The Moral Failings of Christianity - Slavery

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Ok... why does [God] have the right?

because he is all powerful and does as he pleases – there is no one to restrain him – he has granted all rights to himself

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On what basis should I accept that his judgment is automatically good judgment?

You can’t judge the actions of God without accepting the context/concept regarding God.  If you reject the context/concept of God as stated in the bible, then you’re simply an unbeliever, and unbelief, in itself, is not an argument against the bible.  

But if you first accept the context-concept offered of God in the bible, then judging God’s actions is like saying you know more of the story than God therefore you’re in a position to judge him….but saying you know more than God is a fallacy of argument.

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II)   As far as the three witnesses necessary to form a doctrine….

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I didn’t quote only Paul, I also quoted Jesus.

No, you quoted Paul:
Gal 3:28 …
Col 3:11 …
Philemon 1:15 …
These are all from the Epistles of Paul, letters whose author is claimed to Paul. To claim you aren't quoting Paul is just plain dumb or crazy - or are you going to continue to assert that things that Paul wrote are not things that Paul wrote?

Dude, go back and read my post:

II) As far as the three witnesses necessary to form a doctrine, we have DOZENS upon DOZENS of verses to choose from to establish the that slavery is abolished in the NT:
John 8:34 …
Gal 3:28 …
Col 3:11 …
Philemon 1:15 …
Mark 10:42 …

John 8:34 and Mark 10:42 were not written by Paul.

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No, I think scripture is being symbolic when I think it's being symbolic.

Mark 10:42 “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Did the Romans not literally consider themselves superior?  Did Jesus not literally serve those around him?  Did Jesus not literally give his life as a ransom to many?  Of course, by the bible’s own context, those things were literal.  Therefore, Jesus is LITERALLY telling them that whoever is going to be considered “great” by God, must demonstrate that he is willing to literally humble himself in literal service to others and literally spend their lives serving others.  

So, Mark 10:42 can easily be paraphrased by saying, “Don’t do as the heathen do when they set themselves up as being better or more worthy than others to the point that they feel they have the right to force others to be their footstool.  Instead, whoever wants to be great in God’s eyes must consider himself lower than anyone else.  For Jesus did not come in order to look down on others, rather he came to trade his life for the lives of others, demonstrating Jesus viewed the their lives more than he valued his own life.”

And how exactly did the Apostles live?  Did they have slaves?  Did they consider their lives more important than anyone else?  Or did they spend their lives in the service of others?

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Nobody said that the "heroes" of the NT had to own slaves. The matter is whether or not owning slaves was still allowed. The lack of a clear condemnation of the practice isn't helping your argument.

Well, if the apostles believed owning slaves was allowed, why didn’t they own slaves themselves, seeing that they had every opportunity and could have made use of slaves?

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"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.  Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them."  (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

Obviously, you can’t see the forest from the trees, for nowhere in the NT is the believer given the right to flaunt their freedom in the face of others, which is exactly what this passage is saying.  Take for instance dietary laws:

Rom 14:1  “Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.”

Is Paul advocating here that people “eat only vegetables”?!  Obviously not.  Rather Paul is say that even though it is clearly ok to eat whatever you want, you do NOT have the right to flaunt your freedom in front of others:

1Cor 8:13 “Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”

Same thing with slavery – do not attempt to force your God-given freedom onto Christians who are weak in the faith (who haven’t come to a more perfect understanding of the truth).

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If Christians weren't allowed to have slaves anymore, how could one be a Christian and a slave's master? Wouldn't a true believer, who according to you would have received the Holy Spirit, know to free his slaves? Or maybe your claim is incorrect.
Advocating that people treat one another better isn't the same thing as abolishing social institutions.
 

I will list 2 sets of points, none of which are in contradiction:
1)    The NT teaches equality and freedom from slavery.
2)   The book of Philemon, in the most clearest terms, is an appeal to a Christian slave owner that he should act according to the way of love and free his slave, even though the slave was willingly returning to him.
3)   Christian slaves, knowing that they should be freed, were nevertheless told to serve their masters, even Christian masters, as if they were serving Christ himself, in order to best witness for Christ.  
4)   They were also instructed that if they could gain their freedom, they should do so.

Same pattern as:

1)   The NT teaches freedom from the dietary laws under Moses.
2)   Christians were told they were free to eat whatever they want.
3)   Those who knew the truth were not allowed to flaunt their dietary freedom in front of Christians still holding to the OT dietary laws, instead those who knew the truth were told be willing to give up their freedom and never to eat meat again if the display of their freedom was discouraging someone from serving Christ.

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I regard slavery as immoral regardless of who is enslaved.

As if I am arguing slavery is moral?!  There are MANY actions in the OT (e.g. an eye for an eye, animal sacrifice, etc) that once were ordained by God that would now be immoral under the New Testament.  You’re simply ignoring the fact that in the OT, God gave warnings and foreshadowings of his judgment by ordaining his people as agents of God’s wrath (e.g. Israel was ordered to plunder the Egyptians, destroy the Canaanites, etc, etc, etc).

Christians, on the other hand, are NOT ordained as God’s wrathful agents to the unbelieving world, rather they are agents of merciful missionary message attempting to save the lost from God’s wrath.  This change of role is not a covering up or a sugar coating, for the reality of future wrath is still front and center, rather it is a new age where shadows have fulfilled their teaching purposes and have been replaced with reality.

But again, you don’t want to argue about the reality the shadows represented, rather you want to argue about the morality of the past shadows, even though those shadows are trivial when compared to the reality.

Summary:  your argument is purposely nearsighted

[John Dibble]

Ok... why does [God] have the right?

because he is all powerful and does as he pleases – there is no one to restrain him – he has granted all rights to himself

So might makes right. Yeah, that's a good basis for moral decision making.

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Quite clearly I can and have done so.

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If unbelief isn't an argument against it, then belief isn't an argument for it.

