People often wonder about slavery. How could we have such a thing as slavery in our world? It is a good question.
The Church often gets involved in this conversation. "Slavery is so obviously wrong," people exclaim, "how could the Church ever support it? How come the Apostle Paul didn't come out more strongly and clearly against it?" Good questions. American chattel slavery was an abomination and it is terrible, a gross injustice, that it was allowed to continue as long as it did.
Slavery is a universal human problem. It isn't just a problem in lands influenced by Christianity. If you look in every corner of the world, at every season of history, slavery has been a problem. People enslave people, not because of Christianity, nor because Christianity doesn't do enough to stop them (though this might be an open question), but because people sin. Slavery is a prime exhibit for the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong with humanity at the level of our hardware, or operating system. We enslave people because we devalue them, because we want to control them, we enslave people because it is convenient and productive and cost effective. But all this is because of sin. Our sin fractures our relationships with God, ourselves, one another, and even the very creation. And when this happens, we're willing to ignore the God-image in others and instead to view them as property, and, often, to treat them worse. This is not just a problem of the "Christian" West enslaving the native peoples of Africa and otherwise. This is but a particularly offensive, and historically recent, example of what is a universal human problem.
So how does this relate to Christianity and the Bible? Well, it is true that the Bible does condone slavery in the Old Testament. Yet the kind of slavery talked about is very nuanced from that commonly practiced in that era. Slavery in the Ancient Near East was an offensive affair, full of blood and gore and worse. The Law of the Jews challenges the people of God to treat aliens and foreigners and slaves in their midst with deep respect, for they, too, were slaves once. They are to include them in festivals and enable them to worship God. God is calling his people to subvert the dominant culture understanding of the day. And the same is true when we fast-forward to the days of the Apostle Paul. Again, it is true that Paul did not speak out against slavery as clearly or stridently as we would have liked him too. Yet he was already sowing the seeds of change and transformation by calling his Christian slave owners to relate to their Christian slaves as brothers and sisters in Christ, and Christian slaves to serve their masters as they would serve the Lord (and not try to foment rebellion). These seeds may seem mustard-sized to us, but they did flower into the ripe fruit of the 19th century abolitionist movement.
Christianity is not the cause of slavery. Human sin is. And while it might be true that the Church did not let the spread of the gospel uproot the evil of slavery as fast as we might have liked, it did at every turn subtly subvert the brutality of slavery, until finally the evil institution began to be undone.
We sometimes have this idea that it is wrong to ask why.
Why? It isn't a sin to doubt. It isn't a sin to ask questions.
God never turns his back on anyone asking an honest question. We can be honest with God. We can bring our hard questions to Jesus.
There's a story from the life of Jesus. You can find it in Matthew's biography, right near the end, in the 28th chapter of his book. Matthew is telling the story about the time after Jesus' resurrection from the dead, when he meets with his followers before translating out of their view. Matthew says that, when they saw the risen Jesus, their reaction was to worship. Jesus has just risen from the dead, something that no other human being had ever done. He's defeated death and his body is glorious. They were filled with awe and reverence. And, Matthew says, "some doubted." I love that little line, because it has got to be one of the most honest statements in the Bible. I mean, they knew what we know: dead people stay dead, right? And here's Jesus, risen from the dead? It was a little much to take in for some of them. They worshiped, but some doubted. They worshiped even while doubting. They were able to honor God and ask some honest questions at the same time; doing the one didn't necessarily diminish the other. Nor does Jesus rebuke the doubters. In fact, he commissions these same folks to carry on the work he's begun.
There's another biblical story that I'm reminded of, even more famous. It has to do with so-called "Doubting Thomas," pictured above. This story comes from John's biography of Jesus, in the 20th chapter of his book. Again, Jesus has recently risen from the dead. While his friends are gathered (secretly - for fear of suffering the same fate as Jesus), Jesus meets up with them to show them he's now alive; only, Thomas isn't there. They tell Thomas Jesus has appeared to them alive, but Thomas is skeptical. He wants proof. A week later Jesus meets up with his friends again, this time with Thomas among them. Jesus is fully aware of Thomas' mindset. Does he rebuke him? Kick him out of the group? No. He invites him to poke around and consider the evidence, to consider Jesus. And then Jesus invites Thomas to lay doubting aside and take up trust, to believe.
Jesus welcomes our honest questions.
This blog is dedicated to reflecting on some honest questions asked by members and friends of the Royal Oak Vineyard Church in the 2008 Easter Season. I look forward to your comments.
Why? It isn't a sin to doubt. It isn't a sin to ask questions.
God never turns his back on anyone asking an honest question. We can be honest with God. We can bring our hard questions to Jesus.
There's a story from the life of Jesus. You can find it in Matthew's biography, right near the end, in the 28th chapter of his book. Matthew is telling the story about the time after Jesus' resurrection from the dead, when he meets with his followers before translating out of their view. Matthew says that, when they saw the risen Jesus, their reaction was to worship. Jesus has just risen from the dead, something that no other human being had ever done. He's defeated death and his body is glorious. They were filled with awe and reverence. And, Matthew says, "some doubted." I love that little line, because it has got to be one of the most honest statements in the Bible. I mean, they knew what we know: dead people stay dead, right? And here's Jesus, risen from the dead? It was a little much to take in for some of them. They worshiped, but some doubted. They worshiped even while doubting. They were able to honor God and ask some honest questions at the same time; doing the one didn't necessarily diminish the other. Nor does Jesus rebuke the doubters. In fact, he commissions these same folks to carry on the work he's begun.
There's another biblical story that I'm reminded of, even more famous. It has to do with so-called "Doubting Thomas," pictured above. This story comes from John's biography of Jesus, in the 20th chapter of his book. Again, Jesus has recently risen from the dead. While his friends are gathered (secretly - for fear of suffering the same fate as Jesus), Jesus meets up with them to show them he's now alive; only, Thomas isn't there. They tell Thomas Jesus has appeared to them alive, but Thomas is skeptical. He wants proof. A week later Jesus meets up with his friends again, this time with Thomas among them. Jesus is fully aware of Thomas' mindset. Does he rebuke him? Kick him out of the group? No. He invites him to poke around and consider the evidence, to consider Jesus. And then Jesus invites Thomas to lay doubting aside and take up trust, to believe.
Jesus welcomes our honest questions.
This blog is dedicated to reflecting on some honest questions asked by members and friends of the Royal Oak Vineyard Church in the 2008 Easter Season. I look forward to your comments.
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1 comment:
We enslave people because we devalue them, because we want to control them, we enslave people because it is convenient and productive and cost effective.
This is so very true.
You are very gifted at explaining these things.
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