In a recent USA Today editorial by Oliver Thomas, readers are treated to a buffet of bad theological arguments and terrible handling of Scripture. To describe the article as sophistry is to give it a compliment it does not deserve. Thomas’s article employs a long enough list of discredited arguments that it should serve as an embarrassment to the author and to the publisher.
The most pernicious of these arguments is that the New Testament affirms slavery. The argument has been stated many times over the years and goes a little like this: the Bible was used by slaveholders in the American South to justify the slave trade. Northern progressives opposed them. The Northern progressives were correct that human slavery is evil. The Bible, because it was used to affirm slavery, must be seen to be a document that cannot be trusted.
The problem is that the New Testament in no place affirms human slavery. In fact, the opposite is true. In 1 Corinthians 7:21-24 Paul writes,
Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.
The context of the passage is about how to be Christian in the normal course of life. The believer is to remain the situation they were before God called them. A married person was to remain married. A single person should remain single (Although Paul says that getting married is not a bad thing. He promotes singleness to avoid the stresses of marriage in the context of persecution). Those who are not circumcised should remain that way.
When it comes to slavery, however, Paul makes no such statement. First, he says that if a slave can get free, they are to do so. For everyone but the slaves, Paul says to stay in the state that they are in. For the slaves, however, Paul wants them to become free. This is a rather sharp distinction. The slave is to gain freedom if at all possible because slavery is not a morally neutral state. Slavery is evil.
Secondly, he states that people are not to become slaves. If slavery is morally neutral to Paul, how could he forbid people to become slaves? He forbids people from becoming slaves because he knows that slavery is evil.
Yes, he does encourage slaves to submit to their masters. Yes, he does say that slaves are to endure even difficult masters. Why? His argument is essentially the same as Jesus’ in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus teaches His followers that they are to endure abuse as His followers and that they are to rejoice when they are abused for being His followers. Just as Jesus’ argument is not a condoning of abuse, Paul’s argument is not a condoning of slavery. It is instruction on how to be Christian when one cannot gain their freedom.
The New Testament book of Philemon is another place where Paul addresses the context of slavery. Philemon is the owner of the escaped slave Onesimus. Onesimus faced death for being a runaway slave, but Paul sends him back to Philemon as a new believer. Instead of overtly demanding that Philemon free Onesimus, Paul makes a very interesting argument. First, Paul says that Onesimus should be received “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.” Notice how subtle that is. To treat a slave as a brother is tantamount to releasing the slave because a beloved brother cannot remain a slave. Secondly, Paul notes the debt that Philemon owes him. This is a way of reminding Philemon that Paul could claim authority over him but chooses to allow Philemon the freedom to do what is right. Third, this letter would have been read aloud during worship at the house church that most likely met in Philemon’s house in Philemon’s presence. The amount of social pressure on Philemon to release Onesimus would have been insurmountable. Paul has very subtly put immense pressure on Philemon to release Onesimus.
Now there is something else to note. In 1 Timothy 1:10, Paul lists “man-stealers” in a vice list that includes perjurers and others. The NRSV translates it “slave traders.” We could probably use the term “human traffickers.” Here Paul is plainly stating that the slave trade is evil. This is not a mincing of words.
Paul has described slave trading as evil, told slaves to get their freedom, forbidden Christians to become slaves, and exerted pressure on a believer to release a slave. There is, therefore, no basis in his writings to suggest that slavery is morally acceptable. It is clear and decisive that the New Testament is opposed to slavery. The Christmas hymn O Holy Night says it best,
“Truly He taught us to love one another. His law is love and His Gospel is Peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother. . . .”
Paul was not the only early Christian voice against slavery. Gregory of Nyssa, one of the early Doctors of the Church, penned these words.
‘I acquired slaves and slave girls.’ What is that you say? You condemn a person to slavery whose nature is free and independent, and in doing so you lay down a law in opposition to God, overturning the natural law established by him. For you subject to the yoke of slavery one who was created precisely to be a master of the earth, and who was ordained to rule by the creator, as if you were deliberately attacking and fighting against the divine command.
What price did you put on reason? How many obols did you pay as a fair price for the image of God? For how many staters have you sold the nature specially formed by God? ‘God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”’[1]
For Gregory, slavery was “open defiance against God.” While most people in antiquity believed that slavery was an unfortunate necessity, here we find within the Christian tradition open description of slavery as evil.
It is true that Southern slaveholders in the United States used the Bible to defend the evil of slavery. It was not, however, proper use of the Bible. It was a twisting of Scripture for an evil end. I believe that the slaveholders themselves knew it. When the slaveholders gave slaves Bibles, they gave them edited Bibles that removed verses that might allow slaves to conclude that slavery was evil or would incite slaves to seek freedom. If there were sections in the Bible that opposed slavery that had to be removed, then those who removed them must have known the Bible’s message against slavery. That the Bible was used to condone slavery is not a testament to the defectiveness of the Bible but to the depravity of the slaveholders.
While it is true that slaveholders used the Bible, it was not irreligious types that brought slavery to an end. William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln were both motivated by Christian theology and commitments.
To summarize, neither the Bible nor Christian tradition can be successfully marshaled in defense of human slavery. To say that they can and the Bible should be rejected as a moral authority on this supposed connection to slavery is utterly preposterous.
In reading Oliver Thomas editorial, one of two things must be the case: One, Thomas is unaware of the clear teachings of the New Testament on the issue. If that is so, his reading of the New Testament must be cursory at best. His lack of knowledge on the issue should disqualify him for any discussion of the subject. The other possibility is Thomas knows the teaching of the New Testament but finds that continuing to use this vapid argument can help him make the case he wants to make. If that is so, his lack of intellectual honesty should disqualify him for any discussion of the subject.
In either case, Thomas has demonstrated that he is not a scholar to be trusted and that his words should be seen as the drivel they are. His words can be used as a test case. Anyone who makes the argument he makes here is not someone with even a smidgen intellectual credibility.
*All information on Gregory of Nyssa taken from:
http://andrewfullercenter.org/blog/blog/2013/06/the-first-abolitionist-gregory-of-nyssa-on-slavery
** Oliver Thomas’ editorial can be found here.
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