Christianity and slavery (Split from Who Should Pay Child Support)

[Elixir]

If you could name a non-Christian country that did have a majority of its citizens who were not familiar with Christian thought and belief who abolished slavery.

I don't think i can name a non-Christian country that did have a majority of its citizens who were "not familiar with Christian thought and belief" - period. It's not a yes/no proposition. I don't think you could even determine it for an entire population, except on a sliding scale.

And giving the figures of self-identified Christians in 20201 is irrelevant since slavery was abolished in the 1860s.

Well... I was being generous.

"Finke and Stark conducted a statistical analysis of the official census data after 1850, and Atlas for 1776, to estimate the number of Americans who were adherents to a specific denomination. In 1776 their estimate is 17%. In the late 19th Century, 1850–1890, the rate increased from 34% to 45%." (Wiki)
Religions - especially protestants have been in decline, after a post WWII boom in America... "non denominational Christians" are on the rise, but their numbers are still small. The Protestants, are all lumped together here. If protestant denominations each had a line (like Catholics do) , the chart would look a lot more dramatic.
"None" looks like the big winner of late.

 

[laughing dog]

Nah, the RCC has done bad things, but the Christian faith holds that as a central tenet. It was the basis for slavery abolition, after all.

No the Christian faith does not.

Which is why the bulk of slavers in 1880 were Christians. At least here in the USA.

The RCC was no big ethical improvement over the rest of Christian culture and ethics. But it wasn't very different from most of them.

It wasn't until Christians started adopting secular values and ethics that Christendom started improving, ethically.

Now, Christians like to pretend that secular morality and ethics are Scriptural. But they're not.
Tom

What reason, do you think, that it was Western Christians - and no other society or civilization in history - which arrived at the idea that slavery was wrong? And, come one, Western secular morality is just Christianity without the church. Individual rights, protecting the weak, poor, and marginalized. Only a culture steeped in Christianity could produced  Charles_George_Gordon. Ironically, the Great Awokening is just another ripple of Christianity.

Christianity was used to justify slavery for more centuries than it was to abolish it. It is pretty desperate to claim Christianity was the reason for the abolishment of slavery.

If you could name one non-Christian country, group etc. that abolished slavery I would be most obliged.

There is a whole list of countries that abolished slavery ( Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom) which includes the Maurya Empire (India) in 3rd century BC and the Xin Dynasty in 9-12 AD. There are quite a few more.

There is a different between claims to abolish slavery and actually doing it. Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia in 1861 but it made no appreciate able difference to the peasants.

(Perhaps we are getting close to a derail of this thread)

You asked for one non-Christian country, group et... that abolished slavery. I gave you one.

BTW, Russia was a Christian country that exemplifies my and Bilby's comment about Christianity's role in defending slavery as well as its role in abolishing it.

 

[laughing dog]

The basic principle is "children are the property of their fathers". If you accept that one axiom, most of what they conclude becomes a compelling conclusion.

Eh? Isn't the RCC position that of universalism, that God loves everyone, especially the meek? That's the whole ethos of Christianity.

Their actions are so loud that they completely drown out their words.

No shit. Once it became political it acted political.

So your objection to my comment is about 1500 years out of date.

Nah, the RCC has done bad things, but the Christian faith holds that as a central tenet. It was the basis for slavery abolition, after all.

Christianity was also the basis for slavery itself.

The central tenet of Christianity is "Whatever you want to do is justified by Christianity".

Oddly, that's also the central tenet of Islam.

Reminds of a great song by Roger Waters

 

[Trausti]

Nah, the RCC has done bad things, but the Christian faith holds that as a central tenet. It was the basis for slavery abolition, after all.

No the Christian faith does not.

Which is why the bulk of slavers in 1880 were Christians. At least here in the USA.

The RCC was no big ethical improvement over the rest of Christian culture and ethics. But it wasn't very different from most of them.

It wasn't until Christians started adopting secular values and ethics that Christendom started improving, ethically.

