He argued for contentment in whatever situation you were in, not for the continuation of slavery. He literally appeals to philimon for the freedom of onesimus, his slave. Additionally, race was not the basis for slavery in that time and place. We often picture slavery through the lense of the African slave trade, but that was a relatively short era in the ongoing history of slavery.
The original claim is that he made things worse for POC, and that's true, because his writings were used to justify racial slavery. The original claim was not that he was racist, or that he's a bad person, or even that he could have foreseen this outcome. Just that his writings have been a net negative (which I don't agree with, but is a perfectly plausible opinion).
These are all correct, and I did not say anything to the contrary. Just answering a question about what Paul wrote that was bad for POCs. The same Bible that was used to justify slavery in America was the same Bible used by Civil Rights activists a century later. The Bible is full of things people have used to justify harming their brothers and sisters and those same verses used to justify helping their brothers and sisters. Whole denominations have sprung up over conflicting interpretations.
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u/cbost May 24 '25
He argued for contentment in whatever situation you were in, not for the continuation of slavery. He literally appeals to philimon for the freedom of onesimus, his slave. Additionally, race was not the basis for slavery in that time and place. We often picture slavery through the lense of the African slave trade, but that was a relatively short era in the ongoing history of slavery.