Why the “Abolitionist vs. Slaveholder” Argument Against the Bible Doesn’t Actually Work

You’ve probably heard this one before—maybe from a YouTuber like Alex O’Connor or in an online debate. It goes like this: “If Christians say the Bible is morally trustworthy because abolitionists used it to fight against slavery, then you have to admit that other people used the exact same Bible to defend slavery. So which is it? Doesn’t that prove the Bible can say whatever you want it to say?” At first, it sounds like a knockout punch. Same book. Same “authority.” Two completely opposite conclusions. Game over for the Bible, right?

Not quite. The argument only feels strong because it’s sneaking in a hidden assumption that most people never notice.

The Hidden Assumption: “Every Interpretation Is Equally Good”

The whole objection only works if you secretly assume that whenever two people disagree about what the Bible means, both readings are automatically just as valid. It’s like saying, “You see the Bible your way, I see it mine—end of story.”

But think about this in real life. Imagine your group chat blows up because two friends read the same text message completely differently. One thinks it’s a joke, the other thinks it’s serious shade. Does that automatically mean the message itself is useless or meaningless? Of course not. It just means at least one of them is reading it wrong.

We don’t treat any other important text this way.

If two lawyers argue over the meaning of a law, we don’t shrug and say “Well, both interpretations exist, so laws are pointless.” We dig in, look at context, history, and the whole document to figure out which reading actually fits best. Same with a contract, a scientific paper, or even the rules of your favourite sport. The existence of bad or twisted interpretations doesn’t make the original text worthless—it just shows that some readers are better (or more honest) than others.

So the real question isn’t “Did both sides quote the Bible?” It’s “Which side actually read the Bible properly?”

Both Sides Quoted Scripture—But They Didn’t Read It the Same Way

Yes, both abolitionists and slaveholders pulled verses out of the Bible. But that’s where the similarity ends.Think of the Bible like a really long story with a clear direction and heartbeat. Abolitionists like William Wilberforce didn’t just cherry-pick random lines. They stepped back and looked at the whole plot:

• Every single human being is made in God’s image (starting right at the beginning in Genesis).

• God’s big rescue story in the Old Testament is literally about freeing slaves (the Exodus).

• The prophets keep hammering on about how God hates oppression and crushing the poor.

• And right at the centre is Jesus—teaching radical love for your neighbour, flipping upside-down ideas about power, and treating every person with massive dignity.

When you see the whole story flowing in that direction, slavery starts to look completely out of place, like trying to play a peaceful board game with someone who keeps punching people.

Pro-slavery readers, on the other hand, usually zoomed in on a few isolated rules—like the Old Testament regulations that managed existing slavery in ancient Israel, or a couple of New Testament verses telling slaves to obey their masters. They treated those bits like they were the main point, while ignoring the bigger current of the story pulling the other way.

It’s the difference between quoting one line from the school rulebook to justify something dodgy, versus actually understanding the whole spirit and purpose of the rules.

How Do We Decide What Counts as a Good Reading?

This is where things get interesting. Christians throughout history haven’t just made stuff up. They’ve used some basic, sensible rules for reading the Bible well:

• Context matters. You can’t rip a single verse out and pretend it’s the whole truth. It’s like quoting “love your neighbour” while ignoring everything else Jesus said about justice.

• The story has a direction. The Bible isn’t a flat list of rules. It moves from creation → brokenness → rescue → new creation. Later parts often fulfil or deepen what came earlier.

• Jesus is the centre. For Christians, everything gets read in the light of who Jesus is and what he did.

• Different types of writing do different jobs. Ancient laws, letters to churches, poems, and stories aren’t all giving the same kind of instruction.

When you actually apply these normal reading principles, the pro-slavery interpretations start to feel forced. They have to flatten the story, ignore the direction it’s heading, and treat temporary ancient rules as if they were God’s final word on human dignity.

“Aren’t You Just Picking the Nice Interpretation You Already Like?”

This is the obvious comeback, and it’s a fair question. If someone today just says “Slavery feels wrong, therefore the Bible must be against it,” that would be cheating—reading modern feelings back into the text.

But that’s not what the best abolitionists did. They said something much stronger: “When you actually follow the Bible’s own logic about what humans are, what God is like, and where the story is going, slavery doesn’t fit. It contradicts the text on the text’s own terms.”

It’s not “The Bible should agree with me.” It’s “The Bible’s deepest vision of humanity and freedom undermines slavery.”

The Stronger (and Better) Challenge

The toughest version of the objection isn’t just that Christians once disagreed. It’s this:

“The Bible is too vague. It’s so open-ended that it can be twisted to support almost anything—including both slavery and its abolition.”

That’s a serious point. And the honest answer isn’t to pretend bad readings never happened (they obviously did). The answer is to show that the Bible does set real limits. When you read it with basic care and honesty—paying attention to context, the overall story, and Jesus at the centre—it consistently pushes against treating human beings as property.

It doesn’t mean every single verse is crystal clear. But the heart of the message isn’t neutral on human dignity.

Don’t Defend Every Christian—Defend the Text

Here’s something important: Christians don’t have to pretend the church has always got it right. History is full of people misreading or misusing the Bible—sometimes in awful ways. That shows human beings are fallible, not that the Bible itself is useless.The real test is whether those bad readings were actually faithful to what the text is trying to say. On the issue of slavery, there are very good reasons to conclude they weren’t.

So the Argument Falls Apart

The “both sides used the Bible” objection only works if you believe one of two things:

1. All interpretations are equally valid (which would make any text meaningless), or

2. The Bible is so vague it can’t actually guide us on big moral questions.

Neither of those holds up.Interpretations can be careful and coherent—or they can be sloppy and distorting. Once you stop just counting how many people used the Bible and start judging which readings actually fit the whole story, the false symmetry breaks.

The Bible wasn’t evenly split between the two sides.It was read faithfully by some… and badly by others.