I’ve been blogging for a long time, and slavery was never something on my radar when it came to topics to discuss. I’m not the Civil War’s equivalent of a “Holocaust denier.” The aspects of our regional past and our denominational history that touch upon slavery are the least flattering portions of our story, and I’d rather tell other parts of the story.
What changed this for me? Why have I written a series of posts on the question of slavery? Was it Ferguson? Was it Eric Garner?
No. It actually didn’t have anything to do with race at all. I’ve been writing about slavery because of the ERLC’s recent national meeting about marriage and homosexuality.
I didn’t attend the meeting, but I did participate in the online conversation that went along with the meeting and I crossed swords with a few of the ERLC’s detractors. Alan was involved in one of those conversations alongside me. We were defending natural marriage from the scriptures. The conversations were energetic, with multiple participants jumping in and out (just another day in Twitter).
Here’s the thing: Our interlocutors kept bringing up slavery. Particularly Rachel Held Evans did this. Her point was to say that we just ignore the Bible on slavery, allowing our consciences to override the Bible, so why don’t we do so on the question of homosexuality?
I think she’s got a little bit of a point. Robust exegetical work on the topic of slavery is not something that everyone out there is doing. Although I think there is a sound exegetical reason to give for affirming the Bible as authoritative but being an abolitionist with regard to slavery, I’m prepared to admit that for most of us our abolitionist sentiments have not arisen out of our study of the Bible. In other words, even if there is a good biblical reason for being an abolitionist, that reason is likely not why you are an abolitionist. We follow culture on that one. We generally do just what Evans claims that we do.
We’re going to face this argument more and more. Every time that the Bible says something that people do not want to hear, they’re going to say, “The Bible was wrong about slavery. You were willing to ignore the Bible and trust your conscience in that case, so why not on [fill in the blank]?” We’d better be ready to answer that question.
So, I want to have an understanding of slavery that:
- Deals honestly with all of what the Bible says about slavery, using the same consistent principles of hermeneutics that we apply to every other question,
- Retains the authoritative nature of Jesus’ life and ministry, the Old Testament, and the apostolic witness in the New Testament, and
- Supports the present-day abolition of slavery as a good thing.
What makes this difficult is that the first two items are clearly not abolitionist in their nature. The only way that these three objectives can be achieved is if you can demonstrate that there is something about that slavery and that time that is different from our time and the slavery we have in mind—a difference profound enough to justify both the slavery-friendly biblical stance and the slavery-averse modern stance.
I’ll freely admit that this is not the most objective way to go about research: To know what you want to find and then to search for evidence to support it. Like it or not, however, this is what I am indeed doing. I choose to abandon neither my abolitionist convictions nor my inerrantist convictions. The preceding posts reflect my honest efforts to succeed on both counts.
What if it were not possible? What if I were forced to choose one or another? “Let God be true and every man a liar.” I’d support slavery before I trashed God’s word or vaunted myself up in superiority over my Lord.
Thankfully, I do not believe that I face such a choice. I think that I have made a sound case: (1) Slavery is separable from the abuses that occur under it, (2) Perfect freedom is not possible in a fallen world, so everyone is a slave to something, (3) in times more primitive than ours and cultures unlike ours, slavery can serve some limited positive function that justifies it’s not having been abolished in biblical times, (4) in the modern world, however, there is no reason for us to have slavery. QED.
Before I drop the mic, I want to point out one final thing about the comparison between slavery and homosexuality. I’m trying to make the point that there’s a consistent and hermeneutically sound way to understand what the Bible says about slavery without defending Simon Legree. But there’s another profound difference between this conversation about slavery and the conversation about homosexuality. Alongside biblical regulation of slavery and biblical ambivalence about slavery there is a consistent theme running through both the Old and the New Testaments extolling the virtue of freedom. The Hebrews get their Exodus from slavery into freedom. The bondage of servitude to the Babylonians is a punishment, but God eventually offers the Jews their freedom. “If the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed.” Jesus told us that we are slaves, but Jesus told us that we are free, also.
