The Christian Slave Owner Contrasted With The Abolitionist

After I kidnap your children, ship them to Africa, split them up and sell them to work in cotton fields, I hope you will call me and their new owners,

 

In the case of Africa, you need to remember that it was Africans capturing other Africans and selling them into slavery that was a large part of the slave trade begun by Europeans. It would be like a person from Mark's home region capturing him and his children and selling them to you. You wouldn't be the one doing the kidnapping.

 

Okay okay, I will only buy his children. I will split them up from his wife (if she was kidnapped too), because I don't need another cook, and I will split up his kids because I have enough clothes washers, so I will sell off his daughters to someone else. I will put his boys in the field. Oh wait, I will teach a few to read and write, and that will make everything better.

Ahh, and then I will be,

 

I am not arguing that slaves should be faithful to their masters. I am arguing that it would NOT be my Christian duty to continue to own, and use in the cotton fields, people who were either kidnapped into slavery, or children of people kidnapped into slavery, or even the children of the children of people who were kidnapped into slavery.

Are you honestly arguing that I should keep your kidnapped children (remember, I didn't kidnap them says KenH, I just bought them) because I am a Christian, OR SHOULD I SET THEM FREE!

 

>>>>>On the basis of these words I assert, without blushing, that when the northern Baptists of this country made opposition to slavery a test of missionary fitness, the Baptists of the slave holding states were not only justified but morally obligated to withdraw from them.<<<<<

What a strange brand of morality that you have, Mark. You are twisting the words of the bible to have them mean something that was not intended. The bible was not speaking of abolitionists at all when the words that you quote were written. Most abolitionists never got beyond condemning slavery with words. You have no grounds for considering that improper. The bible does not prohibit anti-slavery oratory or publications. For you to suggest that it does is simply a misrepresentation of the case.

 

>>>>You are confusing a Christian slave owner with a froward slave owner. The Christian slave owner is faithful, beloved, worthy, and all those other good qualities.<<<<<<<<

You should consider the possibility that slavery in America was different from slavery in the bible. Also, your claim above is an assumption that may not stand up to investigation. Most slave owners in the south were Christian, and there is plenty of evidence of beatings, killings, hangings and bad treatment.

 

Agreed. Though Paul advises that if they can get their freedom they should do so. Paul was not concerned with political activism but with spreading the gospel.

Agreed. But the Bible condemns kidnapping. Do you think those Christians in the Bible bought slaves that had been kidnapped from foreign lands? Maybe they were under the don't ask, don't tell rule.

IT APSOLUTLY DOES! Do you know that Slavery is legal in the Sudan. Do you know that people have been kidnapped into slavery and are there RIGHT NOW! I guess you advocate this. I guess you feel like this is biblical and God's way. Well I suggest you don't go traveling there to closely, you might find yourself writing your daughter saying, "It okay, I know he beats you. Submit. Sorry you will be used to pick grain for the rest of your life. What a vacation and God's will for you! How excited you must be!"

You know what, I pray for those people that they would be released! I think it is wrong to kidnap people are force them into slavery. I guess we disagree on this.

Joseph only proves your first point. He was a godly man and submitted. But his brothers throwing him into a well, and then selling him into slavery was WRONG! That was a sin. It wasn't right just because it was legal (if such a law existed execpt the law of God which forbids kidnapping). It wasn't any more right for pontifer to own him. God used it for good despite the sin. Because God kicks butt even when people are engrossed in sin.

 

The historical context of slavery during the times of the NT is much different than in England and the US. Compare slavery to the dispersion and how that came about. In some countries slaves could own land and buy and sell property. In many cases they would take care of the master's household and had the authority to conduct business for him.

 

Okay then, I think we agree.

 

What a strange thread. As an historian, I must weigh in on several levels.

American and English slavery was neither more nor less heinous that other kinds. Roman slavery was not all "kind and gentle." As with American slavery, that depended on the owner. Slavery has been with us since the beginning of history, AND IS STILL WITH US IN AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST. Africans have been selling other Africans since long before the New World was even discovered by Europeans. Of the slaves who were sold to the New World between 1600 and the 1880s (Brazil had slavery far longer than us), about 5% (that is, FIVE percent) came to the English colonies/United States. Most went to the Carribean and Brazil. Not all of the effects of slavery were bad. The African-Americans have added a lot to our culture, and whether is it PC to say it or not, the poorest ghetto resident in the US is far better off than most folks in Africa. A good friend of mine, a black pastor, said this to me: "I've been to Africa, and I am glad my ancestor could not get away from the slave catchers"

Not all of the slaves were black. Many were white "indentured servants," who were supposed to work for 7 to 10 years for their freedom, but who were often cheated, and who often, after getting their freedom, were forced into wage slavery with their former masters. There are even records from 17th century Virginia which indicate there were free blacks who owned whites!

Personally, I am opposed to slavery of all kinds. That includes, of course, business owners and corporations that don't pay a fair wage, and who conspire to squeeze the workers in the US by exploiting 3rd world workers, who will work for five bucks a day and a bowl of rice.

 

Well, Dr. Bob, you know that all of us celts (Irish or Scottish) are closet socialists, even those of us who carry the GOP banner.

Blue-painted savages forever!

(By the way, our school's history department dresses up every year as historical characters, and I have chosen William Wallace. Not the wimpy wormy Mel Gibson "Braveheart," but the real thing--Wallace was 6' 7", wore chain mail and a helmet, and weilded a sword that was over 5 feet long!)

 

For those who think Christian slave owners were kind, read on:

“I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all the slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists. Very near Mr. Freeland lived the Rev. Rigby Hopkins. These were members and ministers in the Reformed Methodist Church. Mr. Weeden owned, among others, a woman slave, whose name I have forgotten. This woman’s back, for weeks, was kept literally raw, made so by the lash of his merciless, religious wretch. He used to hire hands. His maxim was behave well or behave ill, it is the duty of a master occasionally to whip a slave, to remind him of his master’s authority. Such was his theory and such was his practice.”

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave, pg 84-85

 

Yep, the Bible warns slave owners about treating their slaves badly -

Ephes. 6:5-9 (ESV)
[5]Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, [6] not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, [7] rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, [8] knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. [9] Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Col. 4:1 (ESV)
Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

But I think you are rather broadbrushing when you sound as though you speak of all slave owners being unkind.

I don't know how many slave owning families there were in the South(maybe 5,000?) but surely at least one of those families was kind, don't ya think?