• Immediatism of Frederick Douglass
  • Immediatism of Frederick Douglass

“The opposite of compromise is character.”
— Frederick Douglass

Immediatism vs Gradualism

The key doctrine which distinguishes abolition from rival approaches to national sin is known as immediatism; the opposing view is called gradualism or incrementalism.

As an illustration of the conflict between these two schools of thought, pro-life activists and legislators will put forward laws stating that it should be illegal to kill a child once she has a heartbeat. This kind of bill is marketed as an attempt to save some children, as a step toward gradually abolishing abortion. Abolitionists on the other hand will oppose this bill because it does not completely, immediately abolish abortion.

The resistance of abolitionists to incremental measures can seem like nonsense — why would someone who loves children and opposes their murder be against a law that protects at least some children? Aren’t incremental measures a good thing to enact, on the way to complete and total abolition? Without question, immediatism is counterintuitive in our day and age. In this article, we will attempt to describe why Bible-believing Christians are changing their minds to adopt a position which, to worldly thinkers, can seem very foolish.

“The enemies of slavery have hitherto ruined [the abolitionist] cause by the senseless cry of gradual emancipation. It is marvellous that the wise and the good should have suffered themselves to have been imposed upon by this wily artifice of the slave holder, for with him must the project of gradual emancipation have first originated.

“The slave holder knew very well that his prey would be secure, so long as the abolitionists could be cajoled into a demand for gradual instead of immediate abolition. He knew very well, that the contemplation of a gradual emancipation, would beget a gradual indifference to emancipation itself. He knew very well, that even the wise and the good, may, by habit and familiarity, be brought to endure and tolerate almost any thing…

“He knew very well, that the faithful delineation of the horrors of West Indian slavery, would produce such a general insurrection of sympathetic and indignant feeling; such abhorrence of the oppressor, such compassion for the oppressed, as must soon have been fatal to the whole system… Our example might have spread from kingdom to kingdom, from continent to continent, and the slave trade, and slavery, might by this time, have been abolished all the world over: “A sacrifice of a sweet savour,” might have ascended to the Great Parent of the Universe, “His kingdom might have come, and his will (thus far) have been done on earth, as it is in Heaven.”

“But this GRADUAL ABOLITION, has been the grand marplot of human virtue and happiness; the very masterpiece of satanic policy. By converting the cry for immediate, into gradual emancipation, the prince of slave holders, “transformed himself, with astonishing dexterity, into an angel of light,” and thereby “deceived the very elect.” He saw very clearly, that if public justice and humanity, especially, if Christian justice and humanity, could be brought to demand only a gradual extermination of the enormities of the slave system; if they could be brought to acquiesce, but for one year, or for one month, in the slavery of our African brother, in robbing him of all the rights of humanity, and degrading him to a level with the brutes; that then, they could imperceptibly be brought to acquiesce in all this for an unlimited duration…

“The father of lies…deceived, not the unwary only, the unsuspecting multitude, but the wise and the good, by the plausibility, the apparent force, the justice, and above all, by the humanity of the arguments propounded for gradual emancipation. He is the subtlest of all reasoners, the most ingenious of all sophists, the most eloquent of all declaimers. He, above all other advocates, “can make the worst appear the better argument;” can, most effectually pervert the judgment and blind the understanding, whilst they seem to be most enlightened and rectified. Thus by a train of most exquisite reasoning, has he brought the abolitionists to the conclusion, that the interest of the poor, degraded and oppressed slave, as well as that of his master, will be best secured by his remaining in slavery.”

— Elizabeth Heyrick. Immediate, not gradual abolition.

Christ is Counterintuitive

This first, important point to recognize is that God’s entire plan of redemption
is counter-intuitive. This of course does not prove immediatism in any way, but
it’s worth remembering that God’s ways are often not our ways. Why would
the creator of the universe enter our world as a single cell, without ceremony,
implanted in the womb of a poor virgin, a carpenter’s wife? If His purpose in
coming was to crush the head of Satan (Gen 3:15), how could he accomplish
this by dying on a cross? For a brief period of history, God’s plan of redemption
makes it look as though Satan has won. Yet through His genius, God turned the
plan of Satan on his head, and used it to secure His own victory on the cross.
As we examine various philosophies and beliefs in the world, it’s important to
critique them on their biblical quality, not their perceived human rationale,
because very often God’s wisdom and ways are categorically different than our
own (Is 55:8). So just because an idea or doctrine offends the sensibilities of
normal thinking people, that doesn’t at all make it wrong; often the pragmatic
wisdom of man is the very thing that prevents us from seeing the truth of
God’s wisdom (1Co 1:25).
There are many godly, thinking people in history who have believed in
immediatism — against all of the advice of worldly thinkers. William
Wilberforce had to contend with gradualists like Henry Dundas in the British
fight against slavery. American abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison had to
fight the American Colonization Society to effect abolition in our nation. As
Elizabeth Heyrick argued in the pamphlet quoted above, gradual abolition was
the primary obstacle that hindered the ending of the slave trade, because it
brought the Christians of her day to tolerate their greatest national sin through
an endless cry of pragmatic delay.
In the same fashion, the pro-life movement in our day has converted the cry,
“Protect all children now!” into the cry, “Protect some children now; protect
others later!” This is done under the belief that gradual steps are more
practical, and more humanly achievable than a cry for immediate and
uncompromising justice — and herein lies the error of gradualism. It is
conducted under the belief that sin can be abolished by human effort and
cunning.

Understanding Abolition

The pro-life movement is not a biblical movement, and their leaders often work against the ending of abortion. Tap into the principles below to learn the difference between abolitionist and pro-life efforts against abortion.

