*Author spoke with Marland Buckner about the enduring legacy of “American Heretics”*

Equality. Personal liberties. Religious freedom. The separation of church and state. These foundational principles are considered essential parts of our liberal democracy.

But for some, the adoption of these tenants proved the American experiment had been a resounding failure.

This was the centerpiece of a fascinating and timely conversation the Shockoe Institute recently hosted at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture on April 24th. Shockoe Institute President & CEO Marland Buckner and author and academic Jerome E. Copulsky discussed Copulsky’s newest book American Heretics: Religious Adversaries to Liberal Order, which examines the prominent theologians who rejected the idea of a pluralistic, democratic America.

This event was just one of several the Shockoe Institute is hosting throughout 2025 to engage different communities across the Commonwealth, further emphasizing the Institute's commitment to exploring the enduring impact of racial slavery and inspiring audiences to learn, reflect, and act.

Many of the religious leaders Copulsky described in his book were openly disdainful of a nation that grew more pluralistic, embraced secularism, and endorsed the separation of church and state. This particularly applied to pro-slavery theologians like James Henley Thornwell and Frederick A. Ross, who held firm beliefs about the existence of a natural racial hierarchy, biblical support for slavery, and the adoption of an American theocracy.

The Shockoe Insitute’s mission declares that it is “dedicated to revealing the enduring impact of racial slavery on our shared American experience.” This aligns directly with one of the crucial ideas presented in American Heretics: that the ideology of pro-slavery theologians was not relegated to one moment in history. Instead, Copulsky outlined both in his book and in his conversation with Buckner that these ideas were repurposed and reused by groups in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and even today.

“If you read their sermons, and you bracket out some of the historical cues...their argument against abolitionism sounds close to the argument of certain conservatives today against ‘the woke,’ right? That these are groups that are motivated by this false religion that wants to destroy Christian civilization.”

Copulsky went on to suggest that when you read the writings of some of these pro-slavery theologians, “There’s a disconcerting modernity to their writings.”

Later in the conversation, following a reading from Fredericks A. Ross’ 1857 tract Slavery Ordained By God, Buckner commented that “there is an absolutism...[that] sounds substantially like the words we hear...when [we] listen to talk radio...this kind of intolerance is particularly dissonant when we hear it from an 1857 perspective.”

Which led the discussion to arrive at a central question: how should we think about these questions and their relevance in our day-to-day lives?

Copulsky’s answer was unequivocal: “What we’re dealing with is nothing new.”

Copulsky went on to identify a fascinating and troubling political and philosophical throughline, beginning in the earliest days of the republic and continuing to the anti-democratic theologians of the nineteenth century; the adoption of similar ideas by religious leaders in the mid-twentieth century; before culminating in the post-liberal ideas espoused by certain political figures and social commentators.

This discussion hosted by the Shockoe Institute allowed for participants to not only learn about an unexplored part of American history, but to reflect on this history, to consider the strengths and weaknesses of our system, and identify opportunities to act in ways that strengthen America’s liberal democracy.