Slavery and the bible

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More information on something I mention a bunch of times earlier, but got no real response: Louis W. Cable article.

Quote:

Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God. It is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation - - Jefferson Davis
All hail to the stars and bars.

An excerpt:

Quote:

What did Jesus have to say about slavery? Well, in the cherished Sermon of the Mount, allegedly given by him and recognized as a prescription for Christian living, the institution of slavery, so prevalent at the time, is never mentioned. However, in Matthew 8:5-13 Jesus heals the Roman centurion's slave while praising the centurion for his exemplary faithfulness. Why didn't Jesus seize this opportunity to condemn slavery and forbid it? In Luke 12:47, the parable of the faithful and unfaithful slave, Jesus even recommends the beating of slaves. But the most astounding pro-slavery statement in the Bible is made by Jesus himself in Matthew 10:24-25. Here Jesus not only reminds slaves that they are never above their master, he actually recommends that they strive to be like him.

Throughout the gospels Jesus ignores countless opportunities to condemn slavery. Another good example is the parable of the ten pound (Luke 19:11-27). Here we read how while visiting at the house of Zacchaeus, the rich tax collector, Jesus ceases upon the opportunity to lecture us on the proper technique of profitable money investment. In verse 27 the greedy, wicked nobleman tells his slaves, "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." Instead of condemning such a display of wanton cruelty and intolerance as he should have Jesus simply ignores it and goes on with his money-saving lecture thereby passing up another opportunity to register his condemnation of slavery.

Paul, the earliest Christian evangelist and a contemporary of Jesus, expresses his unqualified support of the institution of human slavery by instructing slaves to obey their masters in several passages, Ephesians 6:5, I Timothy 6:1 and again in Titus 2:9-10.

wow.. thats very uhh... hypactritcal(sp?)

Bob Dylan said you have to serve somebody.

Well, you asked for it, Steve, so I'll have a go. I don't have time for a proper rebuttal, but perhaps I can sketch out some general ideas.The writer of the article is taking selected odd verses without considering their context, especially their wider context. This is like taking odd sentences from a newspaper and trying to draw conclusions from them without considering the sort of articles and reports they were taken from.First, a couple of principles.1. Just because something is stipulated in the Old Testament, doesn't mean Christians are bound by it. Christ abolishes the old law (Eph 2:15; Gal 3:25). This seems to be not at all understood by those people who quote silly bits of Mosaic Law and think Christians are supposed to do them.That doesn't mean the Old Testament is not Christian Scripture; but Scripture is not a book of rules.2. What Jesus says is certainly crucial. However, it is very dangerous to draw conclusions from what Jesus does not say. Quite apart from the fact that all we have is edited highlights and gists of conversations, and there is a lot Jesus said which wasn't recorded (cf Jn 21:25), Jesus didn't go about as a moral policeman pointing out everything that was wrong. Judgement is for the second coming, not the first.The writer of the article really needs to read the Gospels. Jesus was not politically correct.3. Parables are stories and illustrations, and must be read as such. The article writer cites Luke 12:47, Matthew 10:24-25 and other passages, but either hasn't read the context, or somehow can't see it - it's a very odd view.It's important to realise that until quite recently slavery was pretty much universal - certainly in the world known to the Bible writers. It was taken for granted that war prisoners became slaves - that was the way the world operated. In the Old Testament that attitude continues, but with some changes, that already set the Hebrews apart. Slaves, for example, are to be circumcised (Gen 17:12), and eat the Passover (Ex 12:44). That meant that slaves were part of the community - unheard of for a Greek or Roman. They are not to work on the Sabbath (Ex 20:10) - again very different from the Roman practice, where citizens had very many public holidays (by the end of the Empire, over 100 in the year), but slaves had just one.However, the coming of Christ made things very different. Paul made it quite clear: "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:26-28)But Christians, though not of the world, must live in the world, and that world included slavery. For the early church, few in numbers and totally without political influence, changing the system was not possible. The rule Paul laid down was to live within the system in your appointed place and to act justly in that place. That is not the same as approving the system.