Now, Christians like to pretend that secular morality and ethics are Scriptural. But they're not.
Tom

What reason, do you think, that it was Western Christians - and no other society or civilization in history - which arrived at the idea that slavery was wrong? And, come one, Western secular morality is just Christianity without the church. Individual rights, protecting the weak, poor, and marginalized. Only a culture steeped in Christianity could produced  Charles_George_Gordon. Ironically, the Great Awokening is just another ripple of Christianity.

Christianity was used to justify slavery for more centuries than it was to abolish it. It is pretty desperate to claim Christianity was the reason for the abolishment of slavery.

You're saying Wilberforce's Christianity didn't influence his activism? Really? Or de las Casas? Or John Brown?

 

[Trausti]

Nah, the RCC has done bad things, but the Christian faith holds that as a central tenet. It was the basis for slavery abolition, after all.

No the Christian faith does not.

Which is why the bulk of slavers in 1880 were Christians. At least here in the USA.

The RCC was no big ethical improvement over the rest of Christian culture and ethics. But it wasn't very different from most of them.

It wasn't until Christians started adopting secular values and ethics that Christendom started improving, ethically.

Now, Christians like to pretend that secular morality and ethics are Scriptural. But they're not.
Tom

What reason, do you think, that it was Western Christians - and no other society or civilization in history - which arrived at the idea that slavery was wrong? And, come one, Western secular morality is just Christianity without the church. Individual rights, protecting the weak, poor, and marginalized. Only a culture steeped in Christianity could produced  Charles_George_Gordon. Ironically, the Great Awokening is just another ripple of Christianity.

Christianity was used to justify slavery for more centuries than it was to abolish it. It is pretty desperate to claim Christianity was the reason for the abolishment of slavery.

If you could name one non-Christian country, group etc. that abolished slavery I would be most obliged.

There is a whole list of countries that abolished slavery ( Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom) which includes the Maurya Empire (India) in 3rd century BC and the Xin Dynasty in 9-12 AD. There are quite a few more.

This is quite off.

Horrified by The Cruelty of War, Emperor Ashoka Built an Infrastructure of Goodness

"Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history ... the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star." - HG

www.thebetterindia.com

In his 11th edict, Ashoka declares that goodness includes obligations to those who are socially beneath us, and to those with whom we are social equals. Thus, he says, we owe ‘respect to slaves and servants, and liberality to friends and acquaintances’.

They were still slaves.

And  Wang_Mang sought slavery abolition for his fellow Han Chinese as a cudgel against disloyal landowners.

What makes Western Christianity unique is its provision that everyone, all people, should be freed from bondage - not just White European Christians. How many histories of slavery mention the  West_Africa_Squadron? Really, what other civilization would make such a great expenditure of treasure and lives to insure that an out group not be enslaved?

 

[bilby]

Nah, the RCC has done bad things, but the Christian faith holds that as a central tenet. It was the basis for slavery abolition, after all.

No the Christian faith does not.

Which is why the bulk of slavers in 1880 were Christians. At least here in the USA.

The RCC was no big ethical improvement over the rest of Christian culture and ethics. But it wasn't very different from most of them.

It wasn't until Christians started adopting secular values and ethics that Christendom started improving, ethically.

Now, Christians like to pretend that secular morality and ethics are Scriptural. But they're not.
Tom

What reason, do you think, that it was Western Christians - and no other society or civilization in history - which arrived at the idea that slavery was wrong? And, come one, Western secular morality is just Christianity without the church. Individual rights, protecting the weak, poor, and marginalized. Only a culture steeped in Christianity could produced  Charles_George_Gordon. Ironically, the Great Awokening is just another ripple of Christianity.

Christianity was used to justify slavery for more centuries than it was to abolish it. It is pretty desperate to claim Christianity was the reason for the abolishment of slavery.

If you could name one non-Christian country, group etc. that abolished slavery I would be most obliged.

There is a whole list of countries that abolished slavery ( Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom) which includes the Maurya Empire (India) in 3rd century BC and the Xin Dynasty in 9-12 AD. There are quite a few more.

This is quite off.

