Pro-Slavery Theology and Its Corporate Descendants — Sterling A. Varice — Main Street Independent

Sterling A. Varice is a satirical heteronym — a fictional capitalist villain voiced in the first person, in the tradition of Swift’s A Modest Proposal, to expose the logic of economic extraction by stating it plainly, with the euphemism removed. This is the documented historical record the satire is built from. Nothing in it is invented. The theologians named below are real men; their arguments are quoted from print; the verses are real; and the readings attached to them are the documented pro-slavery readings, carried forward intact and updated by the character from race to class. The horror is not that he fabricates a doctrine. It is that he cites this material accurately, as if it were live counsel, and finishes the argument its authors were careful to leave half-spoken.

The operating thesis

The American pro-slavery clergy built a closed legal hermeneutic — a single rule that did most of the work: if Scripture regulates a thing rather than abolishing it, Scripture cannot condemn it as sin. The character inherits that machine intact and swaps only its object — from chattel slavery to wage labor — and its taxonomy — from race to class.

His single move on everything inconvenient is to jurisdictionalize it. The Jubilee debt-release, the Exodus, the prophets on wage theft, the Magnificat, “sell what you have,” “woe to you who are rich” — none of it is denied. All of it is reclassified as spiritual admonition to private conscience, not economic policy. His working Bible has exactly five highlighted zones, and only five: Old Testament slave law; the Pauline household codes; Romans 13 and the theology of authority; the work-or-starve verses; and the property-owner parables. Everything outside those five zones is treated as “mood,” not Scripture.

The five founding theologians

These are real men, real texts, and real arguments. In the satire they are cited not as relics but as living advisors.

Thornton Stringfellow (1788–1869) — regulation equals divine permission

A Baptist minister in Culpeper County, Virginia, and a slaveholder, Stringfellow wrote A Brief Examination of Scripture Testimony on the Institution of Slavery (an 1841 tract), expanded into Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery (Richmond, 1856).

His four-point argument: that slavery received “the sanction of the Almighty in the Patriarchal age”; that it was incorporated into “the only national constitution which the Almighty ever ordained,” Israel’s own law; that Jesus Christ recognized it “as a lawful relation”; and that “it is full of mercy.” The core legalism underneath is the master key the whole tradition turns on: Scripture regulates slavery (Leviticus 25, Exodus 21, the household codes), and a thing God regulates is a thing God has not condemned as inherently sinful. Regulation equals permission. The character applies that gap — between regulating and banning — to every labor practice Congress merely regulates rather than prohibits.

Stringfellow’s fourth point carries a second doctrine: that bondage was a divine kindness, bringing the enslaved under Christian discipline, civilization, and the means of salvation. In the satire this becomes suffering reframed as catechism — “some men meet God only after exhaustion has removed their vanity” — the foundation of the Doctrine of Obedient Suffering.

James Henley Thornwell (1812–1862) — “find me chapter and verse”

A Presbyterian theologian in South Carolina and president of South Carolina College, Thornwell was the South’s most rigorous pro-slavery divine. His keystone sermon, “The Rights and Duties of Masters,” was preached in Charleston in 1850, at the dedication of a church built for enslaved congregants.

His hermeneutic: the church “is not at liberty to speculate”; “when she speaks, it must be in the name of the Lord, and her only argument is, Thus it is written.” Since Scripture nowhere explicitly condemns slavery, to condemn it as sin is to legislate beyond Scripture — abolitionism, in his frame, is “the spirit of the age,” extra-biblical liberalism dressed as conscience. In the satire every modern moral objection — to child labor, to the firetrap, to the algorithmic wage — is met with chapter and verse, or silence: “Produce the verse where Christ abolishes the master. Until then, you are not quoting Scripture. You are quoting your mood.” Conscience without a citation is dismissed as liberalism.

Richard Furman (1755–1825) — the household as a unit of government

The first president of the Triennial Convention and the namesake of Furman University, Furman was the Charleston Baptist patriarch. His Exposition of the Views of the Baptists Relative to the Coloured Population of the United States was written in 1822 to Governor John L. Wilson of South Carolina in the aftermath of the Denmark Vesey conspiracy of that May, and published in 1823.

