Fredrick Douglass-On Christianity From slave to a free man, a free man to a preacher, a preacher to an abolitionist, an abolitionist to an immortal figure. This is the path of Fredrick Douglass, one of the most influential black men in U.S. history. Without him, the horrors taking place within the Southern slave trade would not have come to be so widely recognized and fought against in the North. In his autobiography, Fredrick Douglass makes two very distinct points regarding Christianity in the South that are astonishing. The first point revolves around a comparison he made between his first master who was a “devout” Christian and his second and final master, who was an unbeliever. Douglass writes in his comparison that he believes he gained an advantage with his new master because he “made no pretensions to, or profession of, religion”. This seems contradictory in theory, but in reality it is not. Before we discover why he was of this opinion, we must dig deeper. Later in his biography, Douglass makes a comparison between the “Christianity of this land” (meaning the South), and that of the “Christianity of Christ”. He makes it very clear that these are two totally different belief systems. The “Christianity of the land” was the Christianity of …show more content…
They reflect Christ to the best of their ability; they are holy, pure, and peaceful. This is the idea that Fredrick Douglass was trying to put forth, and this same idea is still true in the 21st century. Although 80% of Americans claim to be “Christian”, only 5% claim that Christ is the sovereign Son of God, the supreme ruler of the universe. This comparison of statistics is more than evident when we look at the fact that more preachers than ever are adulterers, thieves, and idol worshippers, the very thing they preach against. This is more than enough evidence to show what exactly Fredrick Douglass meant when he made that