The “Sin” of Slavery?
This is the second of four posts on slavery reparations and the Bible. Read the first post here.
In the previous post, I shared a brief history of slavery and a definition of reparations. Here, I will comment on the biblical view of slavery before we dive into an explanation and analysis of some pro-reparations arguments.
The Biblical View: The “Sin” of Slavery?
Any biblical discussion of slavery must acknowledge the controversial fact that slavery itself is not prohibited in Scripture. In fact, in both testaments slavery is discussed in some detail, and in both cases it is considered possible to own slaves or to be a slave in a righteous manner [1]. This is important to note because much of the cultural conversation about slavery reparations is predicated upon the assumption that slavery (that is, owning or posessing another person for purposes of labor) is in itself a grievous evil. As Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson have argued convincingly, if surprisingly, this is an unbiblical assumption [2]. Christians, they contend, must not call something a sin that God does not [3].
If this is your first time learning this, it’s likely an uncomfortable realization, and objections probably spring to mind. How could God be OK with slavery? Every objection can be answered, of course, but I don’t want to remove the discomfort too quickly, because I think there is an important challenge here. That challenge is this: who decides what is right and wrong? Is it you, dear reader? Is it contemporary society? Or is it God? Society says slavery is a sin, but God says no such thing. Who will you believe? Who gets to define what sin is?
Consider these two facts:
As stated, in God’s law, slavery is permissible. In the Old Testament, the law of Moses outlines what a just institution of slavery is like: it’s a type of slavery that is similar to indentured servitude, with rights and protections for the slaves, and the opportunity for them to gain their freedom except in certain cases [4]. In the New Testament, written in the context of the Roman Empire, where the institution of slavery was not the just system outlined by the Mosaic law, it is still clear that Christians are permitted to have slaves, and are required to treat them well [5].
In God’s law, stealing and selling a person, or being in possession of a stolen person, is a grave sin. In the Old Testament, this is stated unambiguously: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death” (Exod 21:16). Human trafficking is so serious to God that He made it a capital crime. The New Testament likewise lists this as a sin (1 Tim 1:10).
So, one of these is not a sin, but the other one is. How do these facts apply in the case of American slavery? Well, on one hand, the American institution was not the perfectly just system of the Mosaic law, but we know from the example of the New Testament that this did not necessarily disqualify Christians from participating in it. On the other hand, the American institution was supplied in large part by the transatlantic slave trade—human trafficking, which is exactly the sin condemned so strongly in both testaments. At first look, it would seem from this that American slaveholders would not be condemned for having slaves, but could be condemned for having slaves who had been stolen and sold against their will. In other words, the problem was not possessing people, but possessing stolen people—not slavery itself, but the slave trade.
However, as with many things in history, it gets even more complicated than that. Unlike the simple case described in Exodus 21, where a kidnapper or slave trader would be caught and prosecuted, and the kidnapped person would presumably be returned to his home, the African slave trade created a much more convoluted situation. First, the slaves had been transported across the Atlantic, making it practically impossible to return them to their homeland. Second, most of them had been previously enslaved in Africa, and had been sold by their enslavers to the slave traders—meaning, they may have no longer had a home to return to, anyway. Third, slaves who were not purchased in the United States would be sold in Haiti and Brazil, where conditions for slaves could be much worse [6]. All these things considered, could it be possible that being purchased in the United States was the best potential outcome for many of these slaves? And given the situation, what if buying these stolen slaves and treating them well was the most ethical thing a United States citizen could do? I’m not answering these questions here, just asking them.
Another wrinkle to the issue is that some slave owners in the South were working vehemently for the abolition of the slave trade, even as they were buying slaves. How could this be? Well, apparently many of them were Christians who were trying to apply the principles of Scripture to this terrible situation by balancing the two facts listed above: owning slaves is permissible, but human trafficking is evil [7]. Thus, Virginia had tried twenty-eight times to end the slave trade in their state (efforts that were thwarted each time by outside authorities) prior to finally becoming “the first Commonwealth on earth” to outlaw it — even while the state had become “the home of the largest number of African slaves found within any of the States” [8].
