Slavery and Christianity. What was their relationship like?

What does the Novus ordo seclorum rely on when it proclaims the doctrine of human dignity and rights? This doctrine was not new; its implementation was new. In American and British history, the idea of ​​rights can be traced back to the philosopher John Locke, but even Locke was only a great summarizer and synthesizer of ideas that others had come up with before him. The idea of ​​rights and dignity first appears in the West at the beginning of the sixteenth century. A few decades after the Spanish discovered the New World, several very important debates erupted in Spain, which not only gave rights intellectual justification but also brought the first political recognition that these rights should apply to all people.

It has been debated whether Indians have souls. That’s really up for debate. Today, atheists would probably say, “Of course they don’t, and neither do we.” If you value your rights and dignity today, be glad that like-minded atheists had no influence in the sixteenth century. The reason for the Spanish discussions were differences of opinion between the conquistadors and the Christian missionaries. Almost immediately after the establishment of the colonies on the American continent, the conquistadors and their successors began to enslave the local Indians. The missionaries complained to the Spanish crown and the Roman Church that this enslavement was immoral and unjust.

Slaveholders resorted to the usual arguments: Indians are not like us, they are not Christians, they are not even civilized. The slavers had on their side Juan Ginés de Sepúlvedo, a famous scholar of Aristotle’s work. The latter borrowed Aristotle’s term and referred to the Indians as “slaves by nature”. However, Francisco de Vitoria, a Dominican theologian from the University of Salamanca, disagreed. He declared that it did not matter at all that the slaves were not civilized. It doesn’t even matter that they are not Christians! This is because God created all people, Christians and non-Christians, in his own image. Since God is immortal, humans have immortal souls that express man’s likeness to God. And because God created us, only God, not man, can make claims on us.

According to Vitoria, enslaving the Indians meant degrading the immortal soul to a tool for material gain. Vitoria said that to make this practice more self-serving and self-beneficial for Spain and the Spanish crown, it should be outlawed because it is an insult to God. The Pope agreed with Vitoria and published the encyclical Sublimis Deus in 1536, in which he declared that “Indians, as well as other nations that Christians may discover, must in no way be deprived of their freedom and property, although they do not belong to the faith of Jesus Christ”. A few years later, the Spanish emperor Charles V canceled all further expeditions to America. Never before, writes historian Lewis Hanke, had a powerful empire “suspended conquest until it had been decided,whether they are fair’. It was on this topic – the moral legitimacy of the Spanish conquest – that the emperor convened a great debate in the monastery in Valladolid in 1550. Sepúlveda defended colonial interests. He argued that the Indians were soulless barbarians who should be ruled by the Spanish for their own good. He was opposed by the Spanish monk Bartolomé de Las Casas, a passionate supporter of the Indians. Las Casas argued that Indians, like all other people, have immortal souls that give them special dignity. He also dramatically depicted the abuses that Indians had to endure “for their good.”

Although the Spanish crown sided with Las Casas and passed several laws to protect the rights of the Indians, these laws were largely ignored in the Americas because Spain was so far away that they were almost unenforceable. Nevertheless, the Valladolid debates represent a historical landmark. Free-thinking intellectuals and politicians, such as John Locke in England and the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia, drew on their ideas to formulate the enduring foundations of human dignity and human rights. What emerges from the Valladolid debates is that whether or not we ascribe to others an immortal soul is important—our belief affects how we treat them in the here and now.

The Abolition Movement

Another clear example of otherworldly views having consequences in this world is the abolitionist movement. In my previous book, Christianity and Atheism, I wrote quite differently that slavery was a common practice and the only group that opposed it was the Church. Fundamental opposition to slavery was an exclusively Christian idea, and therefore all anti-slavery movements were organized by Christians. Moreover, all the states that abolished slavery by their own decision were Christian. These states granted freedom to slaves who could not win it themselves. “Other revolutions have been the insurrection of the oppressed,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “but this was the repentance of the tyrant.”

