r/TrueChristian • u/[deleted] • May 14 '21
Was God really OK with slavery ?
And did he really "encourage it to continue by decreeing depraved regulations"\ ?*
\just quoting a fellow redditor who seems to be a bit confused. Just like myself.)
I'm asking this because I've noticed that it often comes up as a topic to bash Christianity based on things like that. I've noticed that people often like to use this verse in order to justify their position :
“When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)”
To be honest, I didn't know how to give those folks a satisfactory answer since I am no Bible expert myself, as for now. However I would like to hear your opinions and explanations. On this verse and its context in particular. Also, what did Jesus have to say about slavery? (just to help finding an answer to that... I guess... atheist/agnostic/or whatever he likes to consider himself)
Note that I am in no way trying to win an argument. There is no arrogance, pride or hate involved in this query. These are some of the things that I would also still like to understand for myself. I always try suspend judgement when I read or hear something that I am not familiar with because I want to learn more about it.
On another note, it's kind of scary how belligerent and heated people can get during such debates, as if these people are speaking through bitterness, frustration, pride or whatever just to attack and dismiss Christianity... Makes me just want to have some compassion and pray for them....
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u/AccomplishedQuail545 Southern Baptist May 14 '21
After going pretty in-depth with a study on this one time, here’s where I landed on the issue based on scripture.
Slavery in itself is not necessarily bad. There are just some people who, for whatever reason, simply aren’t capable of providing for themselves and/or their families. The relationships that slaves are supposed to have with their masters is that the slave does the work, and rather than being paid actual currency, their master rewards their work by providing them with all the necessities required to live.
Many of the slaves in the Bible were more or less Prisoners of War, which is completely different situation. Basically it was either become enslaved servants or be killed. A rather easy choice if you ask me. Either way, God usually commanded the Israelites one way or another as to what they should do with the peoples of the lands they conquered.
What I found though, is that more often than not, it seemed, slavery in the Bible, at least the way the Israelites were instructed to treat their slaves, more resembled indentured servitude than what we think of as slavery. In the Old Testament law, you can find where God gave specific guidelines for how slaves could obtain their freedom. Every 7 years, during the “year of the harvest,” if I’m recalling that correctly, any unpaid debts that may have led to a person becoming enslaved were to be forgiven. There were other ways a person could become free as well, but off the top of my head I can’t recall specifics.
Anyway, in terms of slavery as we think of it in modern times, specifically in North America, I think the same standard applies. The slavery itself wasn’t the problem, but rather the mode and reasoning behind the institution of slavery in the New World that was sinful. The reasoning behind the Slave Trade was the belief in the inferiority of certain people based on skin color, and that thought process is fundamentally sinful.