The Spirit of Christianity: A Thorny Answer to the Theological Crisis of Dutch Abolitionism

When the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church asked King William III in 1857 to abolish colonial slavery, the Synod argued that slavery is in open conflict ‘if not with the letter of Holy Scripture, then at least with the Spirit of Christianity.’ Over the previous decades, the concept of the Spirit of Christianity had become popular as an extrabiblical principle to address ethical challenges that were not prohibited by the Bible, but still deemed immoral by Christians. In my article I trace the development and use of the concept of the Spirit of Christianity in Dutch theological debates. I show how this principle mainly gained popularity in response to colonial challenges, first and foremost regarding slavery. In this encounter, Dutch protestant theologians were forced to rethink their hermeneutics of the Bible. While advocating the abolition of slavery and the rights of the enslaved, these theologians also paradoxically legitimised colonial hierarchies by arguing that the Spirit of Christianity that guided them, still had to awake among enslaved and colonial subjects. Moreover, the discourse on the Spirit of Christianity may have contributed to the slow emancipation of the Dutch enslaved.