Jesus and Slavery

Being raised in rural South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union immediately before the Civil War, I have gained a rather horrid distaste for slavery.  Also being a Christian, I have always been bothered by the use of slavery within the Bible.   Does God support something as oppressive and immoral as slavery?  Slavery in the New World often times meant the inevitability of being raped and abused, was it the same way for the Early Church and Israel?  Are we in this age more “morally evolved” than our descendants? Such questions have always plagued me.  Because of this wonder, I’ve decided to research the topic a little and share my findings (in other words, combine a lot of my resources especially from gotquestions.org and The Reason for God by Tim Keller).

The Bible does not specifically condemn the practice of slavery. It gives instructions on how slaves should be treated (Deuteronomy 15:12-15; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1), but does not outlaw slavery altogether. Many have seen this to mean that the Bible authorizes all forms of slavery. What many fail to understand is that slavery in biblical times was very different from the slavery that was practiced in the past few centuries in many parts of the world. The slavery in the Bible was not based exclusively on race. People were not enslaved because of their nationality or the color of their skin. In Bible times, slavery was more a matter of social status. People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their families. In New Testament times, sometimes doctors, lawyers, and even politicians were slaves of someone else. Some people actually chose to be slaves so as to have all their needs provided for by their masters.

The slavery of the past few centuries was often based exclusively on skin color. In the United States, many black people were considered slaves because of their nationality; many slave owners truly believed black people to be inferior human beings. The Bible most definitely does condemn race-based slavery. Consider the slavery the Hebrews experienced when they were in Egypt. The Hebrew were slaves, not by choice, but because they were Hebrews (Exodus 13:14). The plagues God poured out on Egypt demonstrate how God feels about racial slavery (Exodus 7-11). So, yes, the Bible does condemn some forms of slavery. At the same time, the Bible does seem to allow for other forms. The key issue is that the slavery the Bible allowed for in no way resembled the racial slavery that plagued our world in the past few centuries.

In addition, both the Old and New Testaments condemn the practice of “man-stealing” which is what happened in Africa in the 19th century. Africans were rounded up by slave-hunters, who sold them to slave-traders, who brought them to the New World to work on plantations and farms. This practice is abhorrent to God. In fact, the penalty for such a crime in the Mosaic Law was death: “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death” (Exodus 21:16). Similarly, in the New Testament, slave-traders are listed among those who are “ungodly and sinful” and are in the same category as those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, adulterers and perverts, and liars and perjurers (1 Timothy 1:8-10).

Another crucial point is that the purpose of the Bible is to point the way to salvation, not to reform society. The Bible often approaches issues from the inside out. If a person experiences the love, mercy, and grace of God by receiving His salvation, God will reform his soul, changing the way he thinks and acts. A person who has experienced God’s gift of salvation and freedom from the slavery of sin, as God reforms his soul, will realize that enslaving another human being is wrong. A person who has truly experienced God’s grace will in turn be gracious towards others. That would be the Bible’s prescription for ending slavery.

Social historian Rodney Stark states, “Although it has been fashionable to deny it, anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the decline of Rome were accompanied by the eventual disappearance of slavery in all but the fringes of Christian Europe.  When Europeans subsequently instituted slavery in the New World, they did so over strenuous papal opposition, a fact that was conveniently ‘lost’ from history until recently.  Finally, the abolition of New World slavery was initiated and achieved by Christian activists.”

Christians began to work for abolition not because of some general understanding of human rights, but because they say it as violating the will of God.  Older forms of indentured servant-hood and bond-service of Biblical times had often been harsh, but Christian abolitionists concluded that race-based, life-long slavery, established through kidnapping, could not be found in alignment with Biblical teaching.  Christian activists such as William Wilberforce in Great Britain (btw, the movie about him entitled Amazing Grace is amazing), John Woolman in America, and many others devoted their entire lives, in the name of Christ, to ending slavery.  At the same time the slave trade was so financially rewarding that many within the church greedily sought to justify it.

