Back of the Envelope

A bit after the fact, but Jeremy Pierce of Parableman has taken up my challenge to say what's wrong with slavery by arguing that there's nothing wrong with it in principle:

Donald asks what makes slavery wrong and why it's so offensive that everyone should recognize how horrific it is simply by thinking about it. I say that there's nothing that makes slavery itself wrong, nothing that should make people so horrified that they should think slavery itself is wrong. People are often rightly horrified about some of the practices of slavery that the world has seen. What's horrific about those cases is not the slavery itself, though. It's other factors.

Donald actually gives a hint of movement in the direction I'm thinking when he acknowledges that a serf's role in the socioeconomic system of the middle ages wasn't much better than that of a slave, and an indentured servant is a little more autonomous than that. I don't think that's the right way to look at it, but that's a good start. What's more accurate, I would say, is that there's a scale from those most enslaved to those least enslaved, and each case of enslavement is thus a matter of degree. I'm a slave to my employers. They don't have as much control over me as slaveowners in the 19th century U.S. South did, but they have enough control over me that it's not entirely inaccurate to describe me as a waged slave working under their authority and serving their needs. In exchange, they give me some money. 19th century U.S. plantation slaves didn't get money in exchange, but they did get food and shelter out of the deal. The conditions they lived under were terrible, but the difference between them and me is really only a matter of degree. It's a great degree of difference, but there's a whole continuum between the two cases.

I think that Parableman may be using the definition of slavery broader than is usually meant when people talk about it. As it's commonly used, slavery implies a relationship of absolute control. That definition, however, would probably exclude slavery as it is described in the Torah, and the translations don't really make the distinction. In his next post, Jeremy then defends slavery to Christ, which is undeniably an aspect of our relationship to him:

He asked me if I thought there was any biblical support for the view that slavery is always wrong in itself, and I thought for a few seconds before responding that the Bible tells us that we're all slaves. He then knew that I was thinking along the same lines he was, and we proceeded to work through some of the things the Bible says about slavery. The first and most obvious is that everyone is a slave. That's just all too clear, even in the translations that hide the slave language and make it come out as servant language. There's enough slave language there to see it. We're slaves to sin in our fallen state, and Christians are made slaves to Christ. Now Paul also says when he uses such terminology that only the slave to Christ is truly free, but the point is that we are slaves, one way or the other. It's just a fact that the Bible says that. Christians can't dance around it and pretend slavery is inherently wrong if it's right for us to be in a master-slave relationship with Christ. That was the starting point for me and Wink in our truly radical (but I think biblical) view that slavery is not in itself wrong.

The second observation to draw, once you see that it can be morally ok to be in a master-slave relationship, even for the master, is that slavery is not just ok for Paul. To be a slave to the perfect master is actually freeing. We have more freedom in not being bound to sin and death when we are slaves of the perfect master. What this means is that slavery doesn't just exist on a continuum between absolute control and absolute license. There's at least a third dimension, one not of how much control (or lack thereof) the master exercises but of how righteous the master is. A truly righteous master will seek the good of the slave. No mere human being can do this perfectly, of course, but the principle of the good master freeing the slave not by abandoning the master-slave relationship but by making it a righteous relationship is not just a theoretical device I'm using to make a point. It's what the Bible says the Christian's relationship with God truly is.

I agree that a relationship of absolute power over us is perfectly okay for God, because God has that right. I would argue that for any mere mortal to have that sort of absolute control is not right, primarily because for him to have it would be to claim authority which is rightfully God's. This is what Jeremy points out is the Lockean argument for human rights. And I think that for a human to have this sort of control is wrong no matter what it's called, whether it's the power of the Roman Emperor over a citizen, a king over his knight, a master over his slave, or a father over his son. In fact, in Roman law, the distinction between son and slave in this matter was razor thin. The patriarch of the household had patria potestas, absolute authority over his wife, sons, daughters, and slaves. Everything they owned, including their own lives, belonged to him, and he could do as he pleased. Fortunately, custom, and eventually law, frowned upon capricious use of the patriarch's authority.

I think that Jeremy and I do largely agree on this matter, except for definitions, but for that we can blame dictionaries (to which I lend less weight than to the common usage and sense of the word) and the failure of the English language to distinguish between American slavery, Roman slavery, and Torah slavery.

