I was shocked when I read the part about Clare’s aunts, and how they would use bible versus to justify how they treated Clare. Clare describes them as “good Christians”, and justifies their actions by saying that they made her who she is today. Christians in the past would also use bible versus to justify slavery. I have grown up in the church, and never once have we studied a verse that says slavery was justified in anyway, so I decided to research this. Apparently, there was a slave ship called ‘Jesus’ that was used to carry slaves from Africa to America when slavery was beginning to become popular. 
As pictured above, Ephesians 6:5 was used as an example. I looked up Ephesians 6 in the NIV version, and the passage tells children to obey their parents, Fathers to lead their children, slaves to obey their masters, and masters to treat slaves kindly. It does not mention anything about being able to take people from their homeland and beat them like slave masters did. They cherry picked what they wanted from the bible, and ignored the parts that did not benefit them. Clare looked up at her aunts like motherly figures, and was thankful that they took her in. She most likely grew up hearing them use Ephesians 6:5 in order to get her to clean and not question what they were telling her. Based on the time period, her aunts most likely did not know any better. They probably grew up hearing this talked about by their parents, and in their church. The novel also states that they were ashamed of their brother for marrying a black woman and have a child with her.
Paul from the bible who wrote thirteen of its books, wrote it to help slaves in the Roman Empire. Christianity was popular among slaves because of its message of freedom. The source linked above explains how that is a big reason why Christianity was outlawed in the Roman Empire. Paul was currently in prison when he wrote one of the books, so he knew what it was like to go against Roman law. Years later, when slavery moved to America, slaves would often sing gospel songs as a way to get through the day.
Overall, I found the mention of the bible verses interesting. That is a fact I was not aware of. It was especially interesting that Clare’s aunts would use their own niece as their personal servant. Nella Larson impacted me as a reader by adding that in the novel.
This is a long-standing conversation–one that I always remember most powerfully from Douglass’s famous slave narrative in which he depicts a slave-holder as holding a bible in one hand and a whip in the other. In this case, it would have been great, as a NovelWorlds post, for you to introduce a source that discussed this in more detail–an article or book about the long and troubled relationship between Christianity and slavery. I do like, however, how you bring up this subtle backdrop through the figures of Irene’s white aunts and their abuse of Irene’s labor. Great attention to detail there!