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You once again show you have no clue what a logical fallacy is. If I don't accept your context-concept, your premise - that being that God's judgment is infallible - then my arguments are not fallacious. My non-acceptance of your premise would only be illogical if you could actually prove it, which you damn well know you can't.

Honestly, this line of argument is so weak it's ridiculous. Replace "God" with "Allah" and "Bible" with "Koran" and the argument you are making becomes no more or less valid.

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No, you quoted Paul:...
[/quote]

Dude, go back and read my post:...[/quote]

You quoted Mark and John in separate sections to what I was responding to at the time. I was addressing one particular section. I addressed the other quotes separately.

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Again, none of this is instructive on whether or not the institution of slavery was forbidden. It's far too open to interpretation, which is obvious since Christians practiced slavery for thousands of years to some degree or another and used scripture as their justification for doing so. If your God's judgement is so good, why can't he judge how to communicate his will to us humans effectively?

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Nobody said that the "heroes" of the NT had to own slaves. The matter is whether or not owning slaves was still allowed. The lack of a clear condemnation of the practice isn't helping your argument.[/quote]

Well, if the apostles believed owning slaves was allowed, why didn’t they own slaves themselves, seeing that they had every opportunity and could have made use of slaves?[/quote]

Just because someone believes something is allowed doesn't mean they practice it. And how do you know if they did or not? Is it explicitly stated somewhere that none of them did?

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Obviously, you can’t see the forest from the trees, for nowhere in the NT is the believer given the right to flaunt their freedom in the face of others, which is exactly what this passage is saying.[/quote]

And yet the passage explicitly recognizes believers being able to own slaves. How exactly is that supposed to convince me that they aren't?

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And you're telling me that God couldn't think of a better solution than just keeping them as slaves? If they wanted to stay, then all they'd have to do is keep them on as paid live-in workers who could leave their employ when they wanted - this wasn't the case, as seen by Philemon. It's left up to the slave owner, not the slave.

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Yes, which is a good indicator for God not being infallible. An infallible deity would have gotten things right the first time.

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Yes, I'm aware that the OT says God ordered horrible, barbaric, monstrous things to others, oft for reasons I don't find even close to justifiable. All the more reason I can't accept him as a moral authority whose judgement is to be trusted.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

This is all really irrelevant to a modern day context as no one practices slavery today.

1. It's relevant because people still practice Christianity.
2. People do practice slavery today - it's estimated that between 12 and 27 million people are currently living as slaves. It isn't necessarily legal, but it is practiced.

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So what? Most of the pro-slavery movement was also Christian.

Pretty much every idealolgy can and did use the Bible to justify their actions. Does this mean that the Bible is a Communist book? Capitalist? Authoritarian? Fascist? Pascifist? Marxist?

The point is, the words of the Bible can be interpreted for almost any idealolgy you can name.

Anyway, what  will the next thread in this series be about?

[John Dibble]

Pretty much every idealolgy can and did use the Bible to justify their actions. Does this mean that the Bible is a Communist book? Capitalist? Authoritarian? Fascist? Pascifist? Marxist?

The point is, the words of the Bible can be interpreted for almost any idealolgy you can name.

Oh, I agree. As I mentioned though, if this book is supposed to be the divine word of God then God is a poor writer, at least in regards to his intent for slavery.

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The status of women in Christianity, most likely.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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Quite clearly I can and have done so.

But only as a complete idiot who:
1)   Touts himself as one knowing more than God.
2)   Focuses on the here and now while ignoring eternity

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If unbelief isn't an argument against it, then belief isn't an argument for it.

Never said belief was an argument.

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You once again show you have no clue what a logical fallacy is. If I don't accept your context-concept, your premise - that being that God's judgment is infallible - then my arguments are not fallacious. My non-acceptance of your premise would only be illogical if you could actually prove it, which you damn well know you can't.

Honestly, this line of argument is so weak it's ridiculous. Replace "God" with "Allah" and "Bible" with "Koran" and the argument you are making becomes no more or less valid.

1)   Koran:  I’ve never judged the Koran on the basis of what it contained.  Rather I rejected it on the fact of its total inconsistency with recorded history – there is no trace of anyone being Muslim prior to 600AD and that I don’t believe it is possible for humans to have engaged in a worldwide conspiracy to cover it up the existence of Islam.
2)   Bible:  You say that you “don't accept that God's judgment is infallible.“  OK.  But on what basis are you are rejecting the biblical claim that God is infallible?

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You quoted Mark and John in separate sections to what I was responding to at the time. I was addressing one particular section. I addressed the other quotes separately.

There were two main sections (I and II) of my post.  Section II dealt ENTIRELY with refuting your point that I wasn’t using multiple witnesses to establish doctrine:

II) As far as the three witnesses necessary to form a doctrine, we have DOZENS upon DOZENS of verses to choose from to establish the that slavery is abolished in the NT:
John 8:34 …
Gal 3:28 …
Col 3:11 …
Philemon 1:15 …
Mark 10:42 …

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Again, none of this is instructive on whether or not the institution of slavery was forbidden. It's far too open to interpretation, which is obvious since Christians practiced slavery for thousands of years to some degree or another and used scripture as their justification for doing so

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1)    The willingness of men to twist scripture to justify their actions is not a reflection upon scripture itself.  You yourself have seen many on this forum do the same.
2)   The lives of the apostles are explicitly stated as being instructive, point blank:

1Cor 4:17 “He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.” (see also 2Tim 3:10, Heb 13:7)

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If your God's judgement is so good, why can't he judge how to communicate his will to us humans effectively?

Maybe God is communicating effectively and you’re simply unwilling to listen, for certainly one who claims to know more that God is being an impartial listener.

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Just because someone believes something is allowed doesn't mean they practice it. And how do you know if they did or not? Is it explicitly stated somewhere that none of them did?

Well, it also doesn’t say that they didn’t kill their own parents and shrink their heads.  But I think it can be easily shown that nothing recorded about their lives lend any credence to such an accusation.  Their whole message was about freedom from sin, loving all races, goodness and gentleness, esteeming the worth of others higher than your own, sharing, equality, everyone’s in the same boat, etc, etc, etc.