His verdict, verbatim: “the holding of slaves is justifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy writ; and is, therefore consistent with Christian uprightness, both in sentiment and conduct.” The structure he assumes is the Christian household as a unit of governance — father, wife, child, servant, and slave, all under the master’s headship, all owing obedience inside the divinely ordered house. In the satire this becomes the firm: “the modern corporation is simply the household enlarged. The employer is the father of the productive house. The laborer’s first virtue is obedience.” Both the Doctrine of the Christian Employer and the Doctrine of Useful Children descend from this frame — “a man who owns the roof, the tools, the debt, and the schedule is already the father. Law merely refuses to call him one.”

The Curse of Ham / Canaan (Genesis 9:18–27) — heredity, race to class

In the antebellum reading, Noah — drunk and uncovered — curses Canaan, the son of Ham: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren” (Genesis 9:25). Pro-slavery theologians slid Ham to Canaan to Africa and made the curse a hereditary, divinely fixed fitness for bondage — the most widely deployed scriptural defense of racial slavery.

The character’s explicit update is to strip the race and keep the theology. “The curse was never skin. That was the crude reading. The curse was servility itself, inherited through appetite, imprudence, and dependence.” Class becomes a predestined estate; the mudsill becomes a bloodline of the improvident. It pairs with his Doctrine of Productive Election — poverty read as the outward sign of a disordered will.

Bob Jones Sr. (1883–1968) — “God established boundaries”

The evangelist and founder of Bob Jones University delivered the radio address “Is Segregation Scriptural?” on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1960, over station WMUU in Greenville, South Carolina — as Congress weighed the Civil Rights Act of 1960, sit-ins spread, and Billy Graham condemned segregation. The argument read Acts 17:26 (“the bounds of their habitation”) as a divine segregation mandate: “God never meant for America to be a melting pot to rub out the line.” Integration violated God’s established order; to oppose segregation was to oppose God. (Bob Jones University formally repudiated the position in 2008.)

The character moves the boundary from race to class. “God fixes boundaries. The liberal project is boundary erasure: between nations, sexes, classes, owners, and owned. Every civilization collapses when the fence apologizes to the field.”

The operational texts

These are the real chapter-and-verse anchors of the historical pro-slavery hermeneutic — the verses read literally, each carrying the gloss the character attaches.

Old Testament slave law

Leviticus 25:44–46 — slaves are to come from the surrounding nations and may be willed to one’s children as inherited property, held for life. They become property; bondage is heritable. (The character reads it as a clean property doctrine, dropping the in-group/out-group distinction the chapter actually draws — Israelite debt-servants released, foreigners held for life — and treats the release clauses as Jubilee bookkeeping to be jurisdictionalized.) — “Property is simply responsibility clarified.”
Exodus 21:20–21 — if a master strikes a slave who dies at once, he is punished; but “if the slave recovers after a day or two, the owner shall not be punished, since the slave is their property” (the King James “for he is his money”). This death-versus-discipline line is the character’s scriptural warrant for “managed discomfort,” “productive austerity,” and the cracked-building / firetrap calculus: injury short of immediate death is, to the text, not actionable. — “Modern law, being hysterical, confuses discomfort with injury.”

The Pauline household codes — his labor law

Ephesians 6:5 — “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ.” — “The command contains no arbitration clause.” Obedience as the worker’s first and theological virtue.
Colossians 3:22 — “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.” Cited alongside the parallel codes (Colossians 3:22–4:1; Ephesians 6:5–9; Titus 2:9–10; 1 Timothy 6:1–2) to show the doctrine is a repeated apostolic instruction, “said four times,” not a single verse.
1 Peter 2:18 — “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the harsh.” — “Scripture anticipated harsh masters. It did not authorize committees.” The text foresaw the cruel master and commanded submission anyway — his warrant against the very idea of remedy.
Philemon — Paul sends the runaway slave Onesimus back to his master. — “Paul sent Onesimus back. The apostle understood labor retention better than Congress.” The runaway worker is recast as a disordered asset, not a freed person — scriptural cover for non-competes, sponsorship debt, the kafala tie, and every mechanism that wires the exit shut. (The Doctrine of the Returned Onesimus.)
Romans 13:1–2 — “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers… whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” Rebellion against established order becomes rebellion against God; the regulator, the union, and the strike are read as sedition against the ordinance.

The work-or-starve verse

2 Thessalonians 3:10 — “If any would not work, neither should he eat.” — “Bread follows production. Hunger is God’s first payroll department.” The anchor for the Subsistence Eligibility / Production Certificate state and for the Doctrine of Governed Appetite: relief withheld from the uncertified, the able body kept hungry enough to arrive. “Hunger is instruction with teeth.”