Horrified by The Cruelty of War, Emperor Ashoka Built an Infrastructure of Goodness

"Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history ... the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star." - HG

www.thebetterindia.com

In his 11th edict, Ashoka declares that goodness includes obligations to those who are socially beneath us, and to those with whom we are social equals. Thus, he says, we owe ‘respect to slaves and servants, and liberality to friends and acquaintances’.

They were still slaves.

And  Wang_Mang sought slavery abolition for his fellow Han Chinese as a cudgel against disloyal landowners.

What makes Western Christianity unique is its provision that everyone, all people, should be freed from bondage - not just White European Christians. How many histories of slavery mention the  West_Africa_Squadron? Really, what other civilization would make such a great expenditure of treasure and lives to insure that an out group not be enslaved?

Christianity though, is a red herring in all of this.

Sure, the abolitionists liked to claim that their Christianity led them to their position on slavery; But so did the slave owners. Their word on the matter is as reliable and valuable as an indicator of the essential goodness of Christian faith as is the claims of modern day Christians that their faith is what led to them finding a parking spot right outside the store.

If Christianity is correlated with abolitionism, then we must conclude that for some time, the British were more Christian than the Americans; And that once Christianity spread to the USA, it was specifically to the industrial states that Christ's teachings came, resulting in the States north of the Mason-Dixon line being far more Christian than the cotton and tobacco farming states of the South.

The alternative explanation - that slavery is less popular (because it's less valuable) in an industrial economy than an agricultural one, and that in both types of economy, people liked to credit Christianity as the basis for their ideas so as to be able to justify inflicting them on other Christians, would require that the UK had an industrial revolution first, and that industrialisation then spread to the Northern parts of the USA, but not so much to the South.

And that's obviously less plausible than the Confederates simply being less Christian than the damn Yankees.

 

[Bomb#20]

What reason, do you think, that it was Western Christians - and no other society or civilization in history - which arrived at the idea that slavery was wrong?

Because they had the first Industrial Revolution.

Nah. The idea that slavery was wrong was widely circulating and slowly gaining ground before the industrial revolution. Pre hoc ergo non propter hoc.

What, did you think it was something special about their religious beliefs?

Sure. Specifically, it was the Protestant notion that each individual person could have a direct relationship with God and didn't need to subordinate his conscience to the opinions of priests. It was that one little chink in the armor of the otherwise universal authoritarianism of the early modern period that eventually discredited authoritarianism altogether.

Of course, no credit to Christianity for that. It could have happened in any religion that had become obviously corrupt -- which is to say, given human nature, in any religion. It happened to Western Christians because they had the first Gutenberg.

 

[bilby]

What reason, do you think, that it was Western Christians - and no other society or civilization in history - which arrived at the idea that slavery was wrong?

Because they had the first Industrial Revolution.

Nah. The idea that slavery was wrong was widely circulating and slowly gaining ground before the industrial revolution. Pre hoc ergo non propter hoc.

Doing stuff with machines was also widely circulating and gaining ground before the epoch typically used by historians to define the Industrial Revolution, too.

What, did you think it was something special about their religious beliefs?

Sure. Specifically, it was the Protestant notion that each individual person could have a direct relationship with God and didn't need to subordinate his conscience to the opinions of priests. It was that one little chink in the armor of the otherwise universal authoritarianism of the early modern period that eventually discredited authoritarianism altogether.

Of course, no credit to Christianity for that. It could have happened in any religion that had become obviously corrupt -- which is to say, given human nature, in any religion. It happened to Western Christians because they had the first Gutenberg.

Your rebuttal depends upon the exact timing we assign to the industrial revolution; I would argue that the novel thing about Gutenberg was his industrial production - printing using a machine, rather than copying text manually. There had always been a few people who opposed the corruption of the church, but without cheap mass production of pamphlets and propaganda materials, they couldn't compete with the organisation that they opposed. (A similar thing contributed to the English Civil Wars in the mid C17th, which likewise pre-dates what historians usually consider the start of the industrial revolution).

Like all revolutions, both industrialisation/mechanisation,and abolitionism, started out slowly. A printing press may not be a steam engine, but it's certainly a way to get a job done with dramatically less labour than was previously used.

