Draft:Evangelical Origins of Lynching

In American history, lynching was intended to deter future criminals and provide a sense of revenge to victims and their families. Therefore, the impact of this form of punishment extended beyond making criminals pay for their wrongdoings. The use of violent retributions to enforce social order contains ties with groups that migrated from northern England, the western isles of Scotland, and Northern Ireland to the Appalachian backcountry. The resulting system removes the responsibility of imposing justice away from government and law enforcement and places it on citizens. The lynching of African Americans by white mobs exemplifies this system of vigilante justice. Upon their arrival to America, groups from North Britain adopted a form of Christianity referred to as New Light Christianity, which emphasized being renewed in the Lord and equality among its members. New Light Christianity also incorporated military themes and the combination of violence and salvation with phrases like “shedding blood for the Lord”, giving rise to Militant Christianity. This aspect of New Light Christianity supplies a possible origin for the complicit role of the church in lynching.

Definition and statistics
The NAACP defines lynching as the “extra-legal killing perpetrated by three or more individuals, who claimed their murderous actions were intended to uphold justice or tradition”. During the lynching era, African Americans constituted 90% of the victims in the South, and 94% died under the violence of white mobs. These illegal murders resulted from Southern whites transferring the responsibility for implementing justice and enacting punishments away from the courts and into their hands. White mobs used spurious criminal accusations and forced confessions to justify the gruesome and macabre violence of lynching African Americans. Black people received punishment for crimes they never committed since 4 out of 5 accusations were unfounded and contrived. Accusing black men of assaulting white women created a narrative of helpless white women and villainous black men that enabled white mobs to portray lynching as a response to crime and an aim to restore social order. This narrative created a sense of solidarity among white Americans through the acceptance of white supremacist ideology and a belief in white moral superiority. These accusations reinforced the perception of African Americans as lacking in morals and underserving of the status of full citizens, justifying and prolonging the mistreatment of these individuals.

The ritual of lynching
The lynching of African Americans increased after the Civil War and Reconstruction, moments marked by the struggle of black people for social progress. The white Christian community viewed the progress and increased presence of African Americans in society as a breach of social boundaries that violated the covenant between white Christians and God. This labeled the presence of blackness a sin. The illegal and horrific act of lynching black people was viewed as a sacrificial act to restore social order and reaffirm the covenant with God. The white Christian community perceived lynchings as punishment for this sin and as a blood sacrifice essential to attaining salvation, attributing a sense of devotion and defense to the barbaric murder of black citizens. White churchgoers often participated in the lynching of African Americans, displaying encouragement and acceptance of these horrific acts. Ministers, bishops, and elders delivered sermons and lit funeral pyres. Therefore, white Christians accepted the white superiority and domination embedded in white supremacist ideology and condoned and supported the attempts to restore and maintain this racial hierarchy. District Association meetings with delegates and pastors rarely discussed lynchings. White churches focused on foreign missions and revival work rather than the racial injustices plaguing their communities and the nation.

A common theme of lynching in the South was a sense of pride and commemoration at each event. Christians would make a day out of the horrific murders by dressing in their Sunday best, taking pictures, making postcards, and keeping souvenirs. In the case of Sam Hose, a Black man who was accused of murdering his white employer and raping his wife, the Christian mob made a huge spectacle of his death. The Sunday of his lynching was turned into an event similar to a holiday where attendees dressed up and took special trains overflowing with excited Christians to the scene. Once Hose had been tortured and burned to death, members of the crowd scoured the scene for hours, digging for souvenirs through the man’s ashes. Civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois even recalled seeing Hose’s fingers exhibited in a butcher shop. This indicates that there was support from the community to the point that these atrocities were normalized and celebrated throughout mundane Southern society.

Opposition by white churches
Though some white Christians used their faith to justify the act of lynching, others used religion to oppose the “ritual.” Both individuals and institutions used scripture to oppose lynching both in and outside of the church walls. Multiple institutions spoke out against lynching and even contributed to activism in the space. In 1922 and 1923, the Nothern Presbyterians passed resolutions to endorse a bill that made lynchings a federal offense. The Southern Methodists were very vocal against lynching on a more widespread level condemning lynching at every single convention meeting. But the Southern Baptist church was criticized for its reactions on a local level. The church was even criticized for its ambivalent condemnation, which either put equal or greater emphasis on the crimes that caused lynching instead of the act itself. When challenged about their lack of intervention, some institutions and individuals would also stress the importance of other issues instead of the violence happening right outside of their church doors. In 1931, the Federal Council investigated a lynching in North Dakota. As the churches in the area held their silence, one Presbyterian church minister argued he was too busy saving lost souls to cooperate. Though the Southern Baptists, as well as other churches, did not defend lynching, their silence or mixed reactions undermined the support of the white church in the anti-lynching movement.

Black opposition
The Black church also used its position within the African American community to oppose lynching. One valuable method of opposition was the use of newspapers and periodicals within the community. These mediums of opposition illustrate lynching analogous to Christ’s crucifixion. One image published in the Crisis magazine titled "Christmas in Georgia, A.D. 1916” depicted a white mob repositioning a Black man on the brand of a tree as an image of Christ embraces the limp body of the man from behind. The NAACP also worked tirelessly to combat lynching and promote awareness. The organization published studies, photo essays, and other forms of media to show people the horrors committed in the South. They also flew a flag reading “A man was lynched yesterday”, at their national headquarters in New York. The NAACP also fought for anti-lynching legislation on both the state and federal levels. Though most of this activism was done outside of the South, its impact aided in the future decline of lynching rates in the 1930s.