Slavery and Bible
Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 9:44 pm
Guys, recently I was in a debate with an atheist on my blog. He had written on his blog about how slavery was condoned and accepted by Christianity (a common error) and after a lot of small posts back n forth. I decided to write a detailed response. Here it is pasted. Any comments and points are welcome and hope it helps you if you are to answer this question.
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"Well, Joe, this is going to be a long post and it is not to convince you because that is something, I am afraid I’ll not be able to do. You have obviously set your tone in the manner that clearly tells me what you think. but just so that some of it might have evaded you, i’d like to put down somethings for you to consider. I am not going to give a defense to what yo have said, rather it will be how we interpret and think about what you accuse us of. anyways here it is. History is what it is I can’t change or defend it, it is what it is, you are just looking for the wrong things. And my going to such length to answer some concerns you raised in your posts combined is to give you a complete picture. And please rev Campbell is not the person, i’d like to quote on slavery issue, however I do think it is fair of you since it supports your argument.
You seem to have produced evidence to back up your claim. and may I ask when you were putting down these, did it never occurred to you that the first reason God delivered Israel out of Egypt was, guess what? slavery. That is huge point you actually forgot mentioning, because it went against your case.
Oh yes i agree with you that the Bible never explicitly condemns slavery. well you say why not, because it was the custom of the entire world, slavery was global, and please note that the slavery was not the way the american slavery issue was. Even classical Rome had more than 70% of its city population of slaves. Not all slaves were slaves on its own basis, much of it was servitude.
Then, thousands of years before Abraham Lincoln ever muttered the Emancipation Proclamation, Mosaic Law takes another radical step and bans involuntary servitude altogether in Exodus 21:16: “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.” Deuteronomy 24:7 states: “If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently, or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.” Kidnapping and enforced slavery are forbidden and punishable by death. This was true for any man (Ex. 21:16), as well as for the Israelites (Deut. 24:7).
Timothy 1:10 – For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
You can see how people are to be treated, don’t confuse it with what people did, if people beat up their slaves, lynched them, they were never commanded to do in the first place. If you had been a Jew 4000 years ago and you went to war like every other nation, and you win, you end up having slaves, your choice kill them or treat them nicely and it was what the Bible said about it. you have to treat them as a household, provide food and shelter to their families, give them rights as long as they don’t go against national favor, it was all written.
Many people have attempted to use the Bible to fortify positions on both sides of the slavery issue. There is no direct “Slavery is bad” statement. But, in my opinion, the major themes of the NT are contrary to slavery. It’s certainly hard to see how one could attempt to carry out the second greatest commandment “Love you neighbor as yourself” with slaves.
The Old Testament is replete with reminders that the LORD God delivered the Israelites from slavery. In addition, the delivery of the Israelites into slavery again was depicted as a punishment. For example, Ezra 9:9 says, “Though we are slaves, our God has not deserted us in our bondage.” Thus I do think that there is a general theme that the state of bondage is a harmful or oppresive fate; and if so, it would seem clear that as Christians it would not be acceptable for us to impose that fate on others.
Where this argument gets difficult is that there were explicit commands made to the Israelites to enslave certain peoples but the other option was killing them, that is just how the ancient warfare was. On the contrary modern slavery was racist. Blacks were viewed as different from other people, or as not really human. That was, strangely enough, a kind of Enlightenment scientific component. It was connected with the modern idea of Progress and with evolutionary theory, which argued that some “races” were inherently inferior. In ancient times, it was the luck of the draw whether you were enslaved. Weak or conquered people ended up as slaves, but not because they belonged to a particular race.
Also one of the first problems is the meaning of slavery. Jewish slaves had significant rights that included instant freedom if they were beaten, rights to asylum from other Jews simply upon their request and inheritance rights.
And on the Jubilee year slaves were freed, in this sense, it was servitude rather than forceful slavery. And if the slave or servant wanted to stay with his master he could.
The slavery practiced in the American South, which often involved Christian masters and Christian slaves, was especially an abomination to God. But any kind of slavery is offensive. Slavery appeared to be tolerated in the Bible, but here’s what God said about it: Matt 19:8 “Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” The passage applies not only to divorce, but to slavery and other things.