The property-owner parables — his capital theory

Matthew 20:1–16 — the laborers in the vineyard. Workers hired at different hours are all paid one denarius; the early hires grumble; the landowner answers, “Did you not agree with me for a denarius?… Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” (verse 15). — “A wage is not unjust after it is agreed. Regret is not a labor claim.” The Denarius Doctrine: a signed contract is the funeral of complaint, and later grievance is envy — “the sin is that he counted another man’s denarius.” His scriptural answer to wage theft, the algorithmic cut, and the piece rate.
Matthew 25:14–30 — the talents. Three servants are given five, two, and one talent; the first two double theirs; the third buries his and is condemned; his one talent is taken from him and given to the servant with ten (verses 28–29) — “for unto every one that hath shall be given… but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” — “Christ did not redistribute the talents. He took from the unproductive and gave to the man with the highest return.” His anti-redistribution capital theory, drawn straight from the parable: increase is obedience, the buried talent is sloth, and Providence itself concentrates capital upward.

The debt verse

Proverbs 22:7 — “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” — “I merely built a business model around Proverbs.” Scriptural license for payday lending, rent-to-own, the closed payroll loop, and inherited debt — Scripture itself names the borrower a servant, and a servant relation is the lender’s by right.

The verse he disputes — and jurisdictionalizes

James 5:4 — “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” This is the one New Testament text that thunders directly against withheld wages. He does not deny it; he partitions it. “The apostle condemns fraud. I use contracts.” James condemns the kept-back, defrauded wage; his deductions are disclosed, his rates agreed, his cuts in twelve-point font — therefore, by his reading, outside the verse’s jurisdiction. “Wage theft requires theft. My deductions are disclosed.” This is the template for the whole disposal mechanism: locate the narrow word, comply with it on paper, declare the rest sentiment — and it is also the place the hermeneutic is most exposed, which is the satire working.

The jurisdictionalizing move

His universal disposal mechanism is never to deny that a passage exists, but to reclassify it as “spiritual admonition to private conscience, not economic policy” — Bronze Age tribal law, a counsel of perfection, or a prayer rather than a statute. The texts and his disposal of each:

The Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8–13, 39–41), the septennial debt release and land return — “tribal bookkeeping. Do not bring Bronze Age land law into a syndicated credit facility.” (The Doctrine of Anti-Jubilee.)
The Exodus out of Egyptian bondage, with Pharaoh’s brick quotas (Exodus 5) — reclassified as a one-time covenant event for one nation, not a labor principle. (He inverts the analogy: the minimum wage is “Pharaoh’s brick quota in reverse — less production, more straw.”)
The prophets on wage theft and the oppression of the poor — Amos 8:4–6; Isaiah 3:14–15; Jeremiah 22:13 (“woe unto him… that useth his neighbour’s service without wages”); Malachi 3:5 (against those who “oppress the hireling in his wages”) — jurisdictionalized as covenant-community admonition to Israel, not policy binding an anonymous outsourced subsidiary. (The Doctrine of Selective Neighbor: “My neighbor is not everyone with a pulse. That is not theology. That is census-taking.”)
The Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), “he hath put down the mighty from their seats… and the rich he hath sent empty away” — private spiritual sentiment, eschatological, not a program. “Blessed are the meek, for they accept the posted wage.”
“Sell what you have” to the rich young ruler (Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22; Luke 12:33) — a counsel of perfection for one man’s conscience, not a tax.
“Woe to you who are rich” (Luke 6:24) and the eye of the needle (Matthew 19:24) — a warning about the heart, not a verdict on accumulation.
The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) — neighbor-love bounded. “The Good Samaritan found the wounded man on the road. He did not ask whether the holding company had exposure.” (The Doctrine of Subcontracted Innocence.)
“Forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12) — “a prayer, not a policy proposal.”

The Sterling Doctrines

This is the named system — the theology above, operationalized. Each doctrine is the device citing real hermeneutics to bless a present-day extraction; the receipts are real, and the recoil is the point.

