Why do you suppose Jesus never condemned slavery?

Great Debates
101

I sure might. I’d probably call it Matthew 6:25.

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

And if that weren’t enough, I’d possibly rehash it as Luke 12:22.

102

Well, if he were GOD…that would be no problem.

But are you suggesting that moral leaders should not speak out on issues such as slavery simply because they have no immediate solutions for the problem?

Why do you think the god that Jesus worshipped thought it was okay to buy, sell, and own slaves?

103

Firstly, it’s worth noting that you gloss over the tidbit that slaves came into being as property won in war. What percentage about were voluntary versus involuntary?

Moving on to your main article though, a worker in modern society can change his profession. He can go out and get a loan so he can go to school and learn a trade he’d enjoy. If he doesn’t do a good job, he isn’t beaten, he’s fired–meaning that he’s given free food and housing by the state, in the worst case, while he continues to search for a new job.

If you think that Roman society was equivalent to modern society, then you should be perfectly happy to go back and be a slave in ancient Rome. There’s nothing in particular to prevent ancient from having become a modern society except for knowledge of what direction to go and someone to press the issue. True, modern society might not be the ultimate pinnacle of God’s divine plan, but I can certainly say that life didn’t improve for humanity and humans weren’t more moral directly after Jesus, nor for any time period afterword, extending into the millenia.

104

Huh? Christians have always been opposed to slavery. As evidence, just check out what Pope Paul III said when asked whether it was okay to enslave Native Americans. The question is not why Christians took 1800 years to decide that slavery was wrong; they didn’t. The question is, why did secualr governments take more than 1800 years before they adopted the Christian position?

105

All the white slaveowners in the southern US states were muslims, of course.

106

You forgot “blessed are the cheesemakers”*

  • of course, not to be taken literally, as it includes any manufacturers of dairy products
107

At the very least, I bet none of them went to church on Sunday, because the pastors in the South were, as a whole, famous for condemning slavery every chance they got.
Right?

108

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav4.htm

1452/4 CE: Pope Nicholas V wrote Dum Diversas which granted to the kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any “Saracens [Muslims] and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery.

1548 CE: Pope Paul III confirmed that any individual may freely buy, sell and own slaves. Runaway slaves were to be returned to their owners for punishment.

1629 to 1661 CE: Pope Urban VIII in 1629, Pope Innocent X in 1645 and Pope Alexander VII in 1661 were all personally involved in the purchase of Muslim slaves.

Late 17th century: The institution of slavery was a integral part of many societies worldwide. The Roman Catholic church only placed two restrictions on the purchase and owning of slaves:
– They had to be non-Christian.
– They had to be captured during “just” warfare. i.e. in wars involving Christian armies fighting for an honorable cause.

Late in the 17th century, Leander, a Roman Catholic theologian, wrote:

    "It is certainly a matter of faith that this sort of slavery in which a man serves his master as his slave, is altogether lawful. This is proved from Holy Scripture...It is also proved from reason for it is not unreasonable that just as things which are captured in a just war pass into the power and ownership of the victors, so persons captured in war pass into the ownership of the captors... All theologians are unanimous on this."
109

Actually it is a truth, not a fact, but anyway Jesus did deal with those who took advantage of others, such as Pharisees and money changers. This is a great example where the truth of God differs from the facts of man.

The physical institution of slavery is a shadow of the spiritual slavery. To deal with physical you treat the symptom, to deal with the spiritual you deal with the cause. IMHO, which I believe is divine revelation by the Holy Spirit, Abraham Lincoln in real terms did absolutely nothing to end slavery in the US, but just made it more hidden. Not that I am judging good ol’ Abe, I do not know his intentions, but even if his intentions was to free the slaves, I believe it was totally ineffective, because 1 he dealt with the physical, and 2 he used violence - Jesus dealt with the spiritual and used Love.

This revelation would explain why Jesus didn’t deal with physical slavery, it was not the issue, the issue was sin leading to spiritual slavery. It is only with dealing with the sin can someone get spiritually freed.

I can’t answer this, as I don’t believe it to be true, and a generalization.

110

I have a concern here.

We like to think we are more educated, more enlightened, more civilized, more advanced, lets’ just say it. We like to think we are BETTER than they were.

So why don’t we just drop the biblical justifications, both for and against slavery and simply declare that it’s an affront to human dignity, a gross violation of the most basic human rights, abomination.

Jesus didn’t come out and flatly declare it is bad? So what. It’s bad. We “who know better than they did” can decide it’s bad for ourselves.

111

IMHO we are worse then they were, further removed from true Love, further away from God, more violent, more destructive, much much more cruel.

Then lets end it, lets stop people from trying to tempt people back into it, stop rebuilding the slums of New Orleans and allow those people to find freedom in Christ and let Him lead them home.