I also remain highly doubtful that the southern US states were more Catholic than those in the north, which seems just as implausible as the idea that they were less Christian.

Of course, there's no single cause for any of this stuff; But I don't see any solid evidence that Christianity has a claim to being a cause at all - it was used as a post hoc rationalisation by people who were in the habit of claiming every behaviour that they wanted to impose on others as THE Christian way to behave. Hence the claims of divine support for their cause from both camps.

 

[Trausti]

Christianity though, is a red herring in all of this.

But it isn't. Universal slavery abolition is a uniquely Christian idea. What made Christianity so appealing in the 1st Century, anyway? Why would so many drop their various gods and adopt the Jewish one? Especially as it meant state persecution? Early Christianity wasn't militant. It didn't promise its adherents treasure or justify violence against others. Instead, it offered a re-imaged Jewish god that loved everyone, especially the poor and marginalized - the poor had a surer path to Heaven than the rich.

Gregory of Nyssa – A Lone Voice Against Slavery

I have already written about Gregory of Nyssa – one of the Three Cappadocian Fathers – and his compassion toward the poor. But he deserves another article, for a stand that made him unique and countercultural in his time: his stand against slavery.

www.placefortruth.org

“Do you notice the enormity of the boast?” he asked. “This kind of language is raised up as a challenge to God. For we hear from prophecy that all things are the slaves of the power that transcends all (Ps. 119:91[2]). So, when someone turns the property of God into his own property and arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?”

Jesus, so unlike the figures of the other gods, was not a capricious warrior deity. He was a criminal who was executed in the most horrible way. Who would that appeal to? If a lowly criminal held worth to God, then so did everyone.

The slavery in Western Christianity was mostly elsewhere. The medieval western European kingdoms did not have slavery. Slavery pops up with the age of exploration and colonization. It wasn't in the homeland, it was out-of-sight-out-of-mind. And it is no accident that those who voiced objection to that slavery were pious Christians.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Christianity though, is a red herring in all of this.

But it isn't. Universal slavery abolition is a uniquely Christian idea. What made Christianity so appealing in the 1st Century, anyway? Why would so many drop their various gods and adopt the Jewish one? Especially as it meant state persecution? Early Christianity wasn't militant. It didn't promise its adherents treasure or justify violence against others. Instead, it offered a re-imaged Jewish god that loved everyone, especially the poor and marginalized - the poor had a surer path to Heaven than the rich.

Gregory of Nyssa – A Lone Voice Against Slavery

I have already written about Gregory of Nyssa – one of the Three Cappadocian Fathers – and his compassion toward the poor. But he deserves another article, for a stand that made him unique and countercultural in his time: his stand against slavery.

www.placefortruth.org

“Do you notice the enormity of the boast?” he asked. “This kind of language is raised up as a challenge to God. For we hear from prophecy that all things are the slaves of the power that transcends all (Ps. 119:91[2]). So, when someone turns the property of God into his own property and arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?”

Jesus, so unlike the figures of the other gods, was not a capricious warrior deity. He was a criminal who was executed in the most horrible way. Who would that appeal to? If a lowly criminal held worth to God, then so did everyone.

The slavery in Western Christianity was mostly elsewhere. The medieval western European kingdoms did not have slavery. Slavery pops up with the age of exploration and colonization. It wasn't in the homeland, it was out-of-sight-out-of-mind. And it is no accident that those who voiced objection to that slavery were pious Christians.

Universal slavery abolition? What you talking about? You got that from the bible. Which verse did you get that from? There are many verses in the bible which condone slavery. There's an entire section that talks about how slaves should be treated. For example: Jewish slaves are supposed to be treated better than non Jewish slaves.

 

[Bomb#20]

Nah. The idea that slavery was wrong was widely circulating and slowly gaining ground before the industrial revolution. Pre hoc ergo non propter hoc.

Doing stuff with machines was also widely circulating and gaining ground before the epoch typically used by historians to define the Industrial Revolution, too.