When the abolitionists finally had British society ready to abolish slavery across the empire, many in the colonies said the price of commodities would skyrocket catastrophically.  This did not deter the abolitionists.  The House of Commons agreed to compensate the planters for all freed slaves, a sum which equaled to half of all the British government’s annual budget.  The Act of Emancipation passed in 1933, and the costs were so high to the British people that some have referred to the voluntary abolition of slavery in Britain as “voluntary econocide.”

Many have tried to understand why so many political figures would act so selfishly to do away with the act.  Why self-interest would they have in this act of abolition?  Rodney Stark has argued that the only reason why this sacrificial behavior ever took place was because it was Christian leaders who were in the forefront of this movement.  Many within Christianity had allowed this inhuman behavior to continue but being the “repentant religion” that Christianity is, many sought to correct this move.

Very much related to this topic, Martin Luther King Jr. realized that it was behaving more like a Christian would do away with such things as racial injustice.  He believed that it was a deeper and truer Christianity that would help change the face of America.  David L. Chappell believes that the Civil Rights was primarily a religious and spiritual movement as opposed to simply political.   He argues that white Northern liberals who were the allies of the African-American civil rights leaders were not proponents of civil disobedience or of a direct attack on segregation.  Because of their secular belief in the goodness of human nature, they thought that education and enlightenment would bring about inevitable social and racial progress.  Black leaders were instead much more rooted in the Biblical understanding of the sinfulness of the human heart and in the denunciations of injustice that they read in the Hebrew prophets.  The Civil Rights movement was a religious revival.

Alright, many might have read what I’ve stated and say, “What of the passages in Scripture that seem to be in favor of slavery?”  What do you do with passages like Ephesians 6:5 which states, “slaves obey your masters”?  Many times when people come across a passage like this they immediately disregard the Bible completely without understanding the text.

Often times when a passage like this seems so offensive, consider that it might not actually teach what it appears to be teaching.  Many texts people find like this can be cleared up with a decent commentary that puts the issue into its historical context.  Ephesians 6:5, for example, is often immediately understood in our culture to be parallel with the African slave trade, human trafficking, and sexual slavery practiced in many places today.  To believe this is simply ignoring the cultural context of that passage.

In the first-century Roman empire, when the New Testament was written, there was not a great different between slaves and the average free person.  Slaves were not distinguishable from others by race, speech, or clothing.  They looked and lived like everyone else, and were not segregated from the rest of society in any way.  Financially, slaves made the same wages as free laborers, and therefore not usually poor.  Slaves could even buy themselves out of slavery which almost always happened, very few slaves remained slaves for life.  Most could reasonably hope to be released within ten or fifteen years, or by their late thirties at most.  Also, these slaves were not owned completely but only their time and skills were owned by the master for a temporary amount of time.  There was, in essence, no difference between a slave and servant (the word is actually the same – δουλος).  It must also be noted once again that when this form of servant-hood is in place, it must be done according to the moral teachings of Scripture so that none shall be oppressed.

Even with all of this said, many people still find this to be offensive.  My advice in this respect is to simply consider that their problem with some texts might be based on an unexamined belief in the superiority of their historical moment above all others.  To reject the Bible as regressive is to assume that they have now arrived at the ultimate historic moment.  That belief is surely as narrow and exclusive as the views in the Bible that they regard as offensive.  Essentially, I’m advising you all to beware of the thought that you have progressed above other cultures.  In many ways, it is probably better that we do not have this type of servant-hood within our culture.  However, being that we live in such an anti-servant culture, such a thought becomes offensive to us (to a fault).  A common thought within this current historic moment is that we deserve to be served.  Such a belief has caused us to detest the thought of all types of serving.

With that said, many would find that offensive and thus believe that I’m advocating slavery.  By no means is that my intention!  I’m merely expressing that just as Jesus came as a servant, we too should serve our fellow man and free the captives.