Why were the original Christians cool with slavery?Ephesians 6:5>Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.Before you argue they're talking about "indentured servants" just remember that Judea was occupied by Rome, the largest slave trading Empire in the world at the time, so Jesus and his followers would've doubtless come across literal child slaves in their lives. They still didn't say DICK about freeing them. In fact, early Christians said slaves NEEDED to serve their Masters just like they serve Christ.
>>17047984Because if Christian slaves started rebelling it would make Christians as a whole come off as troublemakers. Furthermore, Paul also said in 1 Corinthians 10:31 "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." You're supposed to do everything for God's glory, so if you're a slave, you should do it for his glory too.
>>17047984Slavery was a ubiquitous social institution. Christ's message is about a transformation of the spirit, about being a servant even of those who are supposed to be your servants. Christians freeing their slaves is something attested to from the very begining, but it was never the focus because the goal is not political change. Christianity is not a mere social justice movement, it's not about giving some people more or less status, or evening out labor and consumption. And of course many Christians, including the owners of slaves fell well short of the ideal of being a servant to all. Some did not though; the early church is full of stories of wealthy individuals dispensing with all their family's wealth, including freeing all their slaves.Explicit abolitionists existed fairly early as well, although only once Christianity was a large enough force to have any meaningful level of social influence outside individuals. St. Gregory of Nyssa made blanket pronouncements against slavery. St. Augustine led his congregation to free slaves at the port in Hippo. And ultimately Christianity is the reason slavery ended in Europe.
>>17047984Christians were the only ones in the ancient world that said it was fucked up to not afford slaves certain rights (baptism) and opposed unnecessary cruelty and castration.
>>17048041Christians were far from the first abolitionists in the ancient world lol. Ever heard of Spartacus?
>>17048262Christians WEREN'T abolitionists. Even up to the American Civil War, Southern theologians made the argument the North was Satanic for opposing slavery.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285572570_The_First_Secessionist_Was_Satan_Secession_and_the_Religious_Politics_of_Evil_in_Civil_War_AmericaThe Bible is explicitly pro-slavery and so were most Christians throughout history. Europe's middle ages was also a hotbed of slavery, despite popular culture tending to ignore that fact.https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0276.xml
>>17048267slavery is simply a fact of life that persists to this day. Americans enslave prisoners and also young men in times of war. nobody really cares. the civil war, it could be argued, was more about destroying the planter class who was using slavery to drive down the wages of ordinary workers. also chattel slavery was particularly brutal form of slavery, many opposed it for that reason.
>>17047984Read the Epistle of Philemon. Read Christ's words to love thy neighbor as thyself. The Bible is against slavery as an institution. Paul instructs slaves to obey and love their masters because we're to love even those who persecute us. If someone does you wrong you're to forgive them.
>>17047984Galatians 5:1>It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.The son of God set his people free but those who are not are commanded to remain obedient slaves. The church didn't consider slavery of blacks to be incompatable with the religion until 1839 because only whites are who the salvation of the Son was intended for. Eating the flesh and blood is how non whites were allowed among our people, by recognizing us as the body of the son and God upon the earth. The protestant schism was rooted in the catholics straying from the racial character of the identity of God's people. Islam was created specifically for those who aren't God's people and it recognizes Christ but specifies he is a messiah but not their messiah.
>>17048293>The Bible is against slavery as an institution.That's complete headcanon considering nothing in the Bible repudiates slavery as a practice but it does explicitly tell slaves they need to obey their worldly masters. Your cope is literally just resorting to making shit up
>>17048041>le dippety dipWow so many rights! Slave owners must be shaking!
>>17047984It's pretty obvious the christians while still practicing seclusion from the rest of Roman society, ultimately did seek to infiltrate and spread the word of Yeshu. Can't rock the boat too much or appear too foreign.
>>17048315>Your cope is literally just resorting to making shit upPhilemon. Just read it. Paul explicitly asks Philemon to free Onamous because he's their brother in Christ. This as explicitly as possible condemns the institution of slavery because it treats your fellow Christians poorly.Or take James chapter 2 which explicitly states that you should not be a "respecter of persons" that you should not treat poor badly for being poor.
>>17048449Grasping at straws in both citations, especially considering Paul's the one telling slaves to obey their masters in the first place.
>>17047984slavery, serfdom, and servitude were a sliding scale in the ancient world.Your quote is basicly saying do your obligations and oaths to your superiors faithfully. If you read the old testimate, they have a whole lot of slave talk too and its spoken about in a similar way where it could encompass anything from the next door neigbor cleaning your stables under mutually agreed contract to actual human spoils of war.
>>17048657You're acting like people didn't own child slaves in Jesus's day in Judea. The practice of slavery was far more horrifying at the advent of Christianity than your post is implying.
>>17048670No im not. I literally said that it could encompass anything from paying a neighbor to do something to no rights whatsoever spoils of war. did you not read my post?My point was its breath, and the meaning is refering to servitude in general, not that it was all nice or not.
>>17048677>breathbreadth*
das rite we wuz jesus n shiet. only us wuz slaves
>>17048562> especially considering Paul's the one telling slaves to obey their masters in the first place.He literally explains his commandment right after "Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man something, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free."Again the Bible doesn't suggest slaves should lead bloody revolts, but it also attacks the concept of slavery. If you are to be a master you should be a kind one and ultimately free your servants as is laid out in Levitican law.And before you say it, yes we aren't under the (Levitican) law, but Paul himself states the law is our schoolmaster (Galatians 3:24). If you follow Christ you will grow in Christ's love, and if you grow in His love you will naturally follow His commandments. Or to put it simply: to love one another is to fulfill the law (Romans 13:8).You cannot love your neighbor as yourself and also enslave him, not unless you're telling me a master would honestly be happy to trade places with his own slave.