Is that what you meant by "Because they had the first Industrial Revolution."? Because they were doing stuff with machines? I took you to be arguing that it happened because slaves aren't useful to modern production methods. I'd argue it happened because individual freedom is a good idea and making communication easy preferentially causes good ideas to spread more. The good ideas started to spread long before slaves ceased to be useful. And even religious ideas can sometimes be good ideas whose spread contributes to the further spread of nonreligious good ideas.

There had always been a few people who opposed the corruption of the church, but without cheap mass production of pamphlets and propaganda materials, they couldn't compete with the organisation that they opposed. (A similar thing contributed to the English Civil Wars in the mid C17th, which likewise pre-dates what historians usually consider the start of the industrial revolution).

Bingo.

I also remain highly doubtful that the southern US states were more Catholic than those in the north, which seems just as implausible as the idea that they were less Christian.

I wasn't proposing they were more Catholic; but you need to keep in mind that there are Protestants and then there are Protestants. The northern colonies were set up by Dissenters; the southern colonies were set up by Anglicans. Virginia, Carolina, Maryland, Georgia -- all named after the monarch. All along, Anglicanism was Catholicism-lite -- not cutting back on religious authoritarianism, merely replacing the Pope with the King.

Of course, there's no single cause for any of this stuff; But I don't see any solid evidence that Christianity has a claim to being a cause at all - it was used as a post hoc rationalisation by people who were in the habit of claiming every behaviour that they wanted to impose on others as THE Christian way to behave. Hence the claims of divine support for their cause from both camps.

Well sure. If it comes to that, the Reformation may not even have been about the corruption of the Catholic Church or its doctrinal overload -- those may have simply been excuses for people who wanted out from under the Popes for political reasons but needed religious fig leaves to satisfy the rhetorical conventions of the era.

 

[Bomb#20]

The slavery in Western Christianity was mostly elsewhere. The medieval western European kingdoms did not have slavery. Slavery pops up with the age of exploration and colonization. It wasn't in the homeland, it was out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

The heck are you talking about? The majority of the medieval western European population were slaves. It's called "serfdom". It's why the Magna Carta said "No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land." Serfs were emancipated gradually over the 1400s and 1500s.

 

[steve_bank]

The basic principle is "children are the property of their fathers". If you accept that one axiom, most of what they conclude becomes a compelling conclusion.

Eh? Isn't the RCC position that of universalism, that God loves everyone, especially the meek? That's the whole ethos of Christianity.

As I was taught in catechism, the RCC is THE universal one and only true Christian church. God speaks to pope, pope spaks to children of god, children of god obey.

I think "Catholic" means universal. But you may recall univeralism was kind of Paul's pitch.

Universal in this case does not mean acceptance of all, it means anyone can join but you have to accept the theology. The RCC has softend a liitle, but being an overt homosexual in a relationship is still not accepted.

Paul was te prototype for e modern ranting evangelical conservative Christian. Celibacy and marriage if you can't. Paul was ppatriarchal and misogynist. Women do not instruct men in public. Woen walk behind men.

The RCC stats its authority in moral matters allegedly back to Peter in an unbroken line of popes. The one true and apostolic church.

Love everybody, but only the RCC theology gets you to heaven. No one else need apply.

Liberal protestant churches now openly accept gays, and have gay and female ministers. Never going to happen in the RCC.

Off topic from slavery.

 

[steve_bank]

Slavery was not unique to Chrtianity. Muslims considered non believers, infidels, fair game for slavery and wreaked havoc in the Mediteranean.

White Europeans did not go into the African interior to aquire slaves. They were brought out to the coast by Africans and I believe Muslims were involved in the chain. The black historian Gates did a series tracing the slave routes. He said there are Afrucan families today who trace wealth back to the slave trade.

 

[Trausti]

Love everybody, but only the RCC theology gets you to heaven.

The RCC theology comes after Paul. Hard to say exactly when it was cemented - and what we actually mean by that. But the RCC corrupted the Christian message, or a least that was Martin Luther's take. The Protestant take is kinda the original take: any person, any person, can have a direct relationship with a God.

 

[Trausti]

The heck are you talking about? The majority of the medieval western European population were slaves. It's called "serfdom".

