Posted on 07/27/2017 11:54:32 PM PDT by EliRoom8
>>“The old (slave) spoke these words while praying, shouting, crying, and saying farewell to my mother. He had, in a manner, raised nearly all the colored people on the plantation; so he had a fatherly feeling for all of them. The old man looked down on me, and said, "My child, you are now without a father and will soon be without a mother; but be a good boy, and God will be father and mother to you. If you will put your trust in him and pray to him, he will take you home to heaven when you die, where you can meet your mother there, where parting will be no more. Farewell." I was then taken from my mother, and have not seen or heard of her since—about twenty-nine years ago. Old Uncle Jack, as my father was called by the plantation people, spoke words of comfort to all of us before we were parted.”
Excerpt From: Charles Thompson. “Biography of a Slave.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/9VblE.l
>>“Why was I so faithful and dutiful to my slave master? Simply because I was doing my duty to God and acting in obedience to the commands of Christ; for my book taught me to do good and shun evil—to obey the revealed will of God no matter what position I might be placed in. As a slave I loved to do the will of the Master in heaven; as a responsible human being I could do no less.”
ping
For slave owners, Christianity was seen as useful in helping pacify and regularize the conduct of slaves, but teaching slaves to read was illegal in most areas and teaching the full Bible and unadulterated Christianity was recognized as problematic. That bit about Moses leading the Jews from slavery to freedom was just a bit too provocative.
It’s an “eye-opening” read and will be part of my class literature this fall.
As Harriet Beecher Stowe observed: slavery corrupts both the slave and the enslaver.
It did. Christianity lead them all out of the corruption and lead to abolition.
If the entire world had adopted Christianity and Western Civilization, slavery would have died out in the world in the 19th century.
Unfortunately, it is alive and thriving in the non-Christian, non-Western world today--in the 21st century.
Thanks I’ll look it up.
Christianity could and did accommodate slavery for many centuries because there was no explicit New Testament teaching against it. Yet Christian theology and moral conscience developed such that slavery was rendered problematic and then disfavored by the early 19th Century. And you are correct that the non-Christian parts of the world often find slavery and its equivalents acceptable.
Yes, Christianity and Western Civilization tolerated slavery for many centuries. However, ultimately it became incompatible with both, or perhaps both evolved to become incompatible with slavery. In either case, slavery is not incompatible with the beliefs of many people on earth today and the doctrines by which they live. This is one—of many—pitfalls of multiculturalism.
The Enlightenment, in both Christian and secular aspects, fostered the moral awareness and reformist spirit that led to the abolition of slavery and much else good besides. No other civilization accomplished anything close to that.
Exactly.
Man Stealing is a crime punishable by death according to Old Testament Law. Indentured servitude however is not a crime.
In the New Testament, slaves were encouraged to seek their freedom if they could but to do as well for their master in the meantime.
At no time in the canon of Scripture is it allowed for us to kidnap and enslave a person. Conquered peoples in legitimate wars were, sometimes, allowed to be enslaved as opposed to killing them.
In that case, slaves were to be treated properly - if you damaged them for example, you were to set them free.
How Christians in our nation legitimized the man stealing slavery here in 1800s I can not understand. Well, many of them didn’t. Many suffered and died to oppose it. I am proud of those people.
Nevertheless, by the Middle Ages, slavery was mostly extinct in Christian Europe and the enslavement of Christians who were not criminals was expressly forbidden by the Church. Slavery in the New World stemmed from renewal of the old practice of enslavement through conquest being given renewed force as a basis for cheap slave labor for phenomenally lucrative plantation crops like sugar and tobacco.
You might get fired if you share that with your classroom.
>>You might get fired if you share that with your classroom.<<
That’s absolutely right if I was to a public school. Fortunately, I’m at a small Christian academy outside the United States.
I do not see any order, in the Bible, that later descendants of slog war captives should be slaves. That may have been a practice - I don’t k is. But not a command.
And in the year of Jubilee (every 50th) and perhaps every seventh (sabbath) year all slaves were to be freed anyway.
Yea!!!!!
I homeschooled one of my sons. We learned a lot and had a blast.
Unless imposed as a term of years, slavery was traditionally regarded as permanent and hereditary, and Christian teaching and practice never quite got around to endorsing the idea of general manumission based on the Jubilee coming around.
Homeschooling?
Great going and bless you for doing it.
Sara,
This is my fourth and last year at this missionary school in Kyiv. When I then return to the States, I want to be involved in homeschooling — possibly in some support capacity. I’m on a public school pension from years prior so salary/income is not an issue. Having taught 30 yrs in LA I know how anti-christian the direction and leadership has become.
Imo, Christian schools in the States are pretty well off for the most part, but I can’t say that about the homeschoolers who are primarily Christian and braving it on their own.
Is there an agency that you know of in California or elsewhere that could direct me to areas of need? Perhaps I could lend a hand.
Well, the Jubilee laws say they are to be freed.
If they didn’t keep the laws I can’t blame the Bible.
What source do you utilize to claim that the Israelites did not free slaves as told to do?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.