You're certainly not going to stake out the moral high ground with that apologia.Quote:Just because something is stipulated in the Old Testament, doesn't mean Christians are bound by it.OK then, what does it mean? Doesn't the contents of the Old Testament reflect the mind of God at the time it was written? Is there something wrong with the mind of God? Is He schizophrenic? Does he have a split personality? It this perfect creature still undergoing moral development? And doesn't the Old Testament (sort of) reflect the contents of the Torah? What does that say about fundamentalist Jews, who accept it lock, stock, and barrel?Christians are fond of picking and choosing which parts of the old testament to follow. Some think that shellfish is good, but homosexuality is bad. There is a lot of crazy, violent, disgusting stuff in the Old Testament, supposedly the word of God, and you can't just walk away from it. What context is needed in a discussion of selling your daughter into slavery, or stoning people to death for violating idiotic rules of behavior? Women are treated like dirt.Are you saying that the Old Testament is a bunch of crap? You said it's Christian scripture. It may not be a book of rules, but what is it then?Quote:Jesus was not politically correct.I'm not sure if it's politically correct to be mentally ill, but that's generally the diagnosis of someone who's convinces he's some kind of deity. The phrase "politically correct" is empty. It's as useful as "cool" or "uncool". The problem is Jesus' moral shortcomings. He was concerned about charity and such, but he was blind to the horrors in front of his face, like slavery. I don't understand how you can excuse that.Quote:Parables are stories and illustrations, and must be read as such.You have your beliefs, other Christians have their beliefs. It's like blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is. Each person conjures up a different idea in his mind.Quote:It's important to realise that until quite recently slavery was pretty much universal - certainly in the world known to the Bible writers.You are seemingly dumbing down and diluting Christianity to a system of philosophical suggestions, which is something that fundamentalists, to their credit, don't do. You either have a religion or you don't. This lukewarm approach is pointless. What purpose does dilute Christianity serve? As a way to socially organize a community, like a book club, with some religious hocus-pocus thrown in?So the bible has passages about treating slaves better than they were in Roman times, and slaves could be the sons of God, just like everyone else. Your God and your Jesus don't seem very transcendental if they could not see the moral bankruptcy of slavery. You and I are superior to both of them.Was Jesus afraid that he just would not be able to sell the idea of the wrongfulness of slavery to the masses? He preached some radical ideas; that one was just too much?Quote:But Christians, though not of the world, must live in the world, and that world included slavery. For the early church, few in numbers and totally without political influence, changing the system was not possible. The rule Paul laid down was to live within the system in your appointed place and to act justly in that place. That is not the same as approving the system.Are we talking about the Jesus who went to the temple and raised hell with the money changers? The guy who lived in a Jewish community, largely as a Jew, but told his contemporaries that most of their rituals were crap? Who was his audience? Did the Jews, living under the thumb of Rome, have a lot of slaves? Who exactly would have had a hard time with it if He'd preached against slavery? The Romans already had a hard time with him because he had the idea that he was above the emperor. They didn't care much about who worshipped what, as long as they didn't rock the political boat.We live in a world today where horrible things are still not going on, and few of the "people of the book" are raising a stink about it. It's appalling, and it points to the uselessness of those religions as a moral force. If it wasn't for secular liberals (and you know what I mean by liberal), the world we live in would be a much meaner place than it already is.

I'm not sure that it's fruitful to debate scripture with you, since neither of us seems to believe that it's the inspired word of God. But if it's not, then Christianity can mean whatever the adherent wants it to mean -- which is an idea that drives fundamentalists batty.

Both the Bible and Christianity are involved with spirituality as the primary focus...not worldly social structure, no matter how correct or incorrect we may think they are. Comparing slavery with what is found in the Bible is like expecting to find the recipe for chocolate cake in your auto repair manual. But expecting God to solve all our problems for us (or expecting others to expect this) is indicative of somebody who doesn't understand God at all...not surprising coming from you, Steve.That said, it was a Christian man who started the movement that was the beginning of the end for slavery around the world (or at least the institution of slavery, I should say). There's a good movie out right now about this man (William Wilberforce) called "Amazing Grace". I wouldn't say it was a great movie...but can say it was a very good movie.

> indicative of somebody who doesn't understand God at all...not surprising coming from you, Steve.

Nice. I'm sure you totally understand the mind of God.

> oth the Bible and Christianity are involved with spirituality as the primary focus.

Have you ever read the Seromon on the Mount? Let me give you a clue: you'll find it in Matthew. In it, Jesus has all kinds of prescriptions and proscriptions on how you should live your life. He talks about giving all your stuff to the poor (have you done it yet?), and other communistic things to improve the lot of society. Would you rather be poor or enslaved? Apparently Jesus had more of an issue with the former.

You can't step away from the fact that Jesus had a lot to say about the behavior of his contemporaries, from the Pharisees to the money changers to the selfish and self-centered. Given that context, isn't it curious that he had little useful to say about the evil institution of slavery?