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And you're telling me that God couldn't think of a better solution than just keeping them as slaves? If they wanted to stay, then all they'd have to do is keep them on as paid live-in workers who could leave their employ when they wanted - this wasn't the case, as seen by Philemon. It's left up to the slave owner, not the slave.

Please take the time to explain to this forum how the book of Philemon perpetuates slavery?!

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Yes, which is a good indicator for God not being infallible. An infallible deity would have gotten things right the first time….I'm aware that the OT says God ordered horrible, barbaric, monstrous things to others, oft for reasons I don't find even close to justifiable. All the more reason I can't accept him as a moral authority whose judgement is to be trusted.

How it is, after all of these years, you’ve missed the explicitly stated point that it was the fallibility of man that led to changes of the law?!  And even though each change of the laws was meant to teach something about Christ in order to lead you to Christ, you still reject Christ, proving that the fault lies with you and not God!!!

Seriously, it’s as if a bunch of you on this forum purposely set out to have the scriptures make fools of you.

[John Dibble]

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Quite clearly I can and have done so.

But only as a complete idiot who:
1)   Touts himself as one knowing more than God.
2)   Focuses on the here and now while ignoring eternity

1. Strawman. I never claimed to know more than God, if he exists. Hell, if he does exist he clearly would know more than me - I certainly don't know how to create a universe. But not knowing more than him doesn't mean I can't observe the consequences of his actions.
2. Even if I accepted your notion of eternity, that's no reason to ignore the here and now.

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And there's no evidence of a global flood, or a Garden of Eden, or many other things in the Bible. That doesn't change the fact that your argument for context is weak. The argument you present is the usual circular logic.

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On what basis should I accept it? The burden of proof is on the ones claiming he is. And if I need evidence against the notion, how about the fact that the Biblical narrative shows just how incompetent he is? Time after time he fails to get things right. Heck, he shows regret for his actions in Genesis 6:6-7:

"6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”"

If he's infallible, why would he regret the results of his actions? You don't regret doing the right thing, you only regret doing the wrong thing.

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Fine, subsection. Picky.

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And how can you be so sure they were twisting scripture? Because you disagree with them? How do you know you're not the one who is twisting it?

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Ok... again, that's not really instructive on any particular topic.

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Ok, let me give you an example of communicating effectively. "Thou shalt not steal" - is there anyone sane who would argue that this command means anything other than "don't steal"? No. There has been no Christian society that has done so. Why? Because it's clear. It's explicit. There really isn't room for interpretation. And yet for thousands of years Christians have debated whether slavery was allowed in their religion - why? Because it isn't clear.

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Just because someone believes something is allowed doesn't mean they practice it. And how do you know if they did or not? Is it explicitly stated somewhere that none of them did?[/quote]

Well, it also doesn’t say that they didn’t kill their own parents and shrink their heads. But I think it can be easily shown that nothing recorded about their lives lend any credence to such an accusation.  Their whole message was about freedom from sin, loving all races, goodness and gentleness, esteeming the worth of others higher than your own, sharing, equality, everyone’s in the same boat, etc, etc, etc.[/quote]

Your example is rather dumb, since that wasn't something that was practiced in the society they lived in. Slavery on the other hand was a common practice.

But again, being good to one another doesn't mean that social institutions would end and everyone would be equal within society. It seems to me that scripture allows slavery, but tells slave owners that they must behave in a manner that would help bring them to Christ, that serving one another wasn't about changing the social hierarchy but rather to serve one another by helping others find their way to salvation. One could own slaves under that model, but would be expected to behave in a certain fashion towards those slaves.

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Please take the time to explain to this forum how the book of Philemon perpetuates slavery?![/quote]

Paul does not free the slave in Philemon, nor does he demand it - he only requests it as part of their reconciliation. What did do is comply with the law and send him back to his master and leaves it to his judgment as to whether to free him or not, thus upholding the status quo. The argument regarding the status quo originates from Martin Luther, someone who did not own slaves and would have nothing to gain from it being allowed, so you can't say that this argument is twisting scripture to justify one's own actions.

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Your deity is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful - if that's true then the entire notion that something like human beings could stop him from putting the rules he desired into place for any amount of time is ludicrous.

[Gustaf]

Dibble: if you compare Christian societies, throughout history, with non-Christian societies throughout history when it comes to slavery I think the evidence is pretty clearly stacked up in favour of Christianity (taking as the premise that not having slavery is good, that is).

There was slavery all over Europe before Christianity. Then most of it disappeared. And it did so well before the enlightenment. In Sweden this was one of the key areas of tension when Christianity arrived.

European Christian nations also created and participated in what was possibly the largest slave trade in history. That obviously doesn't favor Christianity.

I'm not one to take things at face value. Since you mentioned this, I looked into it a bit. It seems to me that this type of decline of slavery had two primary reasons - Christians were discouraged from becoming slaves and taking other Christians as slaves (in fact the Swedish case you're talking about the abolition appears to have applied only to Christians - 'every man and women which is born by a christian man and women is to be free in the county of...' cite), and that it was becoming far less economically practical. Slavery of non-Christians was still allowed to some degree or another by canon law, but as Christianity came to be the dominant belief in the areas there really wasn't a ready supply of people to be made into slaves. In instances where there were, such as the Crusades, slavery was indeed practiced to some degree.

I like the insinuations.

It depends on how you define the largest slave trade in history. Maybe in intensity, but certainly not in overall volume. Sure, you have the American South. They had slaves. That's a pretty small part of overall Christianity. The fact that Christianity ended slavery through the fact that Christians were not allowed to keep other Christians as slaves doesn't really affect the key point. It still means that slavery was not allowed within Christianity and that slavery could not be sustained in a Christian society.

In Sweden a slave need only convert to Christianity to put pressure on his owner to release him. In that way Christianity did end slavery here, like it did in most Christian countries. Ignoring the fact that Christianity directly ended slavery in Europe and then indirectly ended slavery in the world (since the Enlightenment sprung out of Christianity) honestly serves to make your position seem just a tad ridiculous.