The term “slave” in the Bible is different from the term we use to mean slave today. In the OT, quite a few people entered into slavery willingly. The owner had as many obligations toward the slave as the slave had toward the owner. The owner was not to separate a family, and was responsible for clothing, feeding and caring for the family. After seven years of service, the owner was to give a slave the option of being set free, and if he was set free, the owner was obligated to also free his family and give him enough sheep, etc, to start his own herd (that’s where the 40 acres and a mule came from). If the slave decided to remain a slave, he was the property of the owner for life. In some respects, many of the “slaves” in the Bible were what you would consider an unpaid apprentice. After seven years, they were given the choice of striking out on their own, or staying with the company, so to speak.
servitude is not always unjust, such as penal servitude for convicted criminals or servitude freely chosen for personal financial reasons. These forms are called just-title servitude. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which brought an end to racial slavery in the U.S., does allow for just-title servitude to punish criminals: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Even today we can see prisoners picking up litter along interstates and highways accompanied by armed guards. Also the 1949 Geneva Conventions allow for detaining power to use the labor of war prisoners under very limiting circumstances (Panzer, p. 3). However, such circumstances are very rare today. During biblical times, a man could voluntarily sell himself into slavery in order to pay off his debts (Deut. 15:12-18). But such slaves were to be freed on the seventh year or the Jubilee year (Lev. 25:54). The Church tolerated just-title servitude for a time because it is not wrong in itself, though it can be seriously abused.
Also, when the OT mentions slaves in many instances, remember that the fact that the Bible mentions something does not mean that God condones it. The accounts of David and Bathsheba and Lott and his daughters being prime examples.
The base of the abolitionist movement was made up of a lot of Christians because they understood it to be an issue of the rights of man. Do some research on Google about the abolitionist movement. Many whose leaders were preachers and learned theologins, some of them of African descent. You know why because the entire spirit of the scripture is against slavery.
I wrote in my posts to you that the people who practiced slavery did a hypocrite thing. people who followed the rules that Jews or other nations did 5000 years ago then they were clearly wrong to do it. We all agree on that.
For the most part Jesus addressed problems within the Jewish culture of his time, and did not mention problems of the Greco-Roman culture (such as slavery, homosexuality, and idolatry). As Paul and the apostles took the Gospel to the world, they addressed these “Gentile” issues based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Christ.
Read the book of Philemon in the New Testament, along with a good commentary. In this book (actually a letter written to a slave-owning, Greek named Philemon, who became a Christian under Paul’s teaching), Paul says he has found Philemon’s runaway slave (named Onesimus) and, praise the Lord, the slave has become a Christian. Paul sends the slave back, and says to Philemon “by the way, don’t you dare punish him” (runways could be killed by their owners under Roman law), “in fact next time you have communion make sure you include Onesimus. I’ll be by sometimne to make sure you treated him right.” Can you imagine a slaveowner washing the feet of his own slave? That’s what Paul was ordering Philemon to do. Paul knew that slavery could not exist within a society that took Christianity seriously.
African slavery gradually grew worse, particularly after the invention of the cotton gin, where their labor became an economic necessity for some (or so they thought). It didn’t start out that way. A key factor in this creeping evil was the argument that Africans were not actually human. That is what is happening today in the debate regarding abortion. The pro-life forces hold that life begins at conception; pro-aborts do not. They are using the same argument that earlier generations of slave holders did–that the unborn are not yet human and do not possess souls, just as the earlier folks held that Africans did not posses them. We should see from our own history that that is extremely dangerous territory.
Now we usually think of slavery in terms of innocent people who were unjustly captured and reduced to “beasts of burden” due solely to their race. This was the most common form in the U.S. before the Thirteenth Amendment. This form of slavery, known as racial slavery, began in large-scale during the 15th century and was formally condemned by the Popes as early as 1435, fifty-seven years before Columbus discovered America. In 1404, the Spanish discovered the Canary Islands. They began to colonize the island and enslave its people. Pope Eugene IV in 1435 wrote to Bishop Ferdinand of Lanzarote in his Bull, Sicut Dudum:
...They have deprived the natives of their property or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them… We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex that, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands…who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money… [Panzer, p. 8; also pp. 75-78 with original critical Latin text]
Those faithful, who did not obey, were excommunicated ipso facto. This is the same punishment imposed today on Catholics who participate in abortion. Some people may claim that Pope Eugene only condemned the practice in the Canary Island and not slavery in general. This claim is hard to accept since he does condemn together this particular case of slavery along with “other various illicit and evil deeds.”