Yet you follow the Ten Commandments, a list of rules? You need to respect your father and your mother, but it's OK to own a slave, or to sell your daughter into slavery? I guess you do understand the mind of God. It's a schizophrenic mind.

> William Wilberforce

You are really hung up on this British guy. Much of the world was "morally" ahead of the U.S. at various times in its history. What ended slavery is that the South lost the Civil War. Go back to the top of this thread and read Jefferson Davis' quote. His opinion reflected that of the vast majority of white Southern Christians at the time.

Where was Wilberforce when the Dred Scott decision was rendered, when the majority of the Supreme Court justices were white southerners? Where were the Christians when blacks were fighting for the right to vote in the South? The right to drink from the same water fountain as you?

You have no idea what it was like for a black man in the South of a few decades ago. Thank you, white Southern Christians of the time.

By the way, have you ever heard of a man named Frederick Douglass?

Ill be damned, someone I actually know something about. I remember a bit of his life from an pbs documentary I saw a while back. I had to google him to find out who ti was but after I saw the pictures I remembered him.
aside from all teh work he did in abolishment, and the speeches he gave, I found a bit of his speaking, I think it applies here even though we are nto talking about the fourth of july.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

I think the words speak for themselves with no narrative on my part for what some guy that lived during the time thought o fit all.

He was right, of course, but his words fell on deaf white Christian ears in Dixie.

and to illistrate that fact further Ill add this to the convo:Douglass' most well-known work is his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published in 1845. Critics frequently attacked the book as inauthentic, not believing that a black man could possibly have produced so eloquent a piece of literature. I got it from wiki, not a viable source for facts I understand as its edited by anyone who cares to edit it, but still a good place to start, you just have to check the shit you learn on there instead of taking it as teh truth at first glance.

A bit mroe rading on the man says that he had mroe to do with the equal rights and taking the fight to end discrimination than the british did.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. The Klan Act and the Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states; under his leadership, over 5,000 arrests were made and the Ku Klux Klan was dealt a serious blow.

Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

In 1872, he became the first African American to receive a nomination for Vice President of the United States, having been nominated to be Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket without his knowledge. During the campaign, he neither campaigned for the ticket nor even acknowledged that he had been nominated.

Hows that fucking hit ya? over 130 years ago a black man was nominated for vice fucking president. Puts a bit of new hope for Obamma, if only he had paid his parking tickets 17 years ago.

Credit Edit:

certainly a better and moer viable source than wiki, Africans in America

Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassThat was assigned reading for a college English course I took. I was pleased to be assigned such a compact book, but I was moved by the quality of the content, and the quality of the writing.Blacks had a small renaissance in the South, during the post-Civil War reconstruction period, but Southern white folks weren't pleased with living with "uppity" black folks, so blacks had the carpet pulled out from under them, and they spent many decades afterward living in apartheid.

...for the love of humanity here we go again

"I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels…"-Frederick Douglass

Amen to that, although I still wish that Jesus would have condemned the instution of slavery, just as he condemned other institutions of his time.Like Steinbeck, Douglass could really turn a phrase.

Originally Posted By: JapanFan14...for the love of humanity here we go again My sentiments exactly...sigh.I think maybe there was a reason, after all the recent hullabaloo, that this topic didn't get "any real response" the first few times.

You seem to be from the South. You must be familiar with the history.How do you feel about Judaism/Christianity/Islam's tolerance of slavery?

