Of both the readings for Tuesday, the quote on page 177 of A People’s History of the United States: “religion was used for control” struck me as the most significant. The context of this quote pertains to religious leaders’ control during slavery, where religion aided in keeping slaves in a submissive position. The mentality that was force-fed to these slaves by the slave owners and by black preachers was that slavery was God’s will and this was where everyone was supposed to be until they reached salvation, in which case their suffering would come to an end but would be fully worth it when these slaves could finally live freely and happily. Thus, any kind of revolution or push-back was not worth it, it would simply cause conflict and potentially get in the way of achieving salvation. This method of utilizing leadership positions, especially religious ones, to manipulate followers from speaking out against unfair treatment is manipulative and does not truly follow guidelines of religion and is incredibly immoral.
Religious bonds, whether those be community bonds between members of the same church or leader/follower relationships are a very special type of bond. According to Darwin’s Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson, people are much more inclined to feel close to people who share a religion with them; they see themselves as very similar with similar morals and ideas of what is right or wrong and same end goal. This also applies to leader/follower bonds being closer due to these similarities; followers are more likely to follow these religious leaders without doubt or hesitation due to this strong bond. This can be mutually beneficial for sure and lead to higher levels of morality, but can also be extremely problematic, such as in the case of slavery.
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