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Writer's pictureRev Leigh Greenwood

Sunday Worship 11 August | What Does Christianity Say About...Slavery?

Philemon
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker — also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier — and to the church that meets in your home: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul — an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus — that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favour you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever — no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.
So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back — not to mention that you owe me your very self. I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.
And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

 


This morning we are asking “what does Christianity say about slavery?” You might think this should be a really short answer - of course Christianity says slavery is wrong - but while we have now got on the right side of history, and I am not aware of any churches that would condone slavery, that has not always been the case. It can be uncomfortable to look back at the past, but I think it is important that we do so on this issue for two reasons. First, slavery itself is not entirely in the past. The Transatlantic Slave Trade continues to cast a long shadow in the form of embedded racism and structural inequality, and we must reckon with the church's part in it in order to fully repent and make reparations. There is also the ongoing problem of Modern Slavery, which the church needs to be aware of and respond to. Second, the church's attitude towards slavery may have changed, but the passages of scripture that were used to justify it are still to be found in the pages of our Bibles, and so we must learn how to handle them. Biblical literacy is not just being able to read scripture, but being able to read it with wisdom and discernment.


Let's begin with scripture. Its portrayal of slavery is initially negative. Sarah's slave Hagar is used as a surrogate and then discarded when her presence becomes a threat. At one point she runs away and God sends her back, but this seems to be because the only other option is death in the wilderness, and God seems very much on her side as one who has been ill treated. Abraham's great grandson Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and is then harassed and falsely accused by his master's wife, which leads to him being thrown into jail, because no one is going to believe the word of a slave. If you are familiar with the story of Joseph, you will know that things work out rather better for him in the end, but it is clear that his experience of slavery is a miserable one. And then some generations later, Joseph's ancestors are enslaved by a Pharaoh who is suspicious of their presence in his country. Exodus tells us that they were oppressed by slave masters who made their lives bitter with hard labour, and their escape from Egypt is presented as a great act of liberation. 


It seems quite clear in these stories that slavery is brutal and unjust, and where God intervenes it is for the protection of the enslaved. It is surprising then that scripture goes on to set out the terms by which slavery can be practised. Prisoners of war could be taken as permanent chattel slaves, or people could sell themselves or family members into temporary slavery to pay off a debt. There were some protections afforded to slaves, and it was possible for them to buy their freedom, but it is still shocking to see slavery codified in this way, as if it was ever morally acceptable or divinely sanctioned. I cannot believe that God was ever okay with people being treated this way, and I will not twist myself or scripture into knots trying to justify these texts. I believe that we are fallible and so I believe that our ideas about God are fallible, and I think on this one people quite simply got it wrong. I think slavery was so common in the ancient near east that it was unthinkable that it should not be part of society, and so the law was written from a false assumption that it was not if but how the people who believed in a liberating God should practise it, hence the directives on humane treatment and the mechanisms for emancipation.


I spoke last week about trajectories or movements in scripture, trajectories which I believe are less to do with God changing, and more to do with us understanding God better. That's not to say that we ourselves are better, and it's really important that we quash any sense of superiority, especially when dealing with Jewish texts. It's rather to say that the human race is maturing, and we have the benefit of hindsight and of learning from those who have come before us. Trajectories are important again as we consider slavery. It has been suggested that slavery itself was a progressive step away from the wholesale destruction of conquered peoples, although I'm not sure anyone should get points for being slightly less awful than they might have been. More hopefully, we see a move away from slavery by the end of the Old Testament. King Zedekiah released all slaves in Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian conquest, and the prophet Nehemiah argued against slavery when it started to creep back in when the people returned from exile. In fact, ancient sources such as Philo and Josephus suggest that it was a Jewish sect called the Essenes, founded in the second century BC and dissolved in the first century AD, who were the first to abolish slavery entirely.


That brings us then to the New Testament. Jesus doesn’t directly address slavery, although he often tells stories which feature slaves, and we also know that he encountered slaves, so he was certainly familiar with it. It is perhaps curious that Jesus should seem to accept the status quo, but I don't think we ought to read that as an acceptance of slavery. Jesus came to signal the coming of the kingdom of God, and I think we can easily work out for ourselves that this kingdom could not be built on injustice and oppression. Everything Jesus says about loving others as ourselves, and the way he models treating those who are marginalised and abused with dignity, should lead us to condemn slavery without him needing to say that explicitly. The early church seems to have understood that, as while there does not seem to have been an early abolitionist movement, perhaps because a small persecuted sect lacked the necessary political capital, the first Christian communities were noted for their welcome of slaves. They might not have been able to tear down the institution, but they could quietly reform it.


