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Answer all the following questions. Make sure that your homework clearly identifies the different parts of the assignment. The grading rubric follows the following questions:
1) Irons wrote that, “They questioned, too, how Virginian slaves could have interpreted the Gospel in a manner that sanctioned such revolutionary activity, and how they might need to alter their religious practices to prevent their black brethren from making these connections.” Imagine someone who is confused as to why evangelical Virginians would have been so shocked at Nat Turner’s revolt. This imaginary person explains that they assumed that evangelicals would have always expected slave revolt and so this imaginary person expresses surprise at the shocked response of proslavery Virginia evangelicals. Why were proslavery evangelical Virginians shocked by Nat Turner’s revolt, and did their shock reveal any tensions, contradictions, or paradoxes within proslavery evangelical thought?
2) How does your answer to question #1 relate to Iron’s emphasis on “religious commitment as an analytical category.” I discussed Iron’s idea of “religious commitment” in Week 3.
3) What is the difference between exegesis and eisegesis? You’ll have to look up these terms.
4) Nat Turner baptized a White man. Why was this almost as threatening if not just as threatening to proslavery evangelicals as was his revolt?
5) Besides revolt, what other ways did enslaved Virginians marry religion to resistance in in their attempts to create their own spaces and communities?
6) Optional – additional comments or questions?
Charles F. Irons, The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), chapter 4.
2) Web link – Interview with Nat Turner: Thomas Gray’s interview with Nat Turner. Primary document.
3) Web link – Brief Summary of Thomas Gray’s interview with Nat Turner: Summary of interview with Nat Turner