I guess you might be able to do a gotcha on someone like Jmfcst who is fundamentalist, but you're not really managing to indict the rest of Christianity with this, imo.

After all, you're essentially arguing that slavery is a moral failing of a religion that actually ended slavery in Europe and eventually in most of the world. I can't say that I find it particularly convincing even if certain Bible texts can be interpreted as pro-slavery.

[John Dibble]

It depends on how you define the largest slave trade in history. Maybe in intensity, but certainly not in overall volume. Sure, you have the American South. They had slaves. That's a pretty small part of overall Christianity.

The Atlantic slave trade included more than just the American South. It included much of the New World, and most of the trading was actually done by Europeans and the US territories weren't actually even the largest recipients. More slaves were actually shipped out to Portugese, the British Americas minus North America, the Spanish Empire, and the French Americas. The Dutch were also involved, though to the least extent. In other words a significant portion of the most powerful Christian nations at the time were participating in the slave trade. I would hardly call that a small part.

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This was only possible in conjunction with the change to a feudalistic, non-conquest society (which made slavery far less practical) and forcing no small amount of people in those areas to be Christians. To say that Christianity ended it is a gross oversimplification. In the context of Europe in the time we're talking about, if we're to say that Christianity ended it then we must also say that it ended it for the wrong reasons.

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So coercing someone into changing their religion on threat of slavery is supposed to be a moral success rather than a failing? You're only exchanging one human rights violation for another!

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Seeing as the Enlightenment ended up lessening the authority of the churches and religion as a whole, I think it's a tad ridiculous to say that it sprung out of Christianity. I wouldn't say there was no influence, but there were many reasons for the Enlightenment. Many of them were economic, rather than religious.

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Understand I'm not attacking every Christian everywhere in every time period. However, it is legitimate to look at the scriptures, the central ideas, of the religion and see how it influenced the behavior of it's followers throughout history. The open practice of slavery in the OT and the lack of any clear condemnation of it in the NT has had quite an impact that can't be denied if one only looks at history.

[Gustaf]

I don't get what the impact you're talking about. There was clearly less slavery under Christianity than there had been before. Arguing that the influence of Christianity was to promote slavery seems to fly in the face of the historical record here.

And the Enlightenment being critical of Christianity doesn't really contradict the fact that it was largely dependent on it. That's pretty much standard fare within the realm of history.

And my point on the South was more about slavery than the actual trade. It's true that the trading was done by a multitude of agents. Still, slavery and slave trade was prohibited first by Christian countries. How you derive from that that Christianity had a pro-slavery influence is still unclear to me.

And what you're saying about coercion, I don't really get. I doubt any owners coerced their slaves to convert to Christianity so as to allow the owner to release them. I didn't even mean that the owner was necessarily Christian (I don't think they usually were).

I'm not denying that there were many forces at play in ending slavery but I still find that blaming Christianity for slavery is, I'm sorry, quite absurd. I guess you can attack the OT for not condemning slavery and all that. It was a common part of civilization back in those days. I'm guessing that my be trouble for someone like Jmfcst, but for most Christians, who don't necessarily think that every word in the Bible is the literal word of God, it isn't really. And therefore I still don't really see how slavery existing all over the world before Christianity and then disappearing as Christianity spread makes slavery a moral failing of Christianity!

[patrick1]

Several of you put forth the Enlightenment as the chief reason for the abolition of slavery and I would really like to see some evidence presented.  In the Anglo American sphere, the vast majority of those advocating the end of the slave trade and manumission were Quakers and evangelical Christians. While it is true that Enlightenment thinkers wrote tracts against slavery, I see little action.  Jefferson is the embodiment of this. 

Enlightenment thought had more impact in the abolition of slavery in revolutionary France but this only lasted a short period before Napoleon restored.

[afleitch]

I think people have lost sight of what Dibble was arguing at the start of this thread; think of it like this. Take Christianity as a 'closed system', the basis of this system is the Bible. The Bible does not explicitly condemn slavery; whether you take it as a literal position or a position taken simply because of the world view that prevailed at the time the Bible was compiled; it still does not condemn slavery. We take slavery to be morally wrong. We take the very notion that any individual is 'property' whether slave, bonded servant or (and quite important this one) wife to also be morally wrong.

Now that is Christianity as a 'closed system' with no external influence. However the existence and practice of Christianity in a closed system is also an impossibility (though some individuals do try); there is always influence whether it is from personal experience, reflection or from society. Dibble is correct in arguing that Christianity as written is not, by modern standards moral with regards to slavery. How it is practiced is of course a different matter and I don't believe he is disputing that. Christianity as practiced by an individual, or a specific church or infused with a 'zeitgeist' at a particular time was a catalyst in opposing slavery. Just as it was a catalyst in supporting slavery (for some.)

Several of you put forth the Enlightenment as the chief reason for the abolition of slavery and I would really like to see some evidence presented.  In the Anglo American sphere, the vast majority of those advocating the end of the slave trade and manumission were Quakers and evangelical Christians. While it is true that Enlightenment thinkers wrote tracts against slavery, I see little action.  Jefferson is the embodiment of this. 

Enlightenment thought had more impact in the abolition of slavery in revolutionary France but this only lasted a short period before Napoleon restored.

On a side note the very same is true of the gay rights movement. Many Christians and churches are at the fore of the LGBT rights movement. But as we are all acutely aware many are not. It is also true that nominally Christian or culturally Christian nations are more receptive of gay rights (as opposed to say Muslim majority nations) However, the modern equivalent of the argument that has been made in this thread is that in 200 years time (hopefully much much less) people were to turn round and argue that Christianity was the catalyst for gay rights it would be extremely important to point out what actually happened in say 2010; who they sides were, what the argument was and specifically what secularism played but even above that what communication and understanding and interaction in society had to play in changing public perception. I think the very same is true of slavery. Or even women ministers; the strongest support and the strongest opposition both came from Christians.