The Point
There are many complexities to this history, and it would require a deeper exploration to work out all of the ethical issues. (Wilkins’s and Wilson’s booklet is a highly recommended read.) But what is important for our present purposes is to realize that, biblically, mere slave-ownership is not unethical. Thus, when we speak imprecisely about the “sin of slavery,” we set ourselves up for a terrible misunderstanding of God’s Word, and consequently a misunderstanding of right and wrong. This misunderstanding is now almost ubiquitous [9], as even people who ought to know better fall into the trap of treating slavery as inherently unsavory [10]. But mere slavery is not inherently unsavory, even if it is also not inherently desirable [11]. Kidnapping people, selling kidnapped people, or possessing kidnapped people are sins. So also, mistreating slaves is a sin [12]. But having slaves is not. When we speak of slavery itself as a sin, rather than keeping in view the true sins of human trafficking and abuse, there begins a subtle shift from God’s worldview to another, not unlike the subtle shift that Eve experienced in the garden when she decided to replace God’s revealed standard of good and evil with her own (with the serpent’s, in fact).
For this reason, any argument for slavery reparations that does not carefully define which wrongdoing is in view starts off on shaky grounds, biblically. If reparations necessarily relate to injustice, and the Bible does not consider slavery itself an injustice, then for any “slavery” reparations to be biblical they would have to apply not to slavery but only to attendant evils. All of the arguments for reparations summarized in the following two posts seem to assume that slavery itself is a sin, and if they assume that, they can be dismissed on that basis alone. That noted, since there certainly were evils associated with slavery as it existed in the United States, there is value in addressing the specific concerns that each argument raises, to consider whether they would have any application to those evils.
Up next, an analysis of biblical arguments for slavery reparations.
NOTES:
The photo above is of the slave quarters at Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina. The brick cabins are dated between 1790 and 1810 (https://www.boonehallplantation.com/black-history-in-america/).
[1] e.g., Lev 25:39-46; Eph 6:5-9; Col 3:22; 4:1; 1 Tim 6:1-4; etc. See also the eye-opening booklet by Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson, Southern Slavery As It Was: A Monograph by Steve Wilkins & Douglas Wilson (1996), 3-4, http://www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse/documents/060175768qrasouthern_slavery_as_it_was.pdf.
[2] Wilkins, Southern Slavery, 4.
[3] Ibid, 4.
[4] For example, slaveowners were to be punished for killing a slave (Exod 21:20); slaves who were permanently injured were to be set free (Exod 21:26-27); escaped slaves were not be handed over to their master or mistreated (Deut 23:15-16); and “the only permanent slaves were foreigners (Lev. 25:44-46) or Hebrews who voluntarily submitted themselves to a more permanent servile status (Ex. 21:5-6)” (Wilkins, Southern Slavery, 6). Read more about Old Testament slavery laws here: “Slavery laws in the Old Testament,” Rational Christianity, https://www.rationalchristianity.net/slavery_ot.html.
[5] For example, Eph 6:9 says, “Masters, do the same to [your bondservants], 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,” and Col 4:1 says, “Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” Of course, believing slaveowners were also subject to all of Christ’s other commands, not the least of which was to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Matt 22:39; Mark 12:31).
[6] Wilkins, Southern Slavery, 8.
[7] Ibid., 6-9.
[8] Ibid., 8-9.
[9] For example, scan some of the responses on this Quora thread (https://www.quora.com/Were-there-any-slaveowners-that-treated-their-slaves-morally-and-considerately?share=1) to see some of the supposed moral indignation, not merely that slaves would be mistreated, but that any type of slavery would exist. One commenter writes, “There is no way to morally own a slave and no form of slavery can be considerate.” This is certainly the common sentiment in present-day United States.
[10] For example, in his book Woke Church, Eric Mason imagines Philemon (the slave owner to whom Paul writes the New Testament letter of the same name) telling his friends, “God has been dealing with my heart about slavery” (Eric Mason, Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice, [Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2018], 63), as though God disapproved of an institution for which He has never expressed disapproval. The words of this imaginary Philemon express 21st-century American sensibilities, but not biblical sensibilities; it is a clear example of eisegesis on Mason’s part.
[11] Throughout history, the desirability of slavery was relative. For example, if someone sold himself into servitude to pay off a debt that he could not otherwise pay, then in that moment the institution was desirable to him, relative to other possible consequences. Still, if one’s situation allowed for it, freedom was better than slavery, as Paul writes: “Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.)” (1 Cor 7:21).
[12] e.g., Exod 21:20-21; Eph 6:9; Col 4:1; etc. Any time an American slaveowner abused one of his slaves, it was an offense to God. As a matter of historical record, however, there were apparently many slaveowners who treated their slaves well, and the great majority of slave narratives (accounts given by emancipated slaves about their experiences) represent freedmen looking back fondly on their former masters (Wilkins, Southern Slavery, 9-11).
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.