Why did no Christian Churches condemn slavery?
Some of the churches DID condemn slavery, but just like today, nobody listens when the church condemns something. And Larry… Life back in Bible times was very different than it was in the days of slavery in America. Just because the Bible mentions slaves, doesn’t mean God was okay with it. The Word of God still stands.
Most Christian churches condemned slavery in principle. In practice, many pastors tended to turn a blind eye to it. This is much the same as the current rather muted condemnation of war and sexual permissiveness. The anti-slavery movement, which eventually led to abolition in British territories and America, grew out of the Christian churches.
Slavery was accepted as part of the natural order of things by all major cultures down the centuries. It was in fact churches and individual Christians who created the anti-slavery movements in the 19th century, first in Britain and then in the US. Slavery is still practised in many non-Christian societies in Africa, India and the Gulf, for example.
It was an accepted institution. Slavery today is unacceptable and it is illegal in every country on earth. The USA is one of the few countries that prosecutes the crime, although it is still widespread throughout the world. In Biblical times it was an honored institution. If a slave could purchase his freedom, often he would stay with his master as a bond servant in pay. Such a person was highly regarded by his mater and in the community. Cruelty has always existed in slavery, but never the likes of it as in the West and as against Africans. Christianity clearly teaches that i am my brother’s keeper, but not his master. My brother is my equal—-I am to forgive him, help him and above all to love him and respect his dignity as a human being.
Jesus Christ may not have openly condemned slavery but he did teach that God is no respecter of persons. It seems that, as has been said or suggested, slavery in Biblical times was as much a system of class distinction and servitude rather than a system, as experienced in Colonial America, of racial distinction that permeated into long standing, institutionally sanctioned, prejudices and brutality for decades after the “slaves” were freed. It seems to me that Christ never let anyone, including and especially slave owners, off the hook when it came to humane treatment of our fellow man. I believe it was because Jesus and the writers of the New Testament were trying to change the people and not the institutions … when you change the people, they change the institutions on their own. The fact is that the anti-slavery (and civil rights) movement(s) were started by and were overwhelmingly “Christian” movements.