A century later, the Spanish and Portuguese were colonizing South America. Unfortunately the practice of slavery did not end. Even though far from being a saint, Pope Paul III in 1537 issued a Bull against slavery, entitled Sublimis Deus, to the universal Church. He wrote:
…The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good… Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert far and wide that the Indians…be reduced to our service like brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarcely use with brute animals… by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples – even though they are outside the faith – …should not be deprived of their liberty… Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery… [Ibid., pp.79-81 with original critical Latin text]
Pope Paul not only condemned the slavery of Indians but also “all other peoples.” In his phrase “unheard of before now”, he seems to see a difference between this new form of slavery (i.e. racial slavery) and the ancient forms of just-title slavery. A few days before, he also issued a Brief, entitled Pastorale Officium to Cardinal Juan de Tavera of Toledo, which warned the Catholic faithful of excommunication for participating in slavery. Unfortunately Pope Paul made reference to the King of Castile and Aragon in this Brief. Under political pressure, the Pope later retracted this Brief but did not annul the Bull. It is interesting to note that even though he retracted his Brief, Popes Gregory XIV, Urban VIII and Benedict XIV still recognized and confirmed its authority against slavery and the slave trade.
Popes Gregory XIV (Cum Sicuti, 1591), Urban VIII (Commissum Nobis, 1639) and Benedict XIV (Immensa Pastorum, 1741) also condemned slavery and the slave trade. Unlike the earlier papal letters, these excommunications were more directed towards the clergy than the laity. In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued a Bull, entitled In Supremo. Its main focus was against slave trading, but it also clearly condemned racial slavery:
We, by apostolic authority, warn and strongly exhort in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare bother unjustly, despoil of their possessions, or reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other such peoples. [Ibid., pp.101]
Unfortunately a few American bishops misinterpreted this Bull as condemning only the slave trade and not slavery itself. Bishop John England of Charleston actually wrote several letters to the Secretary of State under President Van Buren explaining that the Pope, in In Supremo, did not condemn slavery but only the slave trade (Ibid., pp. 67-68).
It is also interesting to note that pre-christian and Pagan Rome empire had lots and lots of slaves. However by the early dark ages, slavery had just about disappeared from Europe, except in Pagan Scandinavia
The New Testament argues that all men, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, are equal in the sight of God. LOVING OTHERS AS ONE LOVES ONE’S SELF and DOING UNTO OTHERS . . . would also indicate slavery’s prohibition. And those are cardinal summaries of the Gospel according to Christ, along with Loving God wholly. Actually, the NT says that all men are equal IN CHRIST – meaning all believers are equal with no distinctions.
Galatians 3:28
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The whole spirit of the these laws was grace and love..."
-------------------------------
Hope it helps
-----------------------
"Well, Joe, this is going to be a long post and it is not to convince you because that is something, I am afraid I’ll not be able to do. You have obviously set your tone in the manner that clearly tells me what you think. but just so that some of it might have evaded you, i’d like to put down somethings for you to consider. I am not going to give a defense to what yo have said, rather it will be how we interpret and think about what you accuse us of. anyways here it is. History is what it is I can’t change or defend it, it is what it is, you are just looking for the wrong things. And my going to such length to answer some concerns you raised in your posts combined is to give you a complete picture. And please rev Campbell is not the person, i’d like to quote on slavery issue, however I do think it is fair of you since it supports your argument.
You seem to have produced evidence to back up your claim. and may I ask when you were putting down these, did it never occurred to you that the first reason God delivered Israel out of Egypt was, guess what? slavery. That is huge point you actually forgot mentioning, because it went against your case.
Oh yes i agree with you that the Bible never explicitly condemns slavery. well you say why not, because it was the custom of the entire world, slavery was global, and please note that the slavery was not the way the american slavery issue was. Even classical Rome had more than 70% of its city population of slaves. Not all slaves were slaves on its own basis, much of it was servitude.
Then, thousands of years before Abraham Lincoln ever muttered the Emancipation Proclamation, Mosaic Law takes another radical step and bans involuntary servitude altogether in Exodus 21:16: “He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.” Deuteronomy 24:7 states: “If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently, or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.” Kidnapping and enforced slavery are forbidden and punishable by death. This was true for any man (Ex. 21:16), as well as for the Israelites (Deut. 24:7).
Timothy 1:10 – For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
You can see how people are to be treated, don’t confuse it with what people did, if people beat up their slaves, lynched them, they were never commanded to do in the first place. If you had been a Jew 4000 years ago and you went to war like every other nation, and you win, you end up having slaves, your choice kill them or treat them nicely and it was what the Bible said about it. you have to treat them as a household, provide food and shelter to their families, give them rights as long as they don’t go against national favor, it was all written.
Many people have attempted to use the Bible to fortify positions on both sides of the slavery issue. There is no direct “Slavery is bad” statement. But, in my opinion, the major themes of the NT are contrary to slavery. It’s certainly hard to see how one could attempt to carry out the second greatest commandment “Love you neighbor as yourself” with slaves.
