Misusing the Bible: The Tragedy of Nat Turner’s Rebellion

Earlier this month I watched the 2016 movie The Birth of a Nation for the third time. It graphically depicts the rebellion of enslaved men in Virginia that began 190 years ago on August 21, 1831. 

Historical marker erected in 1991

The Making of a Black Preacher

Much of what is portrayed in The Birth of a Nation is fictional—or a composite of the historical people of the time rather than specifically about the one boy/man Nat Turner, who was, in fact, born in October 1800 in Virginia’s Southampton County.

It also is historically true that Nat was a precocious boy who learned to read at a young age—although not necessarily in the way it was portrayed in the movie. And he learned to read by using the Bible as his “reader.”

Further, it is factually true that Nat continued to read the Bible regularly and had a deep, even mystical, spiritual life. Both because of his knowledge of the Bible and his mystical experiences, he apparently became a preacher at an early age.

However, Nat was not used by his “owner,” Tom Turner, as portrayed in the movie, for in fact, Tom Turner died in 1822.

But even if Nat was not “used” to pacify the enslaved people to whom he preached in Southampton Co., it is historically accurate that “slaveowners” expected Black preachers to use Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, and 1 Peter 2:18 often in their sermons.

Also, similar to what is portrayed in the movie, those preachers did so when “slave owners” were present, as they often were. Selective use of the Bible became a tool for the control of enslaved people in the American South.

That is just one of numerous examples of the historical—and current!—misuse of the Bible.

The Re-making of a Black Preacher

Nat Turner, however, seems to have begun to read the Old Testament more and more, especially passages about the “warrior” God depicted in Deuteronomy, Joshua, and some of the Minor Prophets.

Spurred by visions that he considered of divine origin, Nat began to preach more and more, when he could, about the use of force against evil—and he began to plot a violent rebellion against the Whites in Southampton. And, as indicated, the actual uprising began on the night of August 21, 1831.

The actions of Nat Turner and his fellow rebels were brutal. White children were killed along with their slave-owning parents. That was consistent with what the Old Testament includes as God’s instructions to the Israelites in their battles against the Canaanites and others.

The insurrection was quelled in just a couple of days, but it took the lives of some 60 Whites and about four times that number of Blacks. After successfully hiding out for more than two months, Nat was captured and then hanged on November 11.

Critiquing Black Preacher Turner

The main problem I have with Nat Turner’s use of the Bible—as well as with the pro-slavery people of the South—is his/their paucity of references to Jesus Christ and his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.

Still, it is not hard to have considerable sympathy for Nat Turner. As Judith Edwards writes near the end of Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion in American History (2000), her helpful book written for high school students,

Nat Turner, whose rebellion was so very bloody, seems not to have been a violent man by choice. The excesses of slavery caused the excesses of his rebellion (p. 99).

So, perhaps the (mis)use of the Bible by Nat Turner wasn’t any worse than, and maybe not as bad as, the (mis)use of the Bible by the Whites of the South in the 19^th century—and now.

But when, oh when, will Christians ever learn how to believe/preach the word of truth correctly (see 2 Tim. 2:15)?

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** My blog post for Oct. 10, 2016, was titled “The Birth of the Nation” and is about the 2016 movie with that name and Nat Turner’s rebellion. While the content overlaps this present post, there is much that is different, and I commend it for your consideration (again). (Surprisingly, there have been over 850 “pageviews” of that post.)

“The Birth of a Nation”

The 1915 film The Birth of a Nation was the first movie to be shown in the White House. Based on The Clansman, Thomas Dixon’s 1905 novel, D. W. Griffith’s groundbreaking movie has been broadly criticized through the years because of its blatant racism and its glorification of the KKK.

This past weekend a movie with the exact same name was widely released. The new film is mostly about Nat Turner, the Virginia slave who in 1831 led the first major slave rebellion in the U.S. Nate Parker, the director, splendidly plays the adult Nat Turner in the movie.

Parker (b. 1979), in his directorial debut, made history at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: he sold the film’s distribution rights to Fox Searchlight Pictures for $17.5 million, the most ever paid for such rights. 

In preparation for seeing Parker’s new movie, June and I recently watched 12 Years as a Slave. That graphic film of the terrible abusive treatment of Solomon Northup, a historic person, and other slaves began in 1841, ten years after Turner’s failed revolt. Perhaps the extremely harsh treatment of the slaves then was partly because of that revolt.

The 2014 Oscar for Best Picture was given to 12 Years as a Slave. Parker, no doubt, has dreamed of his movie being equally successful. Even though not convicted, his chances greatly dimmed, though, with the report of his being charged with rape when he was a college student.

In Parker’s movie—and surely we need to evaluate it rather than the morality of the director and main actor—Nat Turner is first shown as a precocious boy eight or nine years old. Parker, then, portrays Turner as a winsome adult: gentle, soft-spoken, and very likable.

While perhaps enhanced for its dramatic effects, true to extant historical information, the mistress of the plantation taught Nat to read, mostly by using the Bible, when he was a boy. Then when he was a young man, he became a preacher. Interestingly, Turner’s Bible is the only artifact of his in the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Turner, however, was told what passages of the Bible to use in his sermons as he was taken from one plantation to another by his master—for a fee. In that way, he was used as a means to keep the slaves docile and subservient.

Seeing the pitiful condition of slaves on neighboring plantations where he was taken to preach, Nat became more and more dissatisfied—so he began to read the Old Testament where God commanded the killing of enemies. He began to feel that was what God was calling him to do also, with the help of the fellow slaves around him.

Thus, the 48-hour rebellion occurred. It took the lives of around 55 whites but about four times that number of blacks. Nat himself was hanged three months later, in November 1831.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." Those words by Thomas Jefferson appear on the opening screen of the movie.

It is certainly obvious that Nat Turner, and other slaves at that time, were treated very unjustly—and most slaves even more unjustly than Nat. Still, it is difficult to see how Nat’s rebellion in any way helped to awaken God’s justice—at least in the 1830s.

Maybe Parker’s splendid movie of Nat Turner will help bring about greater justice for the descendants of slaves of the 1830s, though. I pray that it will. Black Lives Matter!