Peasants could not be bought or sold. The lord was required to protect them and they had their own plots of land. Not a wonderful arrangement, but not chattel slavery. The very example that they could sell their labor to the highest bidder after the Black Death shows they were not slaves.

 

[Trausti]

Universal slavery abolition? What you talking about? You got that from the bible. Which verse did you get that from? There are many verses in the bible which condone slavery. There's an entire section that talks about how slaves should be treated. For example: Jewish slaves are supposed to be treated better than non Jewish slaves.

The revolution of Christianity, that there is one God and he loves all, and everyone - especially the poor and meek - can enter heaven. This is the idea. The idea put forth by Gregory the Theologian. By De Las Casa. By Wilberforce. Etc.

I'd ask you. Any of you. Where does the concept that every person has worth come from? The Assyrians did not have. The Han Dynasty did not have it. The Aztecs didn't have it. We in the West take it for granted today the every person has rights and is entitled to dignity. You, an atheist or agnostic, may believe this is a universal value. But it's a very Christian idea. (I'm an atheist, btw.)

 

[bilby]

Universal slavery abolition? What you talking about? You got that from the bible. Which verse did you get that from? There are many verses in the bible which condone slavery. There's an entire section that talks about how slaves should be treated. For example: Jewish slaves are supposed to be treated better than non Jewish slaves.

The revolution of Christianity, that there is one God and he loves all, and everyone - especially the poor and meek - can enter heaven. This is the idea. The idea put forth by Gregory the Theologian. By De Las Casa. By Wilberforce. Etc.

I'd ask you. Any of you. Where does the concept that every person has worth come from? The Assyrians did not have. The Han Dynasty did not have it. The Aztecs didn't have it. We in the West take it for granted today the every person has rights and is entitled to dignity. You, an atheist or agnostic, may believe this is a universal value. But it's a very Christian idea. (I'm an atheist, btw.)

Christendom didn't have it for well over a thousand years either.

It's not a Christian idea. It's just (yet another) idea that's been appropriated by Christianity because they could see that it was popular.

 

[steve_bank]

Love everybody, but only the RCC theology gets you to heaven.

The RCC theology comes after Paul. Hard to say exactly when it was cemented - and what we actually mean by that. But the RCC corrupted the Christian message, or a least that was Martin Luther's take. The Protestant take is kinda the original take: any person, any person, can have a direct relationship with a God.

The god of Jesus was the Jewish god.

The Christian god is whatever you make it to be, the same with Jesus. The modern liberal Christian god accepts everybody as they are including gays. Evangelical Christians are more in line with the wrathful OT Jewish god demanding obedience or suffer

The RCC theology has little based in the bible. That is why evangelicals reject the RCC and Mormons as authentic bible based Christians.

The gospel Jesus was selling a fantasy to those at the bottom. Bear your suffering and yio will go to heaven if yiu believe in me. A bit arrogant. If yiu are a slave be a go one. I believe Paul returned a slave. Take up your cross and follow me.

The RCC is a cult of pain and suffering.

I have an RCC thread on religion. You can take it there.

 

[steve_bank]

Universal slavery abolition? What you talking about? You got that from the bible. Which verse did you get that from? There are many verses in the bible which condone slavery. There's an entire section that talks about how slaves should be treated. For example: Jewish slaves are supposed to be treated better than non Jewish slaves.

The revolution of Christianity, that there is one God and he loves all, and everyone - especially the poor and meek - can enter heaven. This is the idea. The idea put forth by Gregory the Theologian. By De Las Casa. By Wilberforce. Etc.

I'd ask you. Any of you. Where does the concept that every person has worth come from? The Assyrians did not have. The Han Dynasty did not have it. The Aztecs didn't have it. We in the West take it for granted today the every person has rights and is entitled to dignity. You, an atheist or agnostic, may believe this is a universal value. But it's a very Christian idea. (I'm an atheist, btw.)

Actually Hinduism is the granddaddy of religion. The god of love led to a long RCC history of war and oppression. Early Christian sects were violent.