We see that in the letters written by Paul. He often uses slavery as a metaphor to speak of absolute commitment to Christ, which can make us wince a little, but he also acknowledges the reality of slavery and seems to be pushing against it with the little might he has. In Galatians 3, he declares there is neither slave nor free for all are one in Christ Jesus; in 1 Timothy 1, he counts slave traders among those contrary to sound doctrine; and in 1 Corinthians 7, he encourages slaves to buy or earn their freedom when they can. There are several places where he tells slaves to obey their masters, but this is usually accompanied by the explanation that in this way they might affirm their own worth and witness to Christ, or followed by the instruction that masters must likewise treat their slaves with respect. We might read these passages and wish Paul had been bolder in seeking to dismantle slavery, but it seems he was using the influence he had to push along the trajectory and move the church closer to the kingdom.


The letter to Philemon was sent with Onesimus, an escaped slave who Paul was returning to his master. That might sound like an endorsement of slavery, but it feels like Paul is giving Philemon every chance to do the right thing, and it seems clear that the right thing is freeing Onesimus. We might summarise the letter thus: “You are a good man. I could tell you to do what you ought to do, but I want you to choose it. Receive Onesimus as a fellow man, welcome him as you would me, who you see as a partner.” The comment about Onesimus being useful might seem to objectify him, and so perpetuate the dehumanising effect of slavery, but Onesimus actually means useful, so I think the choice of wording is intended as a little joke. Reading the letter as a whole, I think Paul is actually speaking of his value as a worker for the gospel - he says that he would have liked to keep Onesimus with him to take the place of Philomen, not reducing the man to the level of a tool, but rather elevating the slave to the level of his master. Another helpful piece of context is that Philemon lived in Colossae, and it seems likely that Onesimus delivered this private letter alongside the letter to the Colossian church, in which Paul writes “masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair”. Imagining those words being delivered by Onesimus, who Paul has appealed for as a father, suddenly they sound a lot less like “don't beat your slaves” and a lot more like “give your slaves their freedom”.


Scripture doesn't record if Philemon did the right thing, although there is a tradition that says Onesimus became a bishop, which would surely mean he did. It certainly seems that for a time the church was a safe and dignifying place for slaves, but then things went horribly wrong. I won't try and trace the entire history of slavery and the church, but I suspect things started to go off course when Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Suddenly it had power, and that power corrupted, as it so often does. The church was no longer made up of the marginalised and the oppressed, and so it forgot what it meant to be the marginalised and the oppressed, until it no longer took the side of the marginalised and the oppressed. Of course nothing is ever all bad, and there have always been those within the church who have worked for justice, but as an institution we have at times failed very badly. The complicity of the church in the Transatlantic Slave Trade is surely one of the most egregious examples, and the Slave Bible - which kept all the passages about slaves obeying their masters, and took out all the passages which spoke of freedom - will always be an ugly blot on our history. 


As I said earlier, we need to look that history in the eye, and we need to understand the ways in which it continues to impact the present, especially when connected with the legacy of colonialism. The unrest of the past couple of weeks speaks of an ugly racism that lies very near the surface, and needs little provocation to erupt into violence. People of colour still face structural bias and discrimination, from the fact that they are underrepresented in executive positions, to the fact that they have worse health outcomes. Society still has a long way to go in deconstructing the patterns of thinking and behaving that justified slavery, and that includes the church. Fortunately history has shown that it is possible for us to change. The church was complicit in the slave trade, but it was also at the forefront of the abolition movement. And in recent years, denominations including our own have made apologies for their part in slavery, and committed to doing the work of racial justice. Progress is slower than it should be, and talk about appropriate reparations is still ongoing, but I am hopeful that we are following the right trajectory, although I am aware that I am saying all of this as a white woman, who has not experienced the legacy of this history firsthand.


I also spoke earlier of the ongoing problem of modern slavery. The Act of 1833 could only make slavery illegal, it could not stop it from happening, and so it has shifted into more hidden forms, trapping and exploiting people for personal and financial gain. A UN report from 2022 estimated that fifty million people were living in modern slavery globally, with twenty eight million of those in forced labour and twenty two million in forced marriage. Modern slavery here in Britain can involve people who have been trafficked into the country, and therefore have no status and fear they will have no protection, but it can also involve children being used by criminal gangs to take drugs across county lines, most often vulnerable young people who don't trust the authorities enough to ask for help. Understanding of modern slavery is increasing, and organisations like Anti Slavery International and the free church network Together Free give advice on how to spot the signs and refer those who are being exploited, so that they can be supported out of those situations. It is something that it is good for us all to be aware of, and I will make details for those organisations available.


If asking what Christianity says about slavery has taught us anything, it's that we can get things badly wrong but we can also learn from our mistakes. That should lead us to invest in the hard work of repentance and reparation on this particular issue, but it should also lead us to ask the difficult question of what else we might be getting wrong and what other lessons we might need to learn. I'm not going to take us down that rabbit hole right now, but I do want to end by reading the first sixteen verses of Psalm 139, which witness to the wonder and dignity of each individual, and the love in which we are all made and held. I believe this is what Christianity has to say about any issue of discrimination and oppression, and if we keep coming back to this with the understanding that it is true of every single one of us, we might get a lot more right.


Psalm 139:1-16
You have searched me, Lord,  and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise;  you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down;  you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue  you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before,  and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,  too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me    and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you    when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

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