With regard to homosexuality, the content of the Bible is much different. There is no sense of two opposite ideals held in tension as there is between slavery and freedom. Rather, there is just a consistent message from Genesis to Maps saying that sexual activity between two men or between two women is a dark, dark sin. This is not about progressive revelation, for the Bible does not “progress” on the question of homosexuality; it stays the same all the way through. What liberals want is not progressive revelation; they want progressive-er revelation. Progressiver revelation says that we need to progress beyond Jesus. It denies that we have a full and perfect revelation in the life of Jesus as preserved to us in the inerrant scriptures. It says that we must edit and correct Jesus.
I also tried to offer some ways that the slavery motif describing salvation is actually a critique of the “Progressive Christianity”—shot through with left-wing libertarianism—that I think Evans is purveying. If we are editing and correcting Jesus, then Jesus is our slave, rather than our being His. If we will remember that we are called to be slaves of the Lord, then when Jesus declares to us that God’s very reason for creating people male and female was so that the exclusive locus for sexual activity could consist of a male leaving his father and mother and being joined to his female—when we read that and remember that this comes from the master over our slavery, we will treat it with a little more humility than it receives from some quarters. It’s really not even our business to debate whether Jesus was right or wrong. We’re not in management; we’re in labor.
Well, if Jesus is not the perfect and complete revelation of God to mankind, then we’ve progressed right out of Christianity altogether. Evans’s claim is that we do just this with regard to slavery—that Jesus left unfinished business on the subject of slavery, so we’ve fixed His mistake and moved on. My agenda in this series of posts has been to prove her wrong, or at the very least to prove that she’s not necessarily right. I don’t know how well I’ve done that. It has taken me far outside of my field of expertise. But in my opinion, if we want to be able to dialogue at all on ethical issues from a biblical perspective in the coming age, we’re going to have to be prepared to offer answers about what the Bible says about slavery.
Good series. Couple of questions for your executive summary:
If Evans said that Jesus left some unfinished business relative to slavery, how exactly is this not true? Jesus left it to recent economics to do the task?
Is slavery defined upward so that, absent the posited economic basis for abolition, good Christians may have slaves but must be good slave owners? How is this not the antebellum argument advanced widely and successfully?
I have no problem with Jesus’ having left unfinished business behind. The Great Commission pretty much requires that. The pro-gay-marriage position, however, must necessarily be either that Jesus did not understand gender and sexuality or that He was willing to endorse what was wrong in order to avoid making waves. There’s a difference between (a) Jesus perfectly revealed to us the truth about God, but He left a task for us to complete, and (b) Jesus carried us a little further down the road toward the truth about God, but He was captive to His times (or was willing to prevaricate a little bit to accommodate His times) and now our consciences are better moral guides to us than are His teachings.
My position is that slavery is not wrong. Wrong can be (and often has been) done through slavery. Wrong is also done through wage-labor employment or imprisonment or a hundred other things—sometimes the very same wrongs that were done through slavery. Jesus’ approbation of slavery is therefore not wrong, since slavery is not wrong.
The abolition of slavery is not even unfinished business in the same way that the Great Commission is unfinished business. Rather, the abolition of slavery is simply a matter of ongoing development.
As to the other question, I think it would be quite difficult to unlearn modern economic theory, but let’s presume that we could find a time machine and go back to the 10th century BC. Stepping into that society and that economy, what if I were to go around and find poor, downtrodden people, bring them into my household, provide all of their needs, and protect them from dangers? If, in exchange for that, I wanted them to contribute their efforts to the survival of the household, then I wonder how you would answer these questions about that arrangement:
1. Would that be immoral for me to do?
2. Could I, based upon my initial outlay of assets to care for them, have a “service contract” with them requiring that they stay for a couple of years? You know, like your wireless carrier does? Or the Army?
3. How would that be different from slavery?
I think in that society in that age in that circumstance, what I would be doing wouldn’t merely be morally neutral; it would be morally good (unless I were beating people or we were otherwise to add to the situation some abusive thing I was doing).
“(b) Jesus carried us a little further down the road toward the truth about God, but He was captive to His times (or was willing to prevaricate a little bit to accommodate His times) and now our consciences are better moral guides to us than are His teachings.”
It has been surprising to me to discover just how many people in churches hold this option, whether or not they consciously admit that they do so.