Productive Election — wealth is the outward evidence of election; poverty, the outward sign of a disordered will. “By their fruits ye shall know them. Mine are dividends.”
The Denarius — a wage agreed is a wage righteous; later complaint is envy (Matthew 20).
The Faithful Servant — the servant exists to multiply the master’s property; output is obedience (Matthew 25). “The faithful servant returned capital with increase. The wicked servant gave explanations.”
Holy Attrition — those who collapse or die under the conditions were not the vessels Providence fitted for the work (Romans 9:21, read industrially). “Some vessels are made for honor, some for common use, and some crack under normal operating pressure.”
Governed Appetite — keep the poor hungry enough to work and fearful enough to stay orderly (2 Thessalonians 3:10). “Hunger is not cruelty. Hunger is instruction with teeth.”
Bounded Mercy — charity is private, discretionary, and hierarchical; rights-based aid is rebellion, because it frees the poor from dependence on their betters. “Mercy offered upward as gratitude is Christian. Mercy demanded downward as entitlement is theft.”
The Christian Employer — the employer is the civilizational head of the workplace household (Furman’s household code). “A man who owns the roof, the tools, the debt, and the schedule is already the father. Law merely refuses to call him one.”
Obedient Suffering — a worker’s suffering has spiritual value when it teaches humility and submission (Stringfellow’s “mercy”). “A painless job produces atheists.”
No Standing — workers may petition; they may not judge the master. “The sheep may bleat. They may not audit the shepherd.”
Subcontracted Innocence — harm through a contractor, broker, subsidiary, algorithm, or foreign partner leaves the master clean. “The Good Samaritan found the wounded man on the road. He did not ask whether the holding company had exposure.”
Algorithmic Providence — the algorithm reveals each worker’s true market value by testing how much reduction he will endure. “The algorithm is merely Providence without sentiment.”
The Returned Onesimus — the runaway worker is a disordered asset, not a freed man; Paul sent him back (Philemon). “The apostle understood labor retention better than Congress.”
Anti-Jubilee — debt release was tribal Israel’s law, void in modern capital markets (Leviticus 25). “Do not bring Bronze Age land law into a syndicated credit facility.”
Selective Neighbor — “love thy neighbor” binds within the covenant community, not toward anonymous labor units in outsourced subsidiaries. “My neighbor is not everyone with a pulse. That is not theology. That is census-taking.”
Useful Children — children are under the father’s headship; if the father deploys them in the family production unit, the device merely “respects household governance” (Furman’s household; the Family Production Unit). “The child was not employed. The father exercised headship.”
Calibrated Austerity — discomfort is productive for biological capital; comfort breeds sloth and theological error. “The comfortable worker has begun to ask philosophical questions. I find this inefficient.”

The master legalism, restated

The engine, reduced to its load-bearing moves:

Regulation equals permission (Stringfellow). Anything Scripture regulated rather than abolished, it did not condemn; anything modern law regulates rather than bans, it has implicitly licensed. The device lives in the gap between regulation and prohibition — scripturally and statutorily.
No verse, no sin (Thornwell). A moral objection without an explicit prohibitory text is “the spirit of the age” — conscience without a citation. “Produce the verse.”
The household, enlarged (Furman). The firm is the Christian household scaled up; the employer is its father; obedience is the first virtue; the state that intervenes — child protective services, workplace-safety regulators, the labor board — is “boundary erasure” between father and house.
The boundary is divine (Bob Jones Sr., updated to class). Order requires fixed estates; the fence must not apologize to the field; class is the boundary God set and the liberal erases.
The curse is heritable (Ham and Canaan, updated to class). Servility runs in the improvident the way the antebellum reading ran it in a race.
Dispose of the rest by jurisdictionalizing. Never deny; reclassify. Find the narrow word — James’s “fraud” — comply with it on paper, and declare everything wider to be “spiritual admonition to private conscience, not economic policy.”

A note on accuracy

Every theologian, sermon, tract, and verse on this page is real and checkable, and the dates are exact: Stringfellow’s masterwork is 1856 (the seed tract 1841); Thornwell’s “The Rights and Duties of Masters” is 1850, Charleston; Furman’s Exposition was written in 1822 and published in 1823; Bob Jones Sr.’s “Is Segregation Scriptural?” aired Easter, April 17, 1960, and was repudiated by the university in 2008. The device invents no doctrine and misquotes no text. A fabricated verse, a wrong date, or a misattributed theologian would break the satire — its whole engine is that the citations hold. The recoil is aimed upward, at the man producing chapter and verse for the extraction, and never at the worker, the child, the debtor, or the believer reading the same Scripture toward mercy.