Nat Turner: Baptist preacher, Rebel leader

N 1825, THE slave and lay Baptist preacher Nat Turner had a vision. He saw “white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened—the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams.” The troubling apparition made Turner long for holiness and true spiritual knowledge before the advent of Judgment Day. Then, in a Virginia field where he was toiling, he saw blood on the corn. He told both white and black neighbors about these miraculous portents of the Day of the Lord. Wandering in the woods, “hieroglyphic characters, and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood” appeared to him on the leaves of trees. One white man, Etheldred Brantley, was impressed by Turner’s prophecies. When white Baptists would not allow Turner to baptize Brantley, he and Turner took to the waters themselves. There they “were baptized by the Spirit.” - Baptists in America: A History - Thomas S. Kidd


When I first started reading this chapter, I, not knowing anything about Nat Turner, thought it impressive that Turner seemed to be having visions concerning the imminent Civil War almost 40 years before it occurred. Reading the next paragraph I learned that Nat began hearing noises and voices, and looking for divine signs in order to act. On August 7th 1831 he gathered a mob of blacks, slave and free, “who used axes and clubs to murder sixty white men, women, and children, mostly members of slave-owning families.” Nat Turner was severely punished and executed.

His visions concerned racial justice stemming from a conviction that men were equal before God.

The response to Nat’s uprising was to sanitize slavery, while other agitated for abolition.

One thought in this is how God is able to use people’s evil actions for his good cause. Slaves were brought from Africa to America where they were sometimes evangelized, repenting of their tribal religions. Baptists especially were quite effective at reaching blacks. Some eventually preached, pastored, and planted churches. Some returned to Africa, while some Africans (Coptics) came to visit America.

The economy of the South would have been underdeveloped without chattel slavery. The production coming from plantations greatly benefited the U.S.

Opposite the benefits of evangelism and economy were the revolting actions of slaveholders. The Southern Baptist argument of the day was that slavery was biblical, but that the inhumane treatment which commonly accompanied it was diabolical.

I suppose my question would be, much as the tenth plague brought divine retribution against the Pharaoh’s murder of male infants, and Egypt’s plundering was payback for the hard labor of the Israelites, there must be some divine justice for American slavery, namely, as mentioned, land developed and opened for future use, even if performed under unjust auspices, and a gospel witness and spiritual blessings unavailable in their homeland, even if surrounded by bitter oppression.

Nat Turner’s vision was realized, but emancipation did not come from a violent uprising but the pricked conscience of citizens and uniformed soldiers.

Baptists should not be rioters or inciters, and violence by means of war should be a last choice. Nat Turner sounds more like the guy who started the TaiPing Rebellion in China.