Yes, thank you- that helps point to the real thesis: Evangelicals lately say we formulated the critique for slavery, and provided the moral conscience that resulted in it being dismantled. Neither were true.

“Amazing Grace” tells the story of Christian approval of slavery, and spiritual anxiety after doing an unconscionable activity.

I’m just reading this about Newton: “It was a massive stroke, not any qualm of conscience about slavery, which ended his career at sea in 1754.”

This would appear to be the same dynamic as with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an Evangelical hero because of his resistance to Hitler. In fact, he was a rare German Christian with public standing to have done so, and extensive Christian anti-Semitism, building on Luther’s malevolent teachings, were crucial to the rise of Nazism.

A religious hero is erected to conceal the malfeasance.