12 Years a Slave: The Fallenness That Enables Oppression - Black Church (Genesis 3)

In 12 Years a Slave, slaveholders quote Scripture to justify their brutality. Sin corrupts even religion. The fall in Genesis 3 is personal, but its effects are social: one group dominates another, using power to oppress. Black theology recognizes that the fall enables chattel slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration—structural evils flowing from hearts turned against God and neighbor. But Genesis 3:15 promises liberation: the serpent's head will be crushed. The Black Church has always lived between the fall and the promise, naming sin's systemic expression while trusting God's liberating power.