[John Dibble]

I don't get what the impact you're talking about. There was clearly less slavery under Christianity than there had been before. Arguing that the influence of Christianity was to promote slavery seems to fly in the face of the historical record here.

How many thousands of years did it take to get every major Christian community to stop practicing it altogether? More importantly how many thousands of years did it take to get them to stop practicing it for the right reasons? The historical record seems to indicate Christian self-favoritism and the change to feudalism as the reason for the initial decline of slavery in Europe. Once the crusades happened slavery once again went into play in the newly conquered areas once they had a fresh source of heathens. Then once the colonization of the New World began in earnest the Atlantic slave trade came into play. I'm not seeing how the historical record is flying in the face of my arguments.

EDIT - what afleitch says above articulates the crux my argument quite well I think. Scripture has had a significant influence on it's followers. Had there been an explicit condemnation of slavery in the NT (making it less flexible to allow slavery) or a even simply a lack of it being practiced in the OT then I think we'd see a radically different history in regards to slavery in Christian societies.

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If it didn't then why did those Christian countries get involved in the first place? It took quite some time for the opposition to get any significant traction, and frankly I'd say they were influenced in no small degree by secular ethics.

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Seriously? Let me emphasize that - SERIOUSLY!? You don't see how a law that says "convert or stay a slave" is coercive? You don't see the degree of pressure that puts on someone to convert?

Several of you put forth the Enlightenment as the chief reason for the abolition of slavery and I would really like to see some evidence presented.  In the Anglo American sphere, the vast majority of those advocating the end of the slave trade and manumission were Quakers and evangelical Christians. While it is true that Enlightenment thinkers wrote tracts against slavery, I see little action.  Jefferson is the embodiment of this.  

Enlightenment thought had more impact in the abolition of slavery in revolutionary France but this only lasted a short period before Napoleon restored.

The Enlightenment helped significantly by making people start to question. They started thinking outside their normal frameworks, questioning whether the laws of the churches and kings were just. It introduced "new" ways of thinking about moral behavior. Since many scripture can be interpreted rather flexibly, it's no surprise that many Christians assimilated these things into their religious beliefs by coming up with alternative interpretations. (as a note, the Protestant Reformation also has a significant effect here - without it the Roman Catholic Church's grip on society and free thought would not have been so loosened as to allow these alternative interpretations) At least that's my interpretation on the issue.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And the Enlightenment being critical of Christianity doesn't really contradict the fact that it was largely dependent on it. That's pretty much standard fare within the realm of history.

Indeed, indeed. I like to call it the Fanon Problem, for reasons I alluded to upthread.

History is pretty worthless without at least a degree of historicism, imo.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

But only as a complete idiot who:
1)   Touts himself as one knowing more than God.
2)   Focuses on the here and now while ignoring eternity

1. Strawman. I never claimed to know more than God, if he exists. Hell, if he does exist he clearly would know more than me - I certainly don't know how to create a universe. But not knowing more than him doesn't mean I can't observe the consequences of his actions.
2. Even if I accepted your notion of eternity, that's no reason to ignore the here and now.

But, that’s just the problem, you’re passing judgment on God by ignoring eternity and only focusing on the “here and now”.  And since God knows more about the big (eternal) picture, you’re not in a position to judge the here and now.

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And there's no evidence of a global flood, or a Garden of Eden, or many other things in the Bible. That doesn't change the fact that your argument for context is weak. The argument you present is the usual circular logic.

Why would there be evidence of the Garden of Eden, that world was destroyed?  And the type of evidence you’re expecting of a global flood is based on assumptions of current world geography and the current natural processes, but aside from the fact the flood was not wholly a natural process but rather a God invoked process, the scripture itself states that the geography and the hydrologic cycle of the world were different back then.  And we don’t know the timing of the flood, nor do we know if life existed prior to Adam and Eve, so there are many natural variables we have no idea of, plus we don’t know the mix of natural/supernatural processes.

Therefore, we have no basis on which to judge evidence of a flood due to all the unknown variables, nor does the bible makes the assumption that such evidence is observable; in fact, the process of salvation by faith requires a the assumption of a certain amount of cloaking.  But, seeing that biblical context states that God was able to create the entire universe out of nothing, flooding this world in ways we cannot trace is quite infinitesimally trivial.

---

And if I need evidence against the notion, how about the fact that the Biblical narrative shows just how incompetent he is? Time after time he fails to get things right. Heck, he shows regret for his actions in Genesis 6:6-7:

"6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”"

If he's infallible, why would he regret the results of his actions? You don't regret doing the right thing, you only regret doing the wrong thing.

Of course, you’re attempting to change the context by leaving out the part where he spared Noah, which means he did not regret the righteous.  So, it wasn’t creating mankind itself that God regretted, rather it was how certain men had corrupted themselves.  In fact, the bible over and over states that the righteous bring God glory, not regret.

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Ok, let me give you an example of communicating effectively. "Thou shalt not steal" - is there anyone sane who would argue that this command means anything other than "don't steal"? No. There has been no Christian society that has done so. Why? Because it's clear. It's explicit. There really isn't room for interpretation. And yet for thousands of years Christians have debated whether slavery was allowed in their religion - why? Because it isn't clear.

1)    Actually, “do not steal” was not universal in the OT, for you yourself have pointed out God allowed the Israelites to plunder certain nations because Israel was also God's agent of wrath.  So, you’ve picked an example that actually backs up my argument, not yours.  
2)   The fact that corruption and differences are evident within Christianity is NOT due to scripture lacking clear meaning, rather it is due to spiritual blindness.  And that blindness is evident in every facet of scripture (dietary laws, sexual conduct, faith vs works).  These differences are viewed an necessary to distinguish between believers: “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval” (1Cor 11:19).

