Christian Enlightenment: Benjamin Rush as a Case Study

In the eighteenth century Philadelphia, the enlightened medical science was thought to be compatible with the principles of Christianity. Accompanying with the maturing of Philadelphia’s scientific community, Philadelphia’s Protestant culture cultivated pious Christians. As a member of the Philadelphia’s scientific community, Rush accepted religious, as well as enlightened thinking, which shaped him the characteristics of Christian Enlightenment.


As an enlightened Christian, Rush defended his views in terms of Christianity and Enlightened thinking when he was debating with Nisbet over the issue of slavery in Philadelphia. On the one hand, Rush criticized the evil of the slavery based on the spirit of Christianity. In his view, “Christianity will never be propagated by any other methods than those employed by Christ and his Apostles. Slavery is an engine as little fitted for that purpose as Fire or the Sword. A Christian Slave is a contradiction in terms;” on the other hand, the law of nature which derived from the Scottish and the continental Enlightenment were also used to support his arguments. According to him, “Nothing of the dissolution of marriage vows, or the entire abolition of matrimony, which the frequent sale of them introduces, and which are directly contrary to the laws of nature and the principles of Christianity.”


Nevertheless, in order to defense his antislavery views, he appropriated humanity, the Laws of justice or humanity, virtue and general Liberty of the British Constitution. As an Enlightened Christian, Rush told us that both the Christian beliefs and enlightened thinking contributed to his views on slavery.
Devoting himself to the antislavery movement in pre-revolutionary Philadelphia, Rush proclaimed his antislavery views in terms of Christianity, the Enlightenment thinking and the enlightened medical science, which made him rather different from other abolitionists. Based on these assumptions, Rush claimed that “all mankind as equal” and advocated North Americans to “put a stop to slavery.” Although the Africans had black skin, in Rush’s view, they still should have the same rights as other humankinds.