John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon makes an interesting argument:

Lately I've been thinking about the relationship between Christian doctrine and experience. Today the question can seem a bit like the one about the chicken and the egg, but the analogy is false. If there is any truth to the claims of Christianity, regarding the works of Jehovah or the acts of Jesus, then experience must come first. On the other hand, if these claims are nothing but man-made myth then doctrine necessarily comes first and there is no genuine experience, only psychologically generated fantasy. I happen to believe that Christianity, from Abraham to Paul, was not fabricated but instead rests firmly on actual experiences of people. To a first approximation, then, doctrine can be thought of as an attempt to explain or make sense of previous experience, experience that is first believed to be true.

This is an important point that is sometimes overlooked in the modern church. I know that I often discount experiences, even my own, in exchange for the comfortable logic of doctrine. But if Christianity is true, it is true not because of doctrine, but because of experience. Abraham did not have a doctrine of God, he had the experience of God's actions in his life. Peter had no doctrine of the Incarnation, but the experience of knowing the man who was also God. Our faith is built on the experience of others, and what revelation is communicated through them was also an experience.

So what makes experience today less valid than that of 2,000 years ago? I'm a bit hesitant to answer this. While it is valid, as John says, to compare current experience with doctrine to see whether it is consistent, that measure is not completely satisfying. After all, much of what Jesus said ran contrary to doctrine as it was understood at the time. It makes more sense to compare current experience with previous experience and to look for a consistent doctrine.

I'm not arguing that we need to re-write our doctrine everytime someone claims to receive a revelation. I think that there are different levels of experience which command greater authority. There is the directness of the communication (Did God speak audibly or did you get a feeling?), the number of people who experienced it, and the evidence (prophecy, miracles, etc.). In the case of the Bible, the authority of Jesus is well attested in all these ways, and he re-affirms the authority of the Old Testament, so I'm not so much worried about measuring the authority of the experience described in the Bible as the experience described by people today.

The Christian Carnival is now online at Wallo World. I submitted my posts on Christianity and Slavery.

La Shawn Barber is looking for posts on the Religious Right and the libertarian/social conservative divide. I don't really have anything new to say on the topic, but I've said plenty in the past:

So Dean's going to be the new DNC chair, huh? — If Dean continues to lead the Democrats down the path of self-destruction, I suspect that in a few years the real debate in this country will be between the libertarians and the social conservatives.

The religious right: extreme minority? — Social conservative positions aren't as far out on the fringe as some people would have you believe.

Dr. Dobson and Mr. Squarepants — I find it irritating how quick libertarian bloggers are to join in the name-calling when it's a religious conservative being criticized. Since when do they consider The New York Times a reliable source on, well, anything?

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: A Primer — Here I try to explain the difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Not everyone agreed with my definitions.

Serge at Imago Dei is debating with A Thinking Nurse whether humanism or theism is a better grounding for human rights. A Thinking Nurse says:

The humanistic justification for caring for human beings is that they are human beings - and being human is what ultimately matters.

Now Serge rightly questions the solidity of humanism for justifying human rights, arguing that "Human rights under humanism are simply asserted as fact, needing no grounding or justification." As such, who is deserving of human rights and what those rights are can be redefined at the whim of the humanist. Oddly, Serge does not address some of A Thinking Nurse's misconceptions about theistic nursing. For example,

Theistic nursing is serving God, a spiritual quest expressed through the medium of the people who present as patients. Humanistic nursing is showing solidarity in a human way with other human beings

This dispassionate means of "serving God" may be how some Christians behave in practice, but it is hardly the ideal that theistic service strives for. God commands us not only to do good to our neighbor, but to love him as we love ourselves. This may sound like an impossible command--how can we make ourselves love someone? While I believe that coming to love our neighbor requires an investment of time and effort in order to develop, God does give us a starting point. Christians love God, a command made easy by the fact that God is eminently loveable, and has already lavished his love upon us. God, whom we love, directs us to love the people whom he loves--our neighbors. While it is not automatic, it is so much easier to come to value someone at the encouragement of someone whom we love.

A Thinking Nurse also says:

Another danger is this question of the `ideal man' - if we are made in the image of God, and we are all so different, some of us must be closer to the image of God than others. Traditionally religions have argued that men are closer to the image of God than women - one reason why they have resisted the idea of women priests. Presumably they also imagine that non-disabled men are closer to this image than men with disabilities, mentally stable men closer than people suffering from psychosis.

Which brings up the question of what it means to be in the image of God. Very few Christians think this is a physical description, and that race, gender, and physical perfection has anything to do with it. So what is it? That would be a theological debate that could go on for a while, but I tend to view it as more spiritual. As for the question of the ideal man, you'll find that atheistic philosophies have much more highly developed superman theories than Christian theology. We know who the ideal man was--it was Jesus. And he, though perfect, humbled himself for the imperfect, he talked with children, ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, touched lepers, and healed the demon possessed. No Christian considers himself an ideal man. He does strive to be Christ-like, by showing the same compassion that Jesus showed and by seeing the same value in others that Jesus saw, even when it's not apparent.

As I promised earlier, I'm going to share some of my thoughts on Christianity and slavery. But first, you have to understand something about how God prefers to work. God prefers to work subtly and inconspicuously. He starts small, using the least likely and the least important things to do great things. He prefers not to be showy. There are plenty of examples of God doing flashy things: the plagues of Egypt, the pillar of smoke and fire, manna from heaven, just from the Exodus. But he prefers to start small: a small nation which would incubate his Word, his Son in the form of an unimportant man, a few fishermen and assorted outcasts as his inconstant followers... All to promote a gospel which appealed to the weak and downtrodden, one which humbly attracted people rather than forced itself by conquest. In the same way, Christians were to change the world, not by use of political or military power, but one soul at a time, drawing them into the fold. Christianity isn't just good for Christians, either. Even where only a few believe, its ideas and its example overflow into society, subtly altering it, changing attitudes and norms and customs. This is what it means to be salt and light. (I don't want to get into why God prefers to work this way here, although I tend to think it has a lot to do with the fact that God wants us to have to choose, rather than have the choice made for us, and that by making the right choices, we become better in heart and in mind, which is way more important than our physical circumstances anyway. And when the results do finally change the circumstances and society, the changes are more authentic and enduring because they come from within rather than being imposed from without.)

And so, Christianity was not originally the religion of the powerful. At the time of its founding, it was a small, persecuted faith which appealed mainly to the weak and powerless. The instructions given to Christians were therefore instructions on how to live in their society, not how to rule it. Many of the Christians, probably most in some of the Gentile cities, were slaves. Any instruction to put an end to slavery would have been seen as an act of open rebellion. Rome did not put up with incitement of slaves, and this would have led to a quick, brutal obliteration of Christianity which would make the subsequent persecutions look mild. However, I think staying out of Rome's cross-hairs (to use an anachronism) was a mere side-benefit of the fact that God prefers to start small.

If Christianity was to attack slavery, that's how it would. Working subtly. So, did it? I asked my readers to tell me not just that slavery is bad, but why it is. Both Doc Rampage and Tom Harrison shared their thoughts. Both focused on the absolute authority of one human being over another, and the assumed superiority of the master over the slave. I think they've homed in on the reasons fairly well. The other aspects of slavery we find so repulsive--the buying and selling of human beings, the cruel treatment and devaluing of human life, the forced labor--are all side effects of the central logic of slavery: that the slave does not have the same humanity as the owner, so the owner may do as he wishes to the slave. Slavery was also a social class, an economic condition (many people sold themselves into slavery because they could not pay off debts), perhaps most akin to indentured servitude.

Christianity dealt with slavery by dealing with it not as an institution, but as a relationship. It began with the simple premise: in the eyes of God, slave and slave-owner are equal. And as imperfect and faltering as its efforts were, the Church attempted to mimic God's attitude. Slaves had equal parts in the sacraments, and equal parts in the leadership of the Church. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:28 (NAS)). In fact, many slaves held positions of rank in the early church. Among them, Pliny the Younger--no friend of Christianity--mentions two slavewomen who served as Deaconesses in a letter written in 112 AD:

These examinations made me think it necessary to inquire by torments what the truth was; which I did of two servant maids, who were called Deaconesses: but still I discovered no more than that they were addicted to a bad and to an extravagant superstition.

Nor was this the highest rank slaves rose to. It is believed that Pope Pius I (c. 140-154 AD) was a former slave.