Many many people are slaves though it is not obvious. Even wonder why a stereotypical black man is at a disadvantage when applying for a job, while he appears the same as a white man? While they may appear the same physically, spiritually he is seen as in chains and in rags no matter what he is physically wearing. This inequality is what followers of Jesus then and today are fighting.

Or in my terms, it is not us as human that is the issue (that is a distraction desinges for us to fight each other), is it a spiritual battle against demons and the devil, here on earth and guiding the battle from above, and against basement cat and his invisible kittens.

112

Bonus points for invoking Basement Cat :slight_smile:

I don’t think we are more cruel, though I will grant that our weapons are more effective.
Our laws are more “nuanced”, in that not every minor infraction carries a death sentence. We even allow the accused the chance to defend themselves in a legal and open trial.
In modern times, mass extermination (genocide) is fought against. Slavery is outlawed. Wars are not fought at “the highest destructive level possible” (we don’t automatically go for the hydrogen bombs). We even have conventions regarding the conduct of war.

We live in a different world. Back then might made right, in a very real sense. the winner took all, the loser was dead.

We have come a long way.

Added on edit: Why was there “an eye for an eye”?
It was not to sanction revenge. It was an early attempt to stop it. That was a time when any slight, real or imagined, large or small, got someone killed. “Eye for an eye” tried to stop that.

113

In my case, there’s no conflict; the only Biblical justification that speaks to me is the one that powered Lincoln’s stated conclusion on the matter: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”

If, as you say, that makes me more educated or civilized or advanced than anyone else who took the golden rule to heart, then so be it. If, as kanicbird says, I’m further away from Jesus than people were in those days, then that’s fine too. But as near as I can tell, I’m flatly declaring it to be bad by eyeballing the same reason folks have pointed at for millennia.

114

Not a single reference you posted was stated by Jesus and therefore, imo, is skeptical as being aligned with Jesus’ teachings.

One piece that is missing (as far as I’ve seen) is Jesus’ living in the way which he taught. Jesus didn’t keep slaves, so perhaps if he approved, he would have kept them. Of course, that’s dependent on believing Jesus lived by his own accord.

Frank, you say the question in discussion is why Jesus didn’t preach against slavery, but it seems your argument and purpose in here is to promote that Jesus supported slavery by doing the same thing fundamentalist Christians do - stripping out phrases that “prove your point” and ignoring any context, history, socio-historic implications, or discussing any aspects of culture, religion, and politics at the time (all of which Jesus was heavily entwined in).

115

You’re absolutely right-those weren’t the words of Jesus.
Those were the words of his closest followers, who supposedly got the “obvious” message from Jesus that slavery is wrong.

116

Oveja…the citations were in response to your assertion that Jesus had said and done things that made it very obvious to others that he opposed slavery.

I mentioned that it was evident from what Paul wrote that he did not get such a message.

You asked me for evidence of that from scripture…and I cited several.

I gave you exactly what you asked for…and now you are faulting me for doing so.

C’mon!

That would be like arguing that since there is no record of Jesus ever performing an abortion…he obviously disapproved of abortion. Not a very decent argument!

Most people back then did not own slaves…mostly it was the rich who did. That does not mean that the people who did not own slaves disapproved of the practice…it most likely means they simply did not have the means to afford them.

And you still have not dealt with the FACT that the god Jesus worshipped told him plainly in easy to understand words that the buying, selling, and ownership of slaves was perfectly okay and moral.
“Slaves, male and female, you may indeed possess, provided you BUY them from among the neighboring nations. You may also BUY them from among the aliens who reside with you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. Such slaves YOU MAY OWN AS CHATTELS, and leave to your sons as their hereditary property, MAKING THEM PERPETUAL SLAVES. But you shall not lord it harshly over any of the Israelites, your kinsmen.” Leviticus 25:44ff

That was not my intention at all–and I have never said or implied that. But I must say that by not opposing slavery, he did inadvertently lend support it in ways that Southern slave owners often used in justification of the practice.

However, I have way too much admiration for Jesus to ever deal with that at length. And I can easily understand why Jesus never condemned slavery…because he was assured by the god he worshipped that nothing was wrong with the practice.

That was my purpose, Oveja…to make that point, because all this stuff goes to my ultimate question: Why do the theists in this discussion pick this god to be their GOD?

Not sure what you are saying here…but if I have tried any “tricks” you want to cite, cite ‘em and I will defend what I said and why I said it.