The Old Testament is replete with reminders that the LORD God delivered the Israelites from slavery. In addition, the delivery of the Israelites into slavery again was depicted as a punishment. For example, Ezra 9:9 says, “Though we are slaves, our God has not deserted us in our bondage.” Thus I do think that there is a general theme that the state of bondage is a harmful or oppresive fate; and if so, it would seem clear that as Christians it would not be acceptable for us to impose that fate on others.
Where this argument gets difficult is that there were explicit commands made to the Israelites to enslave certain peoples but the other option was killing them, that is just how the ancient warfare was. On the contrary modern slavery was racist. Blacks were viewed as different from other people, or as not really human. That was, strangely enough, a kind of Enlightenment scientific component. It was connected with the modern idea of Progress and with evolutionary theory, which argued that some “races” were inherently inferior. In ancient times, it was the luck of the draw whether you were enslaved. Weak or conquered people ended up as slaves, but not because they belonged to a particular race.
Also one of the first problems is the meaning of slavery. Jewish slaves had significant rights that included instant freedom if they were beaten, rights to asylum from other Jews simply upon their request and inheritance rights.
And on the Jubilee year slaves were freed, in this sense, it was servitude rather than forceful slavery. And if the slave or servant wanted to stay with his master he could.
The slavery practiced in the American South, which often involved Christian masters and Christian slaves, was especially an abomination to God. But any kind of slavery is offensive. Slavery appeared to be tolerated in the Bible, but here’s what God said about it: Matt 19:8 “Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” The passage applies not only to divorce, but to slavery and other things.
The term “slave” in the Bible is different from the term we use to mean slave today. In the OT, quite a few people entered into slavery willingly. The owner had as many obligations toward the slave as the slave had toward the owner. The owner was not to separate a family, and was responsible for clothing, feeding and caring for the family. After seven years of service, the owner was to give a slave the option of being set free, and if he was set free, the owner was obligated to also free his family and give him enough sheep, etc, to start his own herd (that’s where the 40 acres and a mule came from). If the slave decided to remain a slave, he was the property of the owner for life. In some respects, many of the “slaves” in the Bible were what you would consider an unpaid apprentice. After seven years, they were given the choice of striking out on their own, or staying with the company, so to speak.
servitude is not always unjust, such as penal servitude for convicted criminals or servitude freely chosen for personal financial reasons. These forms are called just-title servitude. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which brought an end to racial slavery in the U.S., does allow for just-title servitude to punish criminals: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Even today we can see prisoners picking up litter along interstates and highways accompanied by armed guards. Also the 1949 Geneva Conventions allow for detaining power to use the labor of war prisoners under very limiting circumstances (Panzer, p. 3). However, such circumstances are very rare today. During biblical times, a man could voluntarily sell himself into slavery in order to pay off his debts (Deut. 15:12-18). But such slaves were to be freed on the seventh year or the Jubilee year (Lev. 25:54). The Church tolerated just-title servitude for a time because it is not wrong in itself, though it can be seriously abused.
Also, when the OT mentions slaves in many instances, remember that the fact that the Bible mentions something does not mean that God condones it. The accounts of David and Bathsheba and Lott and his daughters being prime examples.
The base of the abolitionist movement was made up of a lot of Christians because they understood it to be an issue of the rights of man. Do some research on Google about the abolitionist movement. Many whose leaders were preachers and learned theologins, some of them of African descent. You know why because the entire spirit of the scripture is against slavery.
I wrote in my posts to you that the people who practiced slavery did a hypocrite thing. people who followed the rules that Jews or other nations did 5000 years ago then they were clearly wrong to do it. We all agree on that.
For the most part Jesus addressed problems within the Jewish culture of his time, and did not mention problems of the Greco-Roman culture (such as slavery, homosexuality, and idolatry). As Paul and the apostles took the Gospel to the world, they addressed these “Gentile” issues based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Christ.
Read the book of Philemon in the New Testament, along with a good commentary. In this book (actually a letter written to a slave-owning, Greek named Philemon, who became a Christian under Paul’s teaching), Paul says he has found Philemon’s runaway slave (named Onesimus) and, praise the Lord, the slave has become a Christian. Paul sends the slave back, and says to Philemon “by the way, don’t you dare punish him” (runways could be killed by their owners under Roman law), “in fact next time you have communion make sure you include Onesimus. I’ll be by sometimne to make sure you treated him right.” Can you imagine a slaveowner washing the feet of his own slave? That’s what Paul was ordering Philemon to do. Paul knew that slavery could not exist within a society that took Christianity seriously.