Quote:You're certainly not going to stake out the moral high ground with that apologia.What an odd comment. Staking out the moral high ground has never been my intention in any post I have made here.Quote:Doesn't the contents of the Old Testament reflect the mind of God at the time it was written?Reflect, yes; perfectly, no. I am not a fundamentalist. The Bible is inspired by God, but it was not dictated by God.Quote:I[s] this perfect creature still undergoing moral development?No, but people are. People have to crawl before they can walk.Quote:What does that say about fundamentalist Jews, who accept it lock, stock, and barrel?I don't agree with them. I speak only of the Bible from an orthodox (small o) Christian perpective, because that's what I know and believe.Quote:There is a lot of crazy, violent, disgusting stuff in the Old Testament, supposedly the word of God, and you can't just walk away from it.No, you can't. But you don't turn off your brain either.Quote:What context is needed . . .I can only reject your assertion that context is not needed. It looks like a sort of blindness to me.Quote:Are you saying that the Old Testament is a bunch of crap? You said it's Christian scripture. It may not be a book of rules, but what is it then?It's a lot of different books, of very different styles. If you read it simply as that, and see what it says to you rather than what you think it should say, you'll do much better.Quote:he was blind to the horrors in front of his face, like slaveryAnd you deduce that how?Quote:You are seemingly dumbing down and diluting Christianity to a system of philosophical suggestionsI'm doing nothing of the kind. If you think that, you haven't understood what I've said at all. Perhaps you are thinking "if I said that, I would also think . . .", but that's false reasoning. Look at your reasoning more critically, Steve. Just because you can't understand how there can be anything between fundamentalism and wishy-washy modernism, doesn't mean there is nothing. Truth is not limited by your (or my) limitations in understanding.Quote:Your God and your Jesus don't seem very transcendental if they could not see the moral bankruptcy of slavery. You and I are superior to both of them.There you really surpass yourself in offensiveness, Steve. You may consider yourself as superior to God, but kindly do not presume to speak for me.I won't over-lengthen what is already too long a post, to someone I do not believe really wants to listen. I've already pointed out Paul's statement that makes slavery (and distinctions based on birth or gender) ungodly. I've already pointed out that arguments based on silence mean nothing (or one would assume you are in favour of cannibalism, a practice you have mentioned at least twice on A2A without specifically condemning it - oh, shame).You're restricted by your environment, Steve. You are more US-centric than you think. American fundamentalism is not orthodox Christianity. It's simply weird to think that Wilberforce did nothing much about slavery because he didn't do anything for slavery in the US. He was a British parliamentarian, just after the US War of Independence, what do you expect! The slaves in the West Indies were freed because of his work, which came about because he was a person of the book. And so was Douglass.