---

Paul does not free the slave in Philemon, nor does he demand it - he only requests it as part of their reconciliation. What did do is comply with the law and send him back to his master and leaves it to his judgment as to whether to free him or not, thus upholding the status quo. The argument regarding the status quo originates from Martin Luther, someone who did not own slaves and would have nothing to gain from it being allowed, so you can't say that this argument is twisting scripture to justify one's own actions.

1)   Paul states he has the authority of free: “Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do” (1:8 )
2)   Paul gives his reason for allowing Philemon to make the choice himself of that Philemon could benefit from voluntarily doing what is right (1:14)
3)   And the part of the Christian Gospel Paul states that should compel Philemon to free Onesimus is explicitly stated:  “I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love” (1:9), due to the fact that Onesimus “is a fellow man” (1:16) and also due to the fact that Onesimus is “a brother in the Lord.” (1:16)

So, point blank, on the basis of the HIGHEST commandment of Christianity (LOVE), slavery is contrary to the gospel because of the mere fact that everyone should be regarded as “a fellow man” because Christianity has expanded the definition of “neighbor” in the command “love thy neighbor” to ALL of mankind (remember the question, "And who is my neighbor"?).

This should end this argument (as it did with Philemon, based on the fact this letter survived), but it wont because you have an axe you’re grinding against Christ.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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And there's no evidence of a global flood, or a Garden of Eden, or many other things in the Bible. That doesn't change the fact that your argument for context is weak. The argument you present is the usual circular logic.

Why would there be evidence of the Garden of Eden, that world was destroyed?  And the type of evidence you’re expecting of a global flood is based on assumptions of current world geography and the current natural processes, but aside from the fact the flood was not wholly a natural process but rather a God invoked process, the scripture itself states that the geography and the hydrologic cycle of the world were different back then.  And we don’t know the timing of the flood, nor do we know if life existed prior to Adam and Eve, so there are many natural variables we have no idea of, plus we don’t know the mix of natural/supernatural processes.

Therefore, we have no basis on which to judge evidence of a flood due to all the unknown variables, nor does the bible makes the assumption that such evidence is observable; in fact, the process of salvation by faith requires a the assumption of a certain amount of cloaking.  But, seeing that biblical context states that God was able to create the entire universe out of nothing, flooding this world in ways we cannot trace is quite infinitesimally trivial.

I would like to extend my remarks on this point because I forgot to juxtapose the basis of rejecting the Bible and the basis of rejecting the Koran:

I don’t reject the bible due to lack of evidence of the flood because :
1)   I don’t know the variables involved
2)   I believe that God is capable of covering his tracks

I do reject the Koran on the basis of lack of evidence of a worldwide conspiracy to erase all traces of Islam prior to Mohammad because:
1)   The world was not unified to even agree on such a conspiracy
2)   The world was not capable to do so even if it were entirely unified, heck even the Egyptians could not completely destroy evidence of rulers they hated.
3)    there are many instances were adherents to certain beliefs were able to leave a record even though someone was attempting to snuff out their existence and their memory from the face of the earth.  
 

Therefore, accepting the account of the flood simply assumes God is capable of covering his tracks and that man is incapable of tracing something God chooses to make untraceable...while rejecting the Koran simply assumes mankind was not unified to agree to such a conspiracy, had no reason to agree to do so, and was incapable of pulling off the worldwide conspiracy.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

but it seems we have only one witness to this doctrine

hey, Dibble, found something interesting.   As you and I have discussed, the law of 2 or 3 witnesses is repeated in the OT and NT, but I dont' recall making the connection of 2 or 3 witnesses to this verse:

Genesis 41:32 "The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon."

So, even Joseph saw the importance of having at least 2 witnesses and explicitly stated that God gives 2 witnesses to matters he has firmly established.

very cool!

that's why I like these debates - I always learn something even if no minds are changed.

[Gustaf]

I don't get what the impact you're talking about. There was clearly less slavery under Christianity than there had been before. Arguing that the influence of Christianity was to promote slavery seems to fly in the face of the historical record here.

How many thousands of years did it take to get every major Christian community to stop practicing it altogether? More importantly how many thousands of years did it take to get them to stop practicing it for the right reasons? The historical record seems to indicate Christian self-favoritism and the change to feudalism as the reason for the initial decline of slavery in Europe. Once the crusades happened slavery once again went into play in the newly conquered areas once they had a fresh source of heathens. Then once the colonization of the New World began in earnest the Atlantic slave trade came into play. I'm not seeing how the historical record is flying in the face of my arguments.

EDIT - what afleitch says above articulates the crux my argument quite well I think. Scripture has had a significant influence on it's followers. Had there been an explicit condemnation of slavery in the NT (making it less flexible to allow slavery) or a even simply a lack of it being practiced in the OT then I think we'd see a radically different history in regards to slavery in Christian societies.

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If it didn't then why did those Christian countries get involved in the first place? It took quite some time for the opposition to get any significant traction, and frankly I'd say they were influenced in no small degree by secular ethics.

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Seriously? Let me emphasize that - SERIOUSLY!? You don't see how a law that says "convert or stay a slave" is coercive? You don't see the degree of pressure that puts on someone to convert?

Several of you put forth the Enlightenment as the chief reason for the abolition of slavery and I would really like to see some evidence presented.  In the Anglo American sphere, the vast majority of those advocating the end of the slave trade and manumission were Quakers and evangelical Christians. While it is true that Enlightenment thinkers wrote tracts against slavery, I see little action.  Jefferson is the embodiment of this.  

Enlightenment thought had more impact in the abolition of slavery in revolutionary France but this only lasted a short period before Napoleon restored.

The Enlightenment helped significantly by making people start to question. They started thinking outside their normal frameworks, questioning whether the laws of the churches and kings were just. It introduced "new" ways of thinking about moral behavior. Since many scripture can be interpreted rather flexibly, it's no surprise that many Christians assimilated these things into their religious beliefs by coming up with alternative interpretations. (as a note, the Protestant Reformation also has a significant effect here - without it the Roman Catholic Church's grip on society and free thought would not have been so loosened as to allow these alternative interpretations) At least that's my interpretation on the issue.