Abolition Is:

The great theme of the Bible is God’s work to abolish evil and its effects from the human condition and environment. As Christians who believe that the Bible is true and divinely inspired, abolitionists participate in God’s work by establishing our movement on the word of God, and using its principles to effect positive change in the world.

In contrast, the pro-life movement incorporates Christians and non-Christians together in a Secular work to oppose abortion in various ways. While Christian pro-lifers will quote Bible verses against abortion in superficial ways, the movement itself defines its goals and methods according to principles that fundamentally oppose biblical teaching on how to remove evil and bring genuine healing.

The pro-life movement regularly opposes legislation that would grant equal protection to pre-born humans by criminalizing abortion. In some cases, pro-life lobbyists and legislators are the primary reason that this legislation does not pass.

This is because the pro-life movement believes that the woman who willfully kills her child is a victim in the process, rather than a perpetrator. Therefore they turn to unjust forms of discriminatory legislation in an attempt to pragmatically, rather than ethically, reduce the amount of abortions performed.

While there is a great deal of false information propagated to support the universal victimhood of women, and such false information should be refuted, the biblical standard is clear regardless. Anyone who conspires to kill an innocent human being is guilty of murder, thus the homicide code should reflect that reality.

We do not grant mothers permission to murder their three-year-olds with impunity, even when the mothers are facing difficult situations. In the same way, we should not grant mothers permission to murder their pre-born children, even when the mothers are facing difficult situations. All human beings are created in the image of God, and are therefore equally valuable before God, regardless of their age.

We live in a culture that is filled with post-abortive fathers and mothers. From a merely practical standpoint, the only way to effect national repentance will be to share with our people the bad news of God’s judgement on sin, together with the good news that God forgives and redeems repentant murderers, when we are honest with him about our sin.

With that said, this personal message alone does not do justice to the whole gospel presented in scripture. It is true that Jesus came to redeem individual sinners from an eternity in Hell. But his work on the cross was done to redeem the whole of creation, and therefore has implications in the present day for any sinful aspect of human society. This means that it is appropriate to speak of gospel-centered politics, gospel-centered economics, and gospel-centered activism, etc., in contradiction to humanistic and other man-centered approaches to these disciplines.

Abolition is therefore a holistic gospel-centered movement in that it addresses the needs of individuals, and of nations, as we grapple with the impact of sin on our personal and corporate lives.

In the work to end slavery, two schools of thought competed for dominance in anti-slavery legislation. The colonizationists and their predecessors in Britain pursued various degrees of compromise with the slavers that would gradually reduce slavery until it was finally ended. The abolitionists instead sought legislation that would immediately bring an end to the practice without exception or compromise, and they were ultimately the group that succeeded. These two schools of thought became known as gradualism and immediatism respectively, and have been applied to various human rights conflicts since that time.

The pro-life movement is like the colonization society in that it pursues gradualist legislation that compromises with abortion, rather than seek its immediate end. it does this under the belief that compromising legislation is more practical than uncompromising legislation.

In many cases it is truly practical to compromise with opponents. However, when dealing with an issue of sin, compromise has the side effect of further embedding the sinful activity into one’s life or society. When a pornography addict compromises with his addiction, for example, his seeking to reduce consumption rather than completely and immediately cut it off will ultimately make him more complacent and enslaved to it.

Scripture teaches us to take a radical, no-compromise approach to the abolition of sin in our personal lives, and the same principles apply to legislation in our national life. As such, while the pro-life / gradualist approach may sound pragmatic, it is ultimately impractical and self-defeating, due to the nature of sin.

Abortion is sin, and the only answer to sin is the gospel. Because the Christian Church is the institution that was commissioned by Jesus to spread the gospel message, this means that she should be at the center of the war against abortion and other destructive evils in society.

Unfortunately, due to various bad theologies and general complacency, the Church has largely abandoned the fight against national evils like abortion. Abolitionist societies and other parachurch ministries have risen up to fill the gap and organize Christian responses to evil, but these fail to provide the holistic, unified community that Jesus designed to serve as salt and light in a dying culture. Parachurch ministries have a role to play in organizing local churches to particular tasks, but they should always be supplemental, with the institutional Church driving Christianity’s response to both personal and social evils.

Thus historic and modern abolition includes a message of repentance to Christians and to churches who fail to give a biblical, comprehensive response to the rise of sin in our dying culture. Individual Christians must repent of our failure to know and act upon the duties that God gives us to stand against evil. Churches need to repent of believing false and unbiblical ideas that reduce the gospel to only the personal salvation of souls, and their general failure to teach Christians what God expects of us in response to social evils like child sacrifice.

One of the unique features of Christianity is its reliance on the providence of God over the pragmatism of man to bring about its desired results. When Jesus went to the cross, this contradicted all of the worldly wisdom of his time on how to establish political power to advance one’s own agenda. Instead of compromise with the religious and political leaders of his day, Jesus rebuked them, held them accountable to the higher standard of God, and trusted that God would deliver him through the persecution they would bring upon his head.

More importantly, Jesus trusted that God would establish his kingdom through his faithful obedience rather than pragmatic compromise. Because God truly does rule over the world, the most practical, pragmatic thing a person can do is to align himself with God’s will, even when it contradicts the flawed logic of rebellious man. Thus abolitionists rely on the providence of God rather than the worldly wisdom of man, measuring our lives and our movement against his word, even when obedience to it seems counterintuitive.

Work in the pro-life movement is often separated into those who offer assistance to women in need, and those who agitate for public change. Abolitionism holds that Christians are required to participate in both kinds of activity, speaking the truth in love. Uniting these two modes in every abolitionist prevents love from devolving into a false, untruthful form, and truth from being delivered in a cold and arrogant way.

Abolitionists Bring: