Atheism and the Good Life |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The slave question Dear John Apologies for the slow response again! Thanks for your post--the slave question is a hot one. The quote from Luke is Jesus simply using slavery as an example of the point he is making about people only being assessed by 'the master' according to what they know, not what they don't know. It's a compassionate point and, yes, is not critiquing slavery as an institution. It is hard for us today to endorse, or even to tolerate, any slavery. Of course, there are different kinds of slavery, some more oppressive than others. But overall, the notion of being a slave is incredibly unappealing! I'm with you there. But what I think is most interesting is that in the Bible (Old Testament and New), slaves are considered equals to their masters. It is this equality that I think is the unique Judaeo-Christian contribution. There are some amazing teachings in Exodus 21, where the slave gets to choose whether or not to stay with the master! The teachings still sound weird to us, but if you stick with it they are usually very compassionate in nature. Of course, the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt and they knew how bad it could be. In Ephesians 6:5, the apostle Paul reminds masters that they have the same God as the slaves--they are spiritual equals. It's true that Jesus wasn't a social reformer on the slave issue (although the Christian church was in the centuries to follow), but I think it is fair to say that he challenged people to think of slaves as equals in a way that Aristotle did not! Rodney Stark (not a Christian, as far as I know) has a chapter on this in 'The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success' (Random House, 2005), pp.26-32. I've really enjoyed this stop-start discussion, but maybe you should have the last say in the next post and then the blog can move to a new topic. Look forward to further chat down the line. Cheers, Greg Trackback Link Trackbacks |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comments
Post has no comments.