Fuller argued that slavery, in principle, is not sinful. Undergirding his argument was his abiding conviction that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative Word of God. The Bible alone has the right to define sin. Once sin has been identified, it is humanity’s responsibility to repent. If “slavery be a sin,” Fuller wrote, “surely it is the immediate duty of masters to abolish it, whatever be the result.” Having established the supremacy of Scripture, Fuller proceeded to interpret its view of slavery. The gist of his argument went like this:
1. The Old Testament tolerates slavery. Fuller pointed to
Leviticus 25:44: “You may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you.” God would never permit what he considered sinful.
2. The New Testament tolerates and regulates slavery. Jesus used the institution of slavery in his teaching, drawing a contrast between those in bondage and those free (
John 8:35). Jesus didn’t repudiate slavery. Paul told slaves to obey their masters, and he told masters how to manage slaves (
Eph. 6:5–11;
Col. 3:22–4:1). From Jesus and Paul we find, according Fuller, implicit approval of slavery.
3. If Jesus or Paul had wanted to outlaw the institution of slavery, they would’ve done so immediately. Neither the Savior nor his apostle, Fuller insisted, would have caved to the pro-slavery culture if they counted it a sin.
4. The morality of slavery is no defense for its abuses. Fuller owned slaves himself, and he prided himself on the way he cared for them, counting himself among “the sincerest friends of the African race.”
For Fuller the matter was simple: If Old Testament saints owned slaves, and if the apostle Paul preached “the whole counsel of God” (
Acts 20:27) without explicitly prohibiting slavery, then no man can rightly call slavery, in principle, a sin.
In short:
Slavery was everywhere a part of the social organization of the earth; and slaves and their masters were members together of the churches; and minute instructions are given to each as to their duties, without even an insinuation that it was the duty of masters to emancipate. Now I ask, could this possibly be so, if slavery were “a heinous sin”? No!
Before America entered a a Civil War to contest this interpretation, Wayland sought to change Fuller’s mind. The university president was a widely regarded Christian ethicist. Despite being close friends, Wayland rejected Fuller’s slavery hermeneutic.