So...you think the owners told their slaves "I so badly want to not have you as slaves that I want you to convert to Christianity so that I can release you. Please do." ?

I mean, I guess that might have happened but I don't really think it was all that common a procedure. From what I've read of Swedish history most owners did not want their slaves to become Christians, since that would put pressure on them to release them. Which means the prime coercive force was largely on the other side there.

When you ask why Christian countries got involved in slavery I again don't really get your point. You act as if slavery is a Christian thing, when it very, very clearly is the other way around. The question isn't "why did they practice slavery" since pretty much everyone did! The interesting question seems to be "why did certain countries quit slavery" And then it is hard to avoid the fact that all of them were Christian. Your argument that Christians, to an extent, did what most countries did and then quit makes Christianity somehow responsible for slavery or a pro-slavery force doesn't really make much sense to me.

Oh, and your question about thousands of years...Christianity has been around for 2000 years. So we're not talking like a lot of thousands here. Rooting out slavery in Sweden certainly didn't take thousands of years for instance. From what I recall (was a long time ago, granted) it's rather a couple of generations or so.

To me your argument is basically like saying that the UK is responsible for the Holocaust and was a pro-Nazi force since they didn't stop Hitler earlier. Actually, that would strike me as a somewhat more credible argument than the one you're advancing here.

[John Dibble]

So...you think the owners told their slaves "I so badly want to not have you as slaves that I want you to convert to Christianity so that I can release you. Please do." ?

I mean, I guess that might have happened but I don't really think it was all that common a procedure. From what I've read of Swedish history most owners did not want their slaves to become Christians, since that would put pressure on them to release them. Which means the prime coercive force was largely on the other side there.

You are forgetting that the slave owners and the slaves aren't the only people in this equation. The church regarded it as their holy duty to convert everyone, and they are the ones who set that rule. Given the history of things they would do to get people to convert, do you think adding one more incentive (freedom) would really be beyond them? Hell, they would get the added benefit of a newly free Christian who could own property and therefore tithe to them.

And again, this wasn't ending slavery. This was ending Christians being enslaved by Christians. It was one group granting favor to itself. Enslavement of non-Christians was still very much legal! Slavery only ended on a large scale because the church was so forceful in getting people to convert that there wasn't anyone convenient to enslave and feudalism made slavery far less practical. It's good that slavery ended, but it wasn't ended for the right reasons, it wasn't ended for truly moral reasons, and it certainly wasn't ended because Christians were truly against the actual practice of slavery as evidenced by the fact that slavery of non-believers was still legal.

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I never said slavery was exclusively a Christian thing, but if it was truly an anti-Christian thing then the practice would have died out entirely at a much faster rate and would not have flared back up at those times when they found a new source of heathens. Just because everyone else did it does not excuse their involvement.

And let me make this clear - Christianity can very much be pro-Slavery because of the way that it's embedded in the Christian Bible. It repeatedly gives instructions about who you can enslave, how long you can enslave them, and how to use them. The only explicit anti-Slavery message that they have is for Christians to not become slaves themselves and possibly each other, and again favoring your own group over others isn't exactly a moral argument.

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2000 years is still a long time to get things right - most people don't even live a full century, and yet can you deny how much the societies of the world have changed since one century ago?

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Again, they didn't root out slavery. They still allowed it against non-Christians. It only effectively ended due to favoritism and economic changes. This is a really weak argument for Christianity's morality.

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The Bible has explicit instructions to people about who they can enslave, how long they can enslave them, and how they can treat their slaves, and not once does it give instructions telling people to stop practicing slavery. You think that isn't relevant?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Dibble, did you check out my finding on Joseph's reference to 2 forms determining a matter?  I thought it was cool

[John Dibble]

Dibble, did you check out my finding on Joseph's reference to 2 forms determining a matter?  I thought it was cool

I read through all of Genesis 41 to get the context, and I think you need to beware of confirmation bias on this. The "two forms" here simply seems to me to represent that the times of abundance and famine will come in two forms - during the seven years of abundance both the harvest and the livestock will be healthy and plentiful, while during the seven years of famine they would be unhealthy and poor. This seems to me to rather be emphasizing just how bad the famine would be, rather than giving any kind of symbolic representation of how to interpret scriptural matters. If a nation has multiple staple foods it can potentially survive the loss of one, but it would have much greater difficulty in surviving both.

I'm not saying the "at least two witnesses" thing isn't a good policy - it is, as consistency is generally a good thing to look for. Even scientific standards demand that you repeat an experiment multiple times to see if the results are consistent, after all.

As far as your interpretation goes, I think you might want to ask your pastor about it seeing as you respect his opinion.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Dibble, did you check out my finding on Joseph's reference to 2 forms determining a matter?  I thought it was cool

I read through all of Genesis 41 to get the context, and I think you need to beware of confirmation bias on this. The "two forms" here simply seems to me to represent that the times of abundance and famine will come in two forms - during the seven years of abundance both the harvest and the livestock will be healthy and plentiful, while during the seven years of famine they would be unhealthy and poor. This seems to me to rather be emphasizing just how bad the famine would be, rather than giving any kind of symbolic representation of how to interpret scriptural matters. If a nation has multiple staple foods it can potentially survive the loss of one, but it would have much greater difficulty in surviving both.

I'm not saying the "at least two witnesses" thing isn't a good policy - it is, as consistency is generally a good thing to look for. Even scientific standards demand that you repeat an experiment multiple times to see if the results are consistent, after all.

As far as your interpretation goes, I think you might want to ask your pastor about it seeing as you respect his opinion.

Thanks for the reply.

I interpret the “2 forms” to be in regard to the two separate dreams Pharaoh had, the dream of the cows (Gen 41:1-4) and the dream of the grain stalks (Gen 41:5-7)

Once Joseph had listened and interpreted both dreams, he said, “The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon.” (NIV)

The ESV, a much more literal translation, reads, “32And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about”

The KJV renders it, “32And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.”