>>17048694*any man doeth*Don't know how I messed that quote up.
>>17048449>Paul explicitly asks Philemon to free Onamous because he's their brother in Christ.He explicitly does not do this. He asks Philemon to take Onesimus back as "more than a slave". This does not mean or even imply that he should free him.>This as explicitly as possible condemns the institution of slavery because it treats your fellow Christians poorly.The most explicit possible condemnation of slavery would be to say "slavery is wrong and no one should hold another person in slavery", but the New Testament never manages that. Indeed, 1 Peter actually tells slaves they should obey their masters even if their masters are cruel to them.
>>17048730>The most explicit possible condemnation of slavery would be to say "slavery is wrong and no one should hold another person in slavery"There are instances you should hold someone as a slave, but the concept of slavery itself is wrong. I could discuss why I Biblically believe this but it would be a tangent. The point is that the Bible doesn't have to condemn holding a slave in every instance to condemn the overall practice.>doesn't say slavery is wrongIt literally says you should treat your brothers in Christ as your equals. Does the Bible have to make a list of literally every bad thing and condemn them one by one (eating too much is bad, eating too little is bad, eating poison is bad, jumping off cliffs is bad, ect)? The Bible discusses indentured servitude at length, and goes through how it's to be handled in autistic detail in Leviticus. Nowhere is there a point that justifies abuse of slaves, and everywhere it is said servants (applying to slaves too) should at some point be given their freedom. Paul tells us to refer to Leviticus as a schoolmaster (but not rely on it for our salvation) and yet that isn't cut and dry?
>>17048795>The point is that the Bible doesn't have to condemn holding a slave in every instance to condemn the overall practice.And it still never does this>It literally says you should treat your brothers in Christ as your equalsMeaningless. The Bible speaks of a sort of spiritual equality between people that does not equate to a societal equality. This is most obvious in how it talks about women, many verses state explicitly that there is no difference between the two in the eyes of God, while others lay out the different roles both are supposed to have in society. This isn't a contradiction. >Does the Bible have to make a list of literally every bad thing and condemn them one by oneApparently it does because Christians maintained slavery for 100s of years, and when trying to argue for its abolishment abolitionists weren't citing the Bible to do it, as has already been pointed out >>17048267This is also just a strange point since the Bible regularly and unambiguously condemns tons of things. Stealing is wrong, eating certain foods is wrong, sometimes even just thinking certain things is wrong, but on the subject of slavery it's apparently open ended.>The Bible discusses indentured servitude at length, and goes through how it's to be handled in autistic detail in Leviticus. Nowhere is there a point that justifies abuse of slaves, and everywhere it is said servants (applying to slaves too) should at some point be given their freedom.>indentured servitude Nice try, but New Testament writers were not talking about debt slaves. Regardless, Leviticus explicitly says you can make non-Israelites slaves for life. The notion of freeing slaves on the Jubilee likewise only applied to Israelites. Why does 1 Peter tell slaves to obey even cruel masters, but have nothing to say about the masters themselves? Why doesn't it instruct masters to free their slaves?
>>17047984That was an era where every other family owned land, livestock by the hundreds of thousands, and grew crops back then. Of course as a land owner, you wouldn't feel like taking care of every single bit of that hard work by yourself, right? Think of Boaz from the story of Ruth. He was rich. He hired servants to take care of that stuff for him. I imagine not every family had it made back then Because not every family obeyed God's commands. So they got no crops from God (Amos 4:7). I imagine these were the types who had to hire themselves out to tend to the crops and livestock of the rich in order to get paid and hopefully bring back home some food. Especially the young able bodied males. Because there was no such thing as submitting a job application to a BestBuy or Walmart back then. They had to become slaves.That verse still applies to folks in this modern era who punch in and punch out from work on a daily basis. Are those folks not considered wage slaves? I think the trans-Atlantic slave trade completely warped and demonized the term 'slave' and 'master' to mirror the horrors that negros suffered at that time.
>>17049197There's a difference between servants being paid a wage and literal slaves, who are what Paul was referencing in Ephesians.
>>17049328I understand that. Did the folks who became slaves in the New Testament era not sin against God? Hence, that being the reason they were forced into literal slavery? I'm sure the Deuteronomy 28:15-68 curses were still in effect during the time of the New Testament for folks who decided to rebel against God: an individual becoming the tail and not the head... ending up beneath and not above. Or even becoming a prisoner of war and being forced into slavery. They couldn't fight back or resist it. Because their rebellion against God got them to that point. I imagine Paul was simply comforting them with that Ephesians verse and telling them to act like they still served God despite their setback, and not act like a hooligan or give Christianity a bad name.
>>17049425>Slavery was justified because slaves deserved it for being sinfulThis is your brain on Christcope
>>17047984The early Christians were opposed to slavery in theory, but recognized it as necessary to maintain civilization, simmilar to their view on war and violence in general.
>>17049681>The early Christians were opposed to slavery in theory, but recognized it as necessary to maintain civilizationExcept there's nothing to suggest they were even implicitly against slavery.