I think you could be right about that Robert…to some degree at least. Muslims certainly believe that to be the case.
Been busy…here are late answers to your questions re: Barber the 1000BC guy:
1. Would that be immoral for me to do?
Wm: I don’t believe I argued flatly for immorality of all that might fit under some definitions of slavery that you use. You didn’t offer enough info about your arrangements for the new members of your household which makes it difficult to make a moral statement. I think your scenario would be a good way to approach the subject in sermonic or small group settings.
2. Could I, based upon my initial outlay of assets to care for them, have a “service contract” with them requiring that they stay for a couple of years? You know, like your wireless carrier does? Or the Army?
Wm: Here again, definitions, presumptions rule the day and force both the questions and the answers. I’m not sure indentured servants, personal service contracts, military contracts and the like go very far explaining things or clarifying things when the subject among Americans is slavery.
3. How would that be different from slavery?
Wm: The differences in degree, duration, penalties, punishment etc. would make many of these arrangements so far from slavery that the term is inappropriate.
Suppose I found naked, poor savages in Africa and, after an unpleasant boat ride, brought them to my farm in South Carolina where they were fed, clothed, protected, and cared for. In return, they worked in my rice fields. Will I be commended for the arrangement or condemned? Have I acted morally or immorally?
I think, on balance, you may be neglecting the principle argument in the South in the first half of the 19th century, but then, it’s exceedingly difficult to have a smooth discussion by blog with articles and comments all chopped up and scattered about. Maybe you covered this long ago.
As I said, I appreciate the series and the thought that you put into it. If I were preaching on some of the texts that touch on the subject, I’d use some of your stuff…might even give you credit (“An important SBC VP and outstanding pastor wrote…”).
Hope you are having a good Lord’s Day.
William,
Thanks for the reply. I’d offer this brief rejoinder. I know we’re all busy this week:
a. I realize that I left out a lot of the details. That’s deliberate and permissible. Fill in the details from your own imagination in the most positive way that you can imagine. The whole point is simply whether ANYTHING that counts as slavery could be conducted morally. At least, that’s the point if I understand correctly your initial question: “Is slavery defined upward so that, absent the posited economic basis for abolition, good Christians may have slaves but must be good slave owners?” I take that to mean, “If our economics were different (viz., were similar to those, perhaps, of 1000BC), is it possible for a Christian to be so good of a slaveholder that holding slaves would cease to be wrong for that Christian.” To answer that question requires, doesn’t it, that we imagine a best-case scenario? Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood the question.
b. You said, “I think, on balance, you may be neglecting the principle argument in the South in the first half of the 19th century.” Yes, I suppose I am. As I said in the first post, I think that one of the more important preliminary tasks for discussing what Jesus said about slavery is trying to differentiate between slavery in general and the particular institution of it that existed in nineteenth-century America. Admittedly and deliberately I am neglecting the nineteenth-century phenomenon.
I particularly like this line…”Rather, there is just a consistent message from Genesis to Maps”
You’ve done a good job of outlining a complex set of issues IMHO. Obama may accuse you, or even God, of being on the wrong side of history. A kind of quip that has a deafening ring to it, when speaking of the Gospel of God.
Good stuff!
““Let God be true and every man a liar.” I’d support slavery before I trashed God’s word or vaunted myself up in superiority over my Lord.”
If we’re not ready to do this with the multitude of things we believe. We are not ready to take up our Lord’s cross and bear it.
I appreciate your work in this series. For quite some time now I’m been aware of the homosexual marriage supporters using this “error” in the Bible to support their error. I have written and spoken briefly on the problem, stating, for example, “Not properly, squarely and scripturally dealing with the slavery texts and other such difficult texts in the New Testament have crippled us when trying to deal with the texts on homosexuality.” But such a discussion is also fraught with danger for those who don’t navigate it carefully between the dangerous rocks and shoals on either side. You have down a good job of navigation through this series of posts, and though I don’t know that I can agree with everything you wrote, you have contributed toward us understanding more and moving forward.