However, the role of slave was still to be followed outside of the Church, and that is where the teachings that people find disturbing come from:

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

Ephesians 6:5-9 (NAS)

The fact that so much more instruction is given to the slaves than the masters is partly a function of the ratio of slaves to slave owners in the early church (many more of former than the latter), and partly due to the fact that the main instruction to the masters is to do the same thing as the slaves, knowing that both are the same in the eyes of God. Notice also that the commands don't specify whether the slave or slave owner towards whom the Christian is supposed to be doing good works is a Christian as well. The absolute power of one man over another loses its force if both are answerable to God and to the Church. The Church could, and did, adjudicate disputes between its members, although I don't know of any specific disputes between masters and slaves that it decided, aside from Paul's intervention in the case of Philemon and Onesimus. As for the side effects, if the Bible's teachings were applied, then such things should be discarded as a matter of course. Christianity praised humility, honest work, and compassion. The poor and powerless were favored by God. Cruelty and brutality were not countenanced at all. To be great in God's kingdom you had to be the servant of all, the slave as well as the master.

So there remains the last step which Christianity did not take. Why did it not instruct the Christian masters to free their slaves? Now in Roman times a slave could be freed. He did not then become a citizen, but a freedman, which was a whole other social class, above slave but well below citizen. Freedmen were still dependent on their former masters for financial support and legal protection, and usually continued to work for them. Rome's bureaucracy depended on a large corps of Imperial freedmen. Some Christians did free their slaves, and some Christian leaders condemned the practice of slavery in very broad terms, but this was not done wholesale.

Nevertheless, by changing how slaves were perceived by Christians, the Church was changing how slaves were perceived in the Roman world. As the Church gained temporal power, some of it went into increasing legal protections and legal standing of slaves. It took a long time, and there were frequent relapses, but by the Middle Ages slavery had largely disappeared from the Christian world. Which is not to say that Heaven had been achieved on Earth. Serfs were, if not slaves, still only a step above them in legal standing. And at the end of the Middle Ages, with serfdom dying out (largely due to economic changes), slavery had a resurgence in the Western world with the advent of imperialism. The reason why is not that hard to see. Slavery's decline came about because of the growing belief in human equality, largely due to New Testament teaching and the brotherly love encouraged among Christians. Imperialism brought slaves who were foreign, of alien religion and appearance, which made it easy to regard them as unworthy of the same equality. The West's belief in its own superiority and civilization made it easy to look down on the primitives. But ultimately it was Christians who challenged this belief, asserting that God's commands to love your neighbor were not dependent on their similar manner or technological advancement.

Slavery died largely because of Christian beliefs, which dealt with slavery not directly, but by striking at the heart of the matter, insisting on common human worth and dignity.

I've been working on the second post concerning slavery and Christianity, but it's not going to go up before this weekend. Partly that's because it's taking a lot of time to write, but partly it's because I'm looking for more comments on my original post. The question of why slavery is wrong is central to my thoughts on how Christianity deals with it, and I'd like to hear from a few more people on this. (I know Tom Harrison's commentary is a hard act to follow, but you can try.) Meanwhile, you may find this article from New Advent's Catholic Encyclopedia worth reading.

La Shawn Barber drew my attention to this article by Thomas Sowell:

To me the most staggering thing about the long history of slavery — which encompassed the entire world and every race in it — is that nowhere before the 18th century was there any serious question raised about whether slavery was right or wrong. In the late 18th century, that question arose in Western civilization, but nowhere else.

It seems so obvious today that, as Lincoln said, if slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. But no country anywhere believed that three centuries ago.

Sowell then goes on to explain that "Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world." Of course, it took Christianity a couple of millenia to take on slavery. The Bible mentions slavery on numerous occasions, but when it does deal with this issue its instructions are along the lines of "Slaves, obey your masters; masters, treat your slaves well." Non-Christians often use this as a reason why the Bible can't be the Word of God: if God is real and good, how could he have countenanced slavery?

I've thought about this a bit, but before I address what the Bible has to say about slavery, I have a question for you. Slavery has existed since before recorded history, and as Sowell has said, the concept that slavery could be and should be destroyed didn't seem to occur to anyone until a couple of centuries ago. So I think the burden of proof is on us, the modern Westerners. Why is slavery wrong? What about it is so offensive? More to the point, why should it be self-evident that it is? What principles underlie this conclusion? My point is not to argue that there's nothing wrong with slavery, but to get you thinking about what it is that is wrong with slavery.