So, although the law regarding “every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” is firmly establish repeatedly in the Law of Moses and in the New Testament, I had never found an explicitly statement of importance of it in Genesis.  The closest thing to it were the three angles that visited Abraham in Gen 18 and the two angels that appeared to Lot in Sodom in Gen 19.

But now, in Gen 41:32, we have an explicit witness from Genesis of the importance of God mentioning things twice to establish certainty.  And not only do we now have an explicit tie back to Genesis, which is the blueprint the bible, but we now also have uniformity: a reference PRIOR to the Law of Moses (Gen ch 18; Gen ch 19; Gen 41:32), references within the Law of Moses (Deut 17:6; Deut 19:5), and references in the NT (Mat 18:6; 2Cor 13:1; 1Tim 5:19; Heb 10:28; Rev 11:3, etc, etc).

I was always only 99% sure of the rule to only teach things that have at least 2 witnesses, (though I have seen the results of those who don’t follow the rule, they are always legalistic and unbalanced, dividing the body of Christ by establishing whole sects off of single verses) but now I am 100% certain.  It is the way to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2Tim 2:15)

[Gustaf]

I still don't follow your argument. The church didn't own the slaves. How is the church telling the slaves that if they become Christians the church will think the slave-owners should release them "coercing" them? Is the US telling people in North Korea that they will have freedom of expression if they were to become American citizens coercing them to be Americans?

I'm not sure if you read much about the lives of slaves in those times. I have and your conception of it seems a bit odd. It isn't as if the priests who came to Sweden to convert people had the power to coerce anyone. Slave owners typically killed them if they told slaves to convert and ask for freedom. But I guess the vikings who slayed priests were fighting the pro-slavery influence of Christianity.

You seem to ignore the fact since Christianity wanted to convert everyone the distinction between Christians and non-Christians isn't that important. You make it sound as if the Church wanted to hypocritically retain a class of non-converted slaves - yet that was obviously not true, since they didn't choose that path. Instead they eradicated slavery. I'm not saying that it was all for the most wonderful reasons (few great developments in human history are). Again, we could amusingly have the exact same debate about the UK intervening in WWII. It doesn't really affect my point that it is strange to blame Christianity for slavery when they actually ended it.

I'll admit though that I don't know what rate of slavery-ending would be sufficient to prove Christianity as anti-slavery. A more apt analogy for me is that what you're doing is essentially like blaming the Democrats for the fact that the US doesn't have public healthcare.

Anyway, if you want to argue that the Bible has pro-slavery messages, sure. I don't really equate that with Christianity though, just as I stated earlier. I'm only arguing that Christianity in practice has not contributed very much to the existence of slavery. If you want to prove that it has you have to argue that slavery would have ended quicker without Christianity ever existing and given the historical record that seems like a tall order to me. I would personally view the existence of slavery in the OT as a reflection of the existence of slavery in society at the time and not as an intrinsic part of Christian belief.

This explanation seems to fit better with the historical evolution of Christian countries leading the way for abolition than your theory.  

[John Dibble]

I still don't follow your argument. The church didn't own the slaves. How is the church telling the slaves that if they become Christians the church will think the slave-owners should release them "coercing" them?

The church at the time was the one making the laws in this regard. These laws treated their own group as superior, thus creating a strong incentive to convert to their group. Saying "Hey, if you join our group we'll stop doing this terrible thing to you" is coercion. Or in other words "The beatings will continue until morale improves".

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The US government isn't the one creating laws that take away the North Korean people's rights, so no. If on the other hand the US were to conquer North Korea and create laws which treated those who didn't become US citizens in some way that was greatly inferior, it would be coercive.

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Again, the actual laws that the church had still allowed for non-Christian enslavement. That the slave owners had their own issues with immoral behavior does not excuse the problems with the church's law in this regard.

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It's a very important distinction if the non-Christians were being treated as second class citizens or worse by the law of the land, which I would argue was the case.


But anyways, you can disagree on the matter. Christianity isn't necessarily pro-slavery at it's core, but I'm not convinced it was anti-slavery either. If a religion claims it's backed by a perfectly moral deity I would expect that it's scriptures would then better reflect morality and explicitly not allow slavery. That unfortunately is not the case and it resulted in the continued practice of slavery in many Christian societies throughout history.

[Gustaf]

I feel as if you sort of ignored my point. When Christians came to Sweden, trying to spread Christianity they weren't in a position of power. You seem to think that they first converted all the owners and then coerced the slaves into converting by dangling the possibility of freedom in front of them.

I don't think that was the case. What I've read about the era doesn't back it up and it doesn't really make logical sense to me. Why would the owners join before the slaves, for instance?

That's exactly why I used my analogy about the US and North Korea. It isn't as if the Church, when it came to a society like the Swedish, had any power over it. The existence of slaves persevering in being non-Christians and then being coerced into the religion is not really something I recognize at all. I think it's a highly theoretical construct on your part.

[John Dibble]

I feel as if you sort of ignored my point. When Christians came to Sweden, trying to spread Christianity they weren't in a position of power. You seem to think that they first converted all the owners and then coerced the slaves into converting by dangling the possibility of freedom in front of them.

I don't think that was the case. What I've read about the era doesn't back it up and it doesn't really make logical sense to me. Why would the owners join before the slaves, for instance?

That's exactly why I used my analogy about the US and North Korea. It isn't as if the Church, when it came to a society like the Swedish, had any power over it. The existence of slaves persevering in being non-Christians and then being coerced into the religion is not really something I recognize at all. I think it's a highly theoretical construct on your part.

I didn't mean to imply that the church had immediate control over everything when it showed up, but the fact of what the law was when they did come to power there is what I said it was. It's not really anti-slavery, rather it's pro-Christian. The slavery law probably didn't have a lot to do with most of the conversions, but I would imagine it affected a few.

It probably had more effect in the Crusader states, where slavery was practiced on a large scale. Apparently many Muslims would "convert" (many would still just practice Islam) to try to escape enslavement by Christians, so often many of them weren't allowed to convert so they'd stay as slaves.