“DONE a good job”
Bart, great job on this series. Elsewhere on these posts I’ve referred to Doug Wilson’s Black & Tan book, one, along with him personally, which has been roundly criticized as being racist and pro 19th century chattel slavery status quo. Unfairly I might add. And in referring to him here again I’m not at all trying to join you two where you would rather not be joined. But what you are and have been saying just happens to line up with the real reason he wrote that book. Consider this excerpt:
Thanks for the series.
Oh and one more to add to the point, referring to evangelicals’ response to Roe v Wade:
Les,
I meant to say thanks in another thread for your comments on 3 possible/probable legitimate reasons to have separate churches — distance/proximity, doctrine and language. The thread is closed there, so I thought I’d say it here. I had hoped others would have some good thoughts on that, but you were the only one who commented. Thanks again.
I begin at the beginning.
There is good and evil in the world.
There is good and evil in slavery, and parenting, and marriage, and government. There is no “form” of organization that solves all problems of evil, whether you call it sin, ungodliness or wickedness.
The “form” is not the solution. The “form” is not the problem. The problem is evil in people.
I am a slave of Christ. My Master is not wicked.
Jerry, you being Anglo look at it in this way. If I’m African American… What is my view? If I am Irish American…. What is my view? If I am Mexican American…. What is my view? That is the opportunity relative to the Gospel! How the true Gospel is applied makes all the difference!
Chris,
Cultural differences are real, but they are of this world. I am not saying they are unimportant. But in view of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven (both of which are spiritual and both of which are now) cultures are just dust.
American cultural christianity tends to think the problem of evil can be solved through adjusting the forms of authority and fostering mutual understanding. And the dust gets in their eyes.
The kingdom of heaven will solve the problem of evil by removing the evil people. Through Christ, the solution to evil begins on a personal basis.
That is the gospel. Is it not?
You have made the point that I was driving at…. !! An important distinction, relative to what has been been in the news.
There is good and evil in slavery Jerry? God help us. We have a longer way to go than I initially thought.
Why do we have a long way to go, Debbie? You have made it very clear in the past that I am an accurate measure of nothing.
Come out of your cultural fundamentalism and let the Word of God define the world instead of the other way around.
By the way, Debbie, are you ready to march for the emancipation of children from their parents? There is good and evil in the family structure.
One central tenent of Bart’s posts is that Biblical slavery is not about racism. There is only one race, the human race.
Why let the evil past of godless people define what God has said?
Did Jesus’ advent change (or perhaps clarify) the standing of people? Like in Galatians 3:18?
What does God think of slavery? Exodus 21:16, anyone?
Slavery is simply repugnant to me. I don’t even understand why there are discussions about it.
Come to think of it, the SBC already repented and apologized for it. If there were reservations about it, then was it really an apology?
Bob Cleveland referred to Exodus 21:16 –
““Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.”
For those wanting to make a biblical case for slavery in the past, if that verse had been followed, we would not have had Antebellum Slavery in the South at all. Every single slave was stolen and sold apart from those who sold themselves into indentured servitude in the 1600s and 1700s for passage across the Atlantic to the New World. And, those are not the ones that we are talking about, since their servitude was for only 7 years.
It is amazing as to how much Scripture was either ignored or altered drastically to support American slavery in the past. The kind that the Bible talks about, as Bart has so clearly shown, was regulated to the point of being something very, very different from what we think of in the American context.
I appreciate Bart writing to demonstrate that here.
Alan & Bob
Thank you for bringing the Exodus 21: 16 verse into this discussion. Amazingly that verse is ignored generally, when discussing the subject of slavery. Evans & others cannot maintain that the OT gives a carte Blanche to slavery in light of that verse Malachi 2: 10 & a bunch of other verses. Thanks again. I too have been guilty of not applying this verse as a part of this discussion.
I know, Dwight. I have as well. It is an important concept that really redefines any kind of allowance that we think that the Scriptures include for slavery. If you apply all of the Biblical prohibitions in regard to slavery, you are only really left with a benevolent employment where the worker receives wages and is protected and cared for by his benefactor. The worker is still expect to work and honor his master, but he is also protected from abuse and harsh treatment. The slavery allowed in Scripture (not commanded, but allowed) is markedly different from what Christians defended in the 1800s in the South.
Alan,
Were you able to keep a straight face while writing that comment?
Alan is exactly right.
…said with a perfectly straight face and sound mind.
