Origins of Proslavery Christianity: A Talk by Author Charles Irons
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Reception at 5 p.m.; Reading at 5:45 p.m.
Location: Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Free and open to the public
Information: (919) 962-4207 or liza_terll@unc.edu
Part of the Southern Historical Collection Book Series
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In his book, The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia (UNC Press, 2008), Charles Irons examines how white plantation owners in colonial and antebellum America rationalized evangelical worship alongside the black men and women they claimed to own. 
White proslavery evangelicals, who felt they had moral responsibilities toward slaves, defended slavery because they declared Christian conversion brought blacks to God, Irons argues.
Drawing in part from materials in the Southern Historical Collection of the Wilson Special Collections Library at UNC, Irons uses church records, denominational newspapers, slave narratives, and private letters and diaries to illustrate the theological arguments advocated by white proslavery evangelicals.
Irons is an assistant professor of history at Elon University in Elon, N.C.
This reading is part of the Southern Historical Collection Book Series, featuring authors whose research has involved material in the SHC.
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