Remember when I talked a bit about Dr. Dobson's actual claims, as opposed to the distorted accusations everyone has heard? I mentioned that I hadn't been able to find the pages that Dr. Dobson claimed had been removed, since, well, they'd been removed, and while I'm computer literate I'm not that Internet savvy. Well, some folks who are more Internet savvy than I have been using some Internet archiving tools to find a few things. Emily E. and Great Pursuits have both found plenty to confirm Dobson's version of events. I found both of these articles via the Christian Carnival, by the way.

The latest Christian Carnival is up at Dunmoose the Ageless. This is, incidentally, the first time I remember seeing the Christian Carnival on a Livejournal. It looks to have come out pretty well.

Park Street Church, which I attend, has a ministry called Soli Deo Gloria, which is Latin for "Glory to God Alone." According to its website,

Soli Deo Gloria (SDG) is a multidisciplinary, all-ages, creative arts ministry at Park Street Church (PSC). The group's name means "glory to God alone." These words were written by Bach on many of his compositions in lieu of his signature.

SDG is composed of small and large group ministries, a drama ministry and a lecture series. Participants include dancers, writers, thespians, musicians, designers, photographers, painters, quilters, DJs, new media artists, art appreciators and others.

SDG seeks to unite the body of Christ via creating opportunities for various branches of the PSC community to come together, enjoy the arts, participate in relevant cultural discussion and worship God in a new way. We also seek to collaborate with other ministries in order to serve the church via creative expression.

Their mission includes:

• Bring Christian creatives together in fellowship and communication;
• Worship and glorify the Creator with our creative process and output;
• Inspire Christians to use and explore their creative gifts;
• Apply standards of excellence in the artistic product which serves the church body;
• Encourage artistic accountability and sharing.

It's a ministry I've been considering getting involved in, even if I'm sure I'll feel out of the place among all those Arts students who are the main participants. After all, I'm an engineer who's an amateur writer. One of the ways I might try to get involved is submitting an essay to their Inklings section. They're looking for essays which promote the discussion of art, culture, and Christianity, which is something which I do as a matter of course as a blogger. Of course, while my discussions on Christianity are plentiful, I don't write about art a whole lot. I can't recall a lot of posts that are particularly relevant to this topic. The closest thing I've got is this discussion of webcomics with Christian themes, and that doesn't seem to be quite what they're looking for. Still, check out the website--it's quite fascinating.

Doc has a great post today:

Alyssa Ford suggests that "bioconservatives" --conservatives who are anti-cloning, and anti-hi-tech abortion-- are going to align with leftists luddites (link from Instapundit).

This is just silly, but it reflects a common conceit of humanist technophiles. Glenn Reynolds himself has referred to people that oppose stem cell research as luddites, but the charge is baseless. Luddites are opposed to technological change due to fear of change. By contrast, when religious conservatives oppose new technology, it is simply a natural extension of pre-existing stands.

What do you expect them to do when technology infringes on their sense of right in a novel way? Suspend their moral judgment because this is a new thing? Does it take a luddite to oppose a new technology for murder or torture?

Religious conservatives defend innocent life. They oppose cloning, stem cell research, and similar things because they view these technologies as just more advanced ways of killing or mutilating helpless human beings. When they have fought for thirty years for the proposition that a fetus has a right to life --even while it is only a few cells-- then do you expect them to suspend this view when that fetus is used for medical experiments rather than just discarded? Where would the moral logic be in that?

Conservative religious objections to new biotechnology have a strong foundation in ancient and stable principles of respect for human life and the processes that produce human life. Fear of technology has no part in the explanation. And in fact the technology is not really a part of the issue so the term "bioconservative" is not appropriate. They don't oppose biotechnology in general, just that technology that harms what they see as innocent human life. I've never met a religious conservative who was particularly concerned about genetically-modified foods.

It's a brilliant and long post. Read the whole thing.

Another article on the "We are Family" video can be found here, but it doesn't provide much new information. It was provided by Jonathan in Parableman's take on the matter. Jeremy Pierce (Parableman) is pretty critical of Dobson, but he seems to be rethinking his position after his interaction with one of his commenters. (Another of his commenters is playing the "All evangelicals are evil bigots" card. I'm surprised that Jeremy takes the time to argue with him.)

The Christian Carnival is online at the Wittenberg Gate. I submitted "Dr. Dobson and Mr. Squarepants."

Read the carnival and find out what other Christian bloggers are thinking about.