CH207: American Church History — Faith in the Antebellum Era — Slave Religion, Pro-Slavery Theology, and Manifest Destiny

This episode explores how American Christianity served as a volatile battleground for conflicting ideologies regarding race, liberty, and empire in the years preceding the Civil War. The text contrasts the "Invisible Institution" of enslaved people—who utilized a liberating theology of the Exodus to seek spiritual and physical freedom—against the pro-slavery hermeneutics of Southern white clergy who used scripture to enforce social control. Furthermore, the source details how these religious disputes led to major denominational schisms and provided a providential justification for westward expansion through the concept of Manifest Destiny. Ultimately, the lesson serves to illustrate how the same religious framework was simultaneously deployed as a weapon of dominance by the powerful and an engine of resistance by the oppressed.This podcast was created with the assistance of AI tools.