Yes! I gotta agree with Alan and Bart here, too!
(Bart this is what I was getting at in my comments on your first posting in your recent series)
That verse all unto itself sets aside the entire American institution.
I agree that if we are going to oppose slavery, we need to seriously deal with Scripture. Exodus 21:16 is a great place to begin.
Too many say, “Everyone knows the Bible teaches against ________ (fill in the blank).”
Well, if you say the Bible teaches it’s wrong, then prove it.
Show in detail where the Bible says or teaches that it is wrong.
And do it often. People forget, and you are always going to have new people hear or read you that have not previously heard your evidence.
Perhaps we need to go back and read the 1800s writings of Baptists and other Christians who opposed slavery, like Francis Wayland, Charles G. Finney, Peter Cartwright.
David R. Brumbelow
I generally agree with Alan and Bart, but must say I think the translations are best that say that the kidnapper is put to death whether he has sold the person he kidnapped or still has him in his possession. If memory serves, ESV is one of the few that says both the kidnapper and anyone down the line who has possession of the one kidnapped is to be put to death.
Bart,
Great posts! I applaud the effort to combat the Evans’ argument. I think we need to take it one step further. Whether we like it or not, this debate takes place on the “sound-byte” stage. We have to edit our arguments into truthful, meaningful sound bytes. I admit that this is a bit unfortunate, but it is the reality of the situation. We can’t see how many words we can throw at this issue in order to make our points. The audience just won’t pay attention if it is too lengthy of an argument.
So, do you have any suggestions for paring down your line of thinking?
That’s like asking an alcoholic if he knows somewhere you can get a nice, cold glass of water.
Your point is well-taken. Your critique is significant and important. You’re just looking at the wrong guy to accomplish it.
Good word, Scott.
Now, go to the beach and tell the waves to stop pounding the shore.
Sorry, Bart.
Dear Bart: You might want to study the Abolitionists of the Antebellum Period before you make the implication that the Bible is not the cause for abolition. Just think of what it means to hold one’s spiritual brother (or sister) in slavery, if you want a violation of Holy Writ that is tantamount to proving one knows little, if anything about salvation. Wish I had more strength and energy to enter into this discussion, but I am weary beyond words so to speak.
Thanks for the gentle words of critique. Having already done some of that study (and, indeed, having made that argument from their history myself), I do not disagree. Rather, I was speaking not about them but about us. I’d say:
1. There’s an invincible case to be made from the Bible against nineteenth-century chattel slavery of blacks.
2. There’s a case to be made that the preferability of freedom over slavery in the Bible, combined with modern economic circumstances, leads us to abolish the enslavement of humans by humans.
3. The case in item #2 is probably not how many people who are alive today came to reject slavery. Instead, we’ve grown up in a culture that rejects slavery.
There’s a difference between saying that the case doesn’t exist and saying that rather than being led by that case we were led by something else.
It is important to understand American cultures and the American experience. But American cultures and the American experience are a poor foundation for understanding God’s global, historical and Spiritual perspective.
Truth and Reality are far above the American points of view.
In addition to slavery, for examples, the American points of view on love and punishment are ungodly. They could be worse. But understanding what God says in not the sole province of the American point of view.
There is a sense in which the American insistence on defining slavery by America’s current mood is rather arrogant. Slavery existed in the western hemisphere before the Europeans and Africans arrived.
One of the ‘current American moods’ about slavery is to merely silence anyone who disagrees with the ‘current American mood’.
For those who appreciate Exodus 21:16, you might want to also read 1 Timothy 1:10.
But to understand Biblical teaching about slavery we ought not to ignore Exodus 21:21 “for the slave is his money”, or Leviticus 22:11 “but if a priest buys a slave as his property for money”.
I am making no point, per se, but thought Christians would want to read what God has said. Please examine the contexts of these verses.
It should be a sobering thought to all of us as well, that if the law were applied to us there might be any number of things for which we would be put to death.
Robert,
I tend to agree with you. The blood of Christ is potent for forgiveness toward the humble. But the law is still holy and just and good. While we can be forgiven, sin still has consequences in this world. And the consequeces can be between the Christian and their Heavenly Father!
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed better than the fat of lambs.