Quote:this is what I'm referring to. that was not even the point of the postThe undergirding theme of this thread is that slavery is a moral issue, and one with which Christianity (along with most if not all other religions) has fallen on its face.Keep in mind that that in the U.S., where I live, "family values" is a code phrase for the beliefs of fascistic evangelical Christian conservatives, who can't easily distinguish between the Republican party and the Southern Baptist church. The forebears of these people were the instruments of slavery. Their descendents have the same mind set.To countless millions of people in this country, Chrstianity is synonymous with morality.Do you deny that slavery is a moral issue, even if it was common at one time? How about the honor killings that happen in India and Pakistan? And female genital mutilation in Africa? If you think they're "wrong", then what is the milleu of "wrong", if not morality?If slavery is wrong, then why was Jesus blind to that wrongness? Is slavery really less wrong than lending money in the temple? And even if human society needed to evolve further to realize it, wasn't Jesus hatched in a pre-evolved state, or was he as base as his contemporaries?Quote:Reflect, yes; perfectly, no. I am not a fundamentalist. The Bible is inspired by God, but it was not dictated by God.What in God's name does it mean that it was inspired by God? That can mean anything you want. If it can mean anything, then it means nothing. It is in effect a blank page that people can stare at and see whatever they wish to see.Quote:No, but people are. People have to crawl before they can walk.Your God sounds like little more than a child, playing with his ant colony, waiting for them to evolve into moral creatures on their own, all the while stepping in and doing crazy stuff, depending on which parts of the scriptures one picks and choses, cafeteria-style.If the human race is on its own, then God and Jesus are pointless. They have all this power, while countless millions live and die as slaves -- or worse. In real life, wouldn't a parent like that have his children taken away?Quote:I don't agree with them.OK, so you think they're wrong, and you think they're wrong, and you each have nothing but faith to go by, but your faiths contradict.Surely you must have stopped and wondered how the religion you were born into just happens to be the "right" one. Do you think you would have been a Hindu or a Moslem if you were born in India, depending on which family you were born into? Or maybe a Jain? Or if you were born a little further east, a Zoroastrian or a Jew?It's funny how almost all people are born into the religion that is correct.Quote:No, you can't. But you don't turn off your brain either.Then by your definintion, many Christians, and fundamentalists of all types, have turned of their brains. They follow a religion in a book that they think was inspired by God, and you follow a religion that you make up as you go along, tossing out what seems disagreeable. You might as well just start from scratch, invent a religion, and follow that. It would make equally as much sense.Quote:I can only reject your assertion that context is not needed. It looks like a sort of blindness to me.You say that out-of-hand, as if it's universally true. It has a nice ring, but its nonsense. God talks about selling one's daughter into slavery; what context exonerates that? There are various crimes for which one deserves stoning (especially if you're a woman). Context? The God of the Old testament was a violent, angry, short-tempered being. Mass murder in Sodom and Gomorrah? No problem. There must have been a good reason. Flood the earth and kill everyone (talk about genocide) ? No problemo. Women eternally punished for Eve's sin? Sounds good. An eye for an eye? Must be good.If that stuff was wrong, what was it doing there? What does it mean that it was inspuired by God? You mean "inspired" in the sense that someone gets the sudden urge to take a crap, but God is not responsible for the explosive diarrhea that follows?Quote:It's a lot of different books, of very different styles. If you read it simply as that, and see what it says to you rather than what you think it should say, you'll do much better.It sounds like you regard the scriptures simply as a collection of philosophical writings, inspired by God, but possibly...wrong. You have certainly made the "inspired by God" part seem rather unimpressive.Why couldn't God just drop a book from heaven, in a universal language, that everyone could understand? Is he too limited for that?Quote:It's a lot of different books, of very different styles. If you read it simply as that, and see what it says to you rather than what you think it should say, you'll do much better.I seem to be reapeating myself, or you're anticipating what I'm going to say. Maybe you are a god.Quote:Just because you can't understand how there can be anything between fundamentalism and wishy-washy modernism, doesn't mean there is nothing. Truth is not limited by your (or my) limitations in understanding.That begs the issue that Christianity, in all of its flavors and strengths, really has little moral anchoring. You are making the case that morality flows from contemporary society at large. You sound like an agnostic or atheist.Quote:Quote:Your God and your Jesus don't seem very transcendental if they could not see the moral bankruptcy of slavery. You and I are superior to both of them.There you really surpass yourself in offensiveness, Steve. You may consider yourself as superior to God, but kindly do not presume to speak for me.That was sarcasm; how can one be superior to a figure or imagination?Jesus had nothing to say about slavery, and you're excusing it, becuase slavery was OK with his contemporaries. That is very weak, and shows him to be very ordianry. It also shows that God was and is out to lunch. As a father, He's transcendentally awful.You don't think you're in a morally superior position to Jesus of 2000 years ago, at least with regard to slavery? So Jesus, was in effect a wild beast, You wouldn't expect a wild beast to have a moral calulus. The lion hunts, and mates, and lies on the ground, and kills cubs fathered by others. Morality plays no part. He's just a product of his society, as was Jesus. Just like you and me.Quote: I've already pointed out Paul's statement that makes slavery (and distinctions based on birth or gender) ungodly.You said that Paul said:Quote:"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." How do you interpret that as saying that slavery is ungodly? You can be a brunette, blond, or red-head, and all be one in Christ Jesus. Which of those is ungodly? Paul is calling out groups of people. He's not condemning the instution of slavery, unless you have a very active imagination. He talks about slaves they way you'd talk about people with pony tails.Quote:(or one would assume you are in favour of cannibalism, a practice you have mentioned at least twice on A2A without specifically condemning it - oh, shame)I am no one's moral compass. There are how many people who hang on every word they image Jesus uttered or thought? A billion or two? It's to bad Jesus was in some ways morally inferior. With just a few words, he could have probably pre-empted the suffering of countless millions. Was he not able to see that?Or is it possible that the New Testament actually doesn't reflect some, or a lot, of what the historical Jesus actually said? How much of the New Testament was written by his contemporaries?Quote:which came about because he was a person of the book. And so was Douglass.There were "people of the book" who supported slavery, and there were "people of the book" who opposed it. The people of the book who supported it were far more numerous. I wonder what secular people were thinking. Do you think that Wilberforce, who seemingly had a formidible intellect, might have concluded that slavery was a bankrupt institution, even if he wasn't religious?And Frederick Douglass, for Christ sakes, was a slave. He lived it. He didn't need his religious faith to tell him how wrong it was.Quote:You're restricted by your environment, Steve. You are more US-centric than you think. American fundamentalism is not orthodox Christianity.Unlike Scientology, no person or institution owns Christianity. You have created a custom version of Christianity in your own mind. You think that's the right one. The countless millions of Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., Latin America, Africa, and even Europe have their own ideas, and they think that they're right -- and you're wrong. You can't construct a logical argument to prove your point, because faith and logic are in different realms.It all boils down to faith. Nothing has to be proven, nothing has to be observed. When we reason about the scriptures and God's will, we're just engaging in mental masturbation. To me it's a game of checkers; to you it's reality, which confounds me.What drives your faith? Where did it come from? Does it really make sense?Here's an interesting article from last Sunday's New York TImes Magazine: Darwin's God. It's a long, but very interesting article about the evolution of religious faith in humans, from an anthropological and biological perspective.