One of Douglass’s master, Thomas Auld, portrayed the effects of Christianity on an individual. At a point where Douglass was able to give dates of his life, he remembers 1832 when he began living with Auld in Baltimore, Maryland. He describes Auld as a mean man with a temper. But one of Auld biggest problem was not giving slaves enough to eat. However, Auld was a master who was not too firm and at times “lacked that of a master.” Douglass recalls that Auld had visited a Methodist camp meeting where he experienced religion, Christianity, for the first time. It was clear that Douglass saw this in a optimistic way. Being affiliated with religious faith would change a person for the better. Douglass felt Auld would either “emancipate his slaves and if that (Christianity) did not do this, at any rate make him more kind and humane.” Nevertheless, it made his character cruel and unjust according to Douglass. Auld found religious sanctions to support his cruelty and harsh punishment. This showed the conversion to Christianity had a negative impact on Auld. In another instance, Douglass began living with Mr. Wilson at St. Michael’s. Shortly after Wilson began participating in religious activities. 

Douglass began to identify a difference in Mr. Wilson through the way he “tied up a lame young woman, and whipped her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip.” Douglass states that the way Mr. Wilson justified his behavior was by using the religious literature, repeating a passage of scripture- “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many strips.” This demonstrated that the religious literature help provided master’s with the evidence they needed to defend their actions. Either this was the incorrect way Christianity was practiced or humanity was presented in an ambiguous way. The presence of religion goes on further when Douglass introduces Mr. Covey, another master he was assign too. Mr. Covey was a professor of religion and a religious class-leader at the local Methodist church. He also had a reputation of breaking apart young slaves in which Douglass refers to him as a “nigger-breaker.” As young as Douglass was when he moved in with Mr. Covey, he remembers when Mr. Covey gave him “a sever whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little fingers.” This is puzzling to hear of a man who is committed to faith but his actions seemed to be contradicting.

Douglass notes many laws during his time of slavery. In particular he talks about the law of lynching. If slaves were not behaving or doing the work they were assigned, they would be punished. If punishment was not suitable actions for the slaves, then slaveholders would turn to lynching. Under the law slaveholders would be protected for lynching slaves. For one, the other slaves who witnessed the lynching could not go to court as they were deemed unreliable or not creditable. Although slaves were humans, they were considered property first. According to Jennifer Glancy’s theory, “in some Christian circles to say the least, that slaves’ bodies were property- objects of physical violations of all kind, surrogates for torture and vessels for sexual pleasures and sexual crimes.” (Glancy. 2007)The law and its literatures such the United States Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights consisted of so much ambiguity that property and humanity was not clear-cut that it allowed slaves to be adopted as property."

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 October 26, 2021  57m