Narrative of the Life of Essay

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He began to use religion to sanction his cruelty toward slaves. He became pious, attended Church meetings, and invited other persons of religious piety to his house. But in his treatment of human beings whom he held in bondage, nonetheless, the master became a more cruel and sadistic monster. He became a barbaric religious hypocrite.

Ultimately, Douglass argues that American slaveholders totally perverted the meaning of Christianity and that the slaveholders were not true Christians. He makes it clear toward the end of his narrative that his criticism of religion was directed at the specific way American slaveholders practiced it. Douglass explains:

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" (p. 116).

Douglass here is emphatically stating that he has no problem with Christianity as taught by Christ. He actually loves it. But his problem is with the way American slaveholders practice it. Douglass makes it clear that, in his opinion, American slaveholders pretending to be Christians are hypocrites who are worse than those who never claim to be Christian.

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The slaveholders lie to others and lie to themselves. If they were true Christians, they would not have kept millions of human beings in bondage in the first place; and, even if they did, they would have at least been kinder and more humane in their attempts to live up to Christian ideals. The slaveholders corrupted religious teachings to suit their own base and wicked instincts. Douglass also suggests here that true Christianity is the absolute polar opposite of what American slaveholders practice; therefore, as he notes, loving the teachings of Christ necessitates hating American slaveholders and their religious hypocrisy.

Reading the narrative helped me get a peek of the life of slaves and how oppressive it was, although we will never know their true experience. In his narrative, Douglass criticizes many other aspects of the institution of slavery and political, religious, and social context in American south that justified it. But his criticism of religious hypocrisy seems to me to be the most powerful. Douglass is a master of rhetorical analysis -- but not only that. His critique of American perversion of Christianity is both rhetorically powerful and backed up with facts, truth, and logical argumentation. He makes a compelling argument that the way American slaveholders practiced religion was incoherent (they held on to quasi-religious theories like the story of Ham), hypocritical (they did not practice what they claimed to be practicing), and ultimately false. Their Christianity was not the true Christianity but a gross perversion of it.

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