117

Disclaimer 1: there are no gods
Disclaimer 2: I’ve only skim read the thread

For once, I find myself more in agreement with ITR Champion than the rest of the crew.:eek:

Slavery is/was a universal phenomenom. One of the few things I respect about Christianity is its consistent aversion to slavery. IANAPH*. Slavery had vanished from Europe by the beginning of the middle ages. Because it was assumed that everyone exposed to Christianity would be a Christian and it was wrong to enslave a fellow Christian. (Compare other religions which do not have any qualms about enslaving coreligionists). And because there were no non Christians in Europe.

As inter-continental trade reappeared during the middle ages, slavery reappeared in southern Europe. Generally young women from southern Russia and central asia for domestic services (including sexual) in very affluent households. And very, very expensive. Now, it is very hard for us to get our heads around this, but being a domestic / sex slave in a very rich man’s house in southern Europe in the middle ages was not such a low place in the social hierarchy. Demonstrably higher than a free peasant woman, with peasants being the overwhelming majority of the population. (If this surprises you then do some reading before posting in criticism). Not least because your children were free (since they were Christians) and relatively high in the social hierarchy (illegitimate children of a very rich man). You’ll note, slavery could only last one generation. Slaves were too expensive to be used as disposable inputs to mining or agriculture. So, some limited volume of slavery, but not the worst kind, or even a particularly bad kind.**

Then southern Russia turned Christian and Central Asia turned moslem and the Turks took the Bosporus and would not allow trade in moslem slaves. So, no more slavery in Christian Europe, again.

Except, just before slavery died out for a second and final time, Europeans reached West Africa by sea which made black african slaves a commercial proposition (previously too many of them died in the journey across the sahara for the flourishing African slave trade to reach Europe). The commercial imperative outweighed Christian imperatives to evangelise the heathen rather than enslave him, and there were plantations on the newly discovered / colonised Atlantic islands (Madiera, Canaries, Cape Verde Islands) which could consume cheap African slaves on an industrial scale.

Plantation slavery in the Caribean and Americas then followed. Now you can argue persuasively that this was all done by Christians, citing medieval Popes etc., but even this atheist tends to think that they were acting against Christian tradition rather than in line with it, not least because of earlier Christian practice in Europe. And because plantation slavery was ultimately abolished by the action of committed Christians.

In conclusion: I don’t have any idea if Jesus even existed, let alone preached against slavery, but I do know that the eradication of slavery has been an explicitly Christian achievement, based on Christian doctrine from very early times. Just because Christians are crazy doesn’t mean they are all bad!

  • that’s Professional Historian
    ** beware anachronistic value judgements here
118

All this may be so…but if the Christians are obliged to respect the god that Jesus worshipped…they are obliged to respect what that god had to say about slavery. And that has already been quoted, but allow me to do it again:

“Slaves, male and female, you may indeed possess, provided you BUY them from among the neighboring nations. You may also BUY them from among the aliens who reside with you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. Such slaves YOU MAY OWN AS CHATTELS, and leave to your sons as their hereditary property, MAKING THEM PERPETUAL SLAVES. But you shall not lord it harshly over any of the Israelites, your kinsmen.” Leviticus 25:44ff

The god of the Bible says in no uncertain terms that it is okay to buy, sell, and own slaves. It is “moral” in the eyes of that god.

You cannot get around that!

And since that IS the god Jesus loved and worshipped…well…you can see where that has to take us.

119

I agree with this. For example, when I was a kid we used ethinic slurs. There was no such thing as a nerd or a geek or dweeb and dork was a bad word.

If you were cheap you were a Scot. Dumb people were Pollacks, Sleazy people were Greeks and drunken people looking for a fight were Irish. And my favourite were sneaky people who were Hungarians. My dad used to say a Hungarian could follow you into a revolving door and come out ahead of you.

Of course none of that is true at all. We knew it when we said it. If someone said “That’s a Pollack thing to do,” we didn’t think of it as personal thing, it meant “stupid.”

It never once occured to me that, that was wrong. Of course now the world changed and we don’t do that anymore.

Granted slavery is a little more serious than an ethnic slur, but think about this. People were damn poor in those days. Often a slave ate where others didn’t.

People had no recreation. A fun night was looking in the sky and counting the stars. People didn’t care as long as they had food in their stomach and a roof over their heads, 'cause there wasn’t much else in life.

Yeah slaves got beat, but so did everyone else as well.

120

A slight simplification. Where slaves were cheap, then slaves got treated more horribly than you want to think about. The poor got treated better, but still regularly more horribly than you want to think about.

Where slaves were expensive, then a slave was actually often in a better position than a free peasant. Unless they were unlucky with their owner. But then a free peasant could also have a very unpleasant time if their proximate social superior was the sort of person to abuse his slaves.

It occurs to me that too much of this thread is predicated on two gross misconceptions:

  • slavery in the southern US was typical of slavery or christianity (it wasn’t)
  • Christians act according to the teachings of Jesus, who was the son of God (he wasn’t, they don’t)