Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. (Matthew 15:13) People are sinners. Not some people; all people. Every single person who has ever lived is a sinner; no one has ever escaped it, except for one person—the very one we worship as God. Those who are not the embodiment of the eternal Deity sin, and they sin a lot. There is a longstanding teaching in some Christian traditions about something called “original sin,” which is basically an attempt to explain why people are so terrible, such hopeless sinners. It’s an infection, a flaw in our nature, something we can’t help but inherit from time immemorial. I myself do not accept a doctrine of original sin—certainly not a strong version of it. But since I’ve introduced the term I can now quote the famous comment from G. K. Chesterton, an Anglican turned Catholic, who said more than a hundred years ago that “original sin … is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved” (Orthodoxy, ch. 2). He meant that if you start with the hypothesis that people gravitate toward wickedness, you will not lack for evidence. In the mid-twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr said something similar, asserting that original sin is “the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith” (see the title of ch. 3 of this book on Niebuhr). The century intervening between Chesterton and us has not proven him wrong. In his 2012 book on Christianity, the Anglican layman Francis Spufford took the fact of sin—or, in his terminology, not sin but HPtFtU—as a universally recognized datum. Thanks for reading Gallagher! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. People can and often do display remarkable goodness. I gave some examples last time; this goodness seems most clear when it requires bravery, as in the case of Casper ten Boom, who told a Christian pastor in about the year 1943 that to die on behalf of a Jewish infant would be a great honor for his family. The divine Spirit, which inhabits each one of us who have been immersed in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, works to produce goodness in us, because goodness is one of the fruit of the Spirit. But the relationship between adherence to Christianity and the display of goodness is complex. For it is not only Christians who might overcome their natural wickedness and display goodness; non-Christians often do this, whether people of other faiths or no faith. And Christians often fail miserably to display goodness. For this latter category, I gave several examples last time, particularly the slaveholder of the young Frederick Douglass, who, as Douglass later recalled, got religion and immediately became more cruel. We can also look back at the more recent Civil Rights struggle, especially in the 1960s, and find many examples of Christians beclowning themselves, directly opposing first principles of the gospel, as if law and order were opposed to loving thy neighbor, and—even if it were—as if it took precedence over the second greatest commandment. A century earlier, to return to Douglass, this former slave sprinkled throughout his 1845 autobiography bitter complaints about Christians refusing to live Christianly. He did this so much, in fact, that upon re-reading his memoir before its publication, Douglass realized that he might give readers the wrong impression about his true feelings toward Christianity, so he added an appendix to clarify things, and the main function of that appendix for us today is that it clarifies for us how susceptible Christianity is to perversion. I’m going to steal some valor here by excerpting a long section from Douglass, one of the greatest orators this nation has produced. Well, since I’ve never actually heard him deliver a speech, maybe I should change that description—not orator but speech-writer. That man could write a speech. I hesitate to identify Frederick Douglass as the absolute greatest speech-writer in American history, because I am thinking of his older contemporary who served as our sixteenth president. In my mind, it’s hard to beat out Abraham Lincoln as a speech-writer. And if you’re looking for a great American speech, it’s hard to surpass the two speeches that are carved into the walls of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall. (See my previous essay.) Part of the reason that the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural are so great—a big part of the reason—is because they’re short, short enough to chisel the entire text into those walls. They’re compact; they pack a punch. I am not aware of Douglass giving such brief speeches. But I imagine he was usually called upon to fill an hour or more, because people enjoyed the experience of listening to Frederick Douglass, so he wasn’t in a position to give brief speeches. But let me tell you, when he writes a speech, he brings it. Lincoln wrote speeches that were thoughtful, calm, considering great thoughts, applying the current moment to the great themes in history. The outcome of reading Lincoln is solemn contemplation on the serious issues just discussed. Frederick Douglass is different. I don’t mean that he’s not thoughtful; of course, he’s brilliant, but his speeches do not lull the reader into solemn contemplation. Rather, the reader of Douglass’ speeches has the sensation of having been hit over the head by a 2x4, or walloped in the gut. I mean, good grief, read his most famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and it is clear that to this meeting of the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in 1852, Douglass has brought a sledgehammer. I imagine the assembled crowd, abolitionists everyone, listening to that speech leaning further and further back in their chairs the more he talked, or maybe hiding under their seats to protect them from the thunder coming from the rostrum, but then afterwards mobbing their invited speaker to tell him, “Thank you, we needed that.” Because sometimes you need to be hit by a 2x4. Jesus knew that well enough. So here comes the 2x4 from Douglass. It’s not one of his famous speeches, or any of his speeches, but rather a section of the appendix to his first autobiography. I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. That excerpt is merely half of the first paragraph of that appendix; he has more accusations, which it would be good for you to read. Eventually he quotes a long section of Matthew 23, applying the denunciations spoken by our Lord in reference to hypocritical scribes and Pharisees to the Christian slaveholders of his day. Dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Could any thing be more true of our churches? They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshipping a sheep-stealer; and at the same time they hug to their communion a man-stealer, and brand me with being an infidel, if I find fault with them for it. They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are always ready to sacrifice, but seldom to show mercy [cf. Hosea 6:6]. They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They love the heathen on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their own doors. Such is, very briefly, my view of the religion of this land; and to avoid any misunderstanding, growing out of the use of general terms, I mean by the religion of this land, that which is revealed in the words, deeds, and actions, of those bodies, north and south, calling themselves Christian churches, and yet in union with slaveholders. It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt it my duty to testify. It is important for us to hold in mind such critiques as these by Douglass, for we are often in danger of missing the point of Christianity—becom