African slavery gradually grew worse, particularly after the invention of the cotton gin, where their labor became an economic necessity for some (or so they thought). It didn’t start out that way. A key factor in this creeping evil was the argument that Africans were not actually human. That is what is happening today in the debate regarding abortion. The pro-life forces hold that life begins at conception; pro-aborts do not. They are using the same argument that earlier generations of slave holders did–that the unborn are not yet human and do not possess souls, just as the earlier folks held that Africans did not posses them. We should see from our own history that that is extremely dangerous territory.
Now we usually think of slavery in terms of innocent people who were unjustly captured and reduced to “beasts of burden” due solely to their race. This was the most common form in the U.S. before the Thirteenth Amendment. This form of slavery, known as racial slavery, began in large-scale during the 15th century and was formally condemned by the Popes as early as 1435, fifty-seven years before Columbus discovered America. In 1404, the Spanish discovered the Canary Islands. They began to colonize the island and enslave its people. Pope Eugene IV in 1435 wrote to Bishop Ferdinand of Lanzarote in his Bull, Sicut Dudum:
...They have deprived the natives of their property or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them… We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex that, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands…who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money… [Panzer, p. 8; also pp. 75-78 with original critical Latin text]
Those faithful, who did not obey, were excommunicated ipso facto. This is the same punishment imposed today on Catholics who participate in abortion. Some people may claim that Pope Eugene only condemned the practice in the Canary Island and not slavery in general. This claim is hard to accept since he does condemn together this particular case of slavery along with “other various illicit and evil deeds.”
A century later, the Spanish and Portuguese were colonizing South America. Unfortunately the practice of slavery did not end. Even though far from being a saint, Pope Paul III in 1537 issued a Bull against slavery, entitled Sublimis Deus, to the universal Church. He wrote:
…The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good… Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert far and wide that the Indians…be reduced to our service like brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarcely use with brute animals… by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples – even though they are outside the faith – …should not be deprived of their liberty… Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery… [Ibid., pp.79-81 with original critical Latin text]
Pope Paul not only condemned the slavery of Indians but also “all other peoples.” In his phrase “unheard of before now”, he seems to see a difference between this new form of slavery (i.e. racial slavery) and the ancient forms of just-title slavery. A few days before, he also issued a Brief, entitled Pastorale Officium to Cardinal Juan de Tavera of Toledo, which warned the Catholic faithful of excommunication for participating in slavery. Unfortunately Pope Paul made reference to the King of Castile and Aragon in this Brief. Under political pressure, the Pope later retracted this Brief but did not annul the Bull. It is interesting to note that even though he retracted his Brief, Popes Gregory XIV, Urban VIII and Benedict XIV still recognized and confirmed its authority against slavery and the slave trade.
Popes Gregory XIV (Cum Sicuti, 1591), Urban VIII (Commissum Nobis, 1639) and Benedict XIV (Immensa Pastorum, 1741) also condemned slavery and the slave trade. Unlike the earlier papal letters, these excommunications were more directed towards the clergy than the laity. In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued a Bull, entitled In Supremo. Its main focus was against slave trading, but it also clearly condemned racial slavery:
We, by apostolic authority, warn and strongly exhort in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare bother unjustly, despoil of their possessions, or reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other such peoples. [Ibid., pp.101]
Unfortunately a few American bishops misinterpreted this Bull as condemning only the slave trade and not slavery itself. Bishop John England of Charleston actually wrote several letters to the Secretary of State under President Van Buren explaining that the Pope, in In Supremo, did not condemn slavery but only the slave trade (Ibid., pp. 67-68).
It is also interesting to note that pre-christian and Pagan Rome empire had lots and lots of slaves. However by the early dark ages, slavery had just about disappeared from Europe, except in Pagan Scandinavia
The New Testament argues that all men, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, are equal in the sight of God. LOVING OTHERS AS ONE LOVES ONE’S SELF and DOING UNTO OTHERS . . . would also indicate slavery’s prohibition. And those are cardinal summaries of the Gospel according to Christ, along with Loving God wholly. Actually, the NT says that all men are equal IN CHRIST – meaning all believers are equal with no distinctions.
Galatians 3:28
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The whole spirit of the these laws was grace and love..."
-------------------------------
Hope it helps
I therefore concluded that - it is easier for camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a straight simple logical statement to pass through the head of an ignorant atheist. 