Atheists, of course, question the centrality of Christianity, blame the belief in an afterlife for encouraging slavery, and argue that the abolition of slavery was largely a secular agenda. For example, Michael Shermer points out that the Bible contains no objections to slavery and that some passages call for slaves to obey their masters. Other atheists say that this biblical approval of slavery deepened the agony of slaves, especially in America, where the majority of slaves were Christians. Moreover, Christians kept slaves for centuries and discouraged them from rebellion by assuring them of happiness in the next life. Even in the period just prior to the war between the North and the South, Christians stood on both sides of the barricade, with Southern Christians vigorously defending slavery and Northern Christians condemning it.

Atheists point out that real opposition to slavery did not arise in Europe and America until the eighteenth century, which coincides precisely with the historical epoch known as the Enlightenment. Opposition to slavery is therefore a secular and Enlightenment idea rather than a Christian one. What to answer to this criticism of atheists? That the New Testament calls slaves to listen to masters and masters to be kind to slaves must be understood in the context of the life of Christians in the Roman Empire. The apostle Paul accepted the institution of slavery for the same reason as the Roman tax code and the rules of service in the Roman army: because he had no choice. However, it is clear from the book of Acts that Christians are not to enslave their fellow believers. The best way to test any social philosophy is to find out how its followers interpret and implement it.
Christian authorities, such as the church father Gregory of Nyssa, preached to Christians not to own slaves, and as their message spread through Europe, Christians did obey him.

It is widely believed that Christians took over slavery from the Greeks and Romans and practiced it until modern times, but this is not true. Christianity rose to power in the fourth century, and between the fourth and tenth centuries slavery was more or less abolished in Europe. According to historian Rodney Starte, there were virtually no slaves in Christian Europe in the second half of the Middle Ages.

Slavery was replaced by serfdom, which was not exactly a benign institution, but at least it was based on mutual rights and obligations between masters and serfs. Serfs paid rent and kept part of the harvest for themselves. They could marry and marry as they pleased, and they decided for themselves when they would work, how they would raise their families, and how they would spend their free time. In short, they were not property or “human tools”. If you ever have to decide whether you want to be a serf or a slave, be a serf.

Slavery spread in the American South for one reason: there was a lot of hard, grueling work in the New World, and there were plenty of men and women to do it in the African slave market. Marxist historian Eugene Genovese wrote in Roll, Jordan, Roll, widely regarded as the best study of American slavery, that the planter class had a strong existential interest in slavery. It was solely this selfish interest that led Southerners to defend slavery. Although they referred to biblical theology, they only justified why the plantation class forced blacks against their will into unpaid labor. Today, most of these justifications, such as the curse of Ham, are considered complete nonsense. Nowhere in the Bible does it even indicate that Ham was black! It may surprise some that Southerners advocated slavery even though they called themselves Christians, but it can only really surprise someone who does not know the depths of human selfishness.

When Genovese began work on his study, he thought he would find that Christianity reconciled slaves to their lot, urging them to wait for eternal salvation and not desire freedom in this world. That’s exactly what atheists say. Genovese found that in the darkness of slavery, many slaves did cling to the belief of an eternal reward. However, he was surprised that the slaves, under the influence of these heavenly expectations, did not reconcile and were not satisfied with their lot. On the contrary, they developed a strong liberal ethos in which the desire for salvation in the next world was inextricably linked with the demand for freedom in this world.

Genovese, who later converted to Catholicism, shows in his book that this ethos among slaves was born from reading the Bible. Remember the text of the famous spiritual: “Go down, Moses, into the land of Egypt and say to Pharaoh: let my people go.” The slaves found in the book of Exodus a parallel between their fate and the situation of the Israelites in Egyptian captivity. Thus Moses became not only the leader of the captive Jews, but also of the black slaves in America. Later, many freed slaves named their sons “Moses”. Slaves drew a strong free-spirited message from the Bible, although atheistic criticism claims the opposite.

In the early eighteenth century, groups of American Quakers and evangelicals began the first organized campaigns against slavery. They were motivated by a simple idea that the Bible proclaims: We are all equal in the eyes of God. This idea was understood until that time as a spiritual truth that only concerns the future life. Quakers and evangelicals, however, were convinced that it had fundamental consequences for this life as well. From the theological statement about the equality of people before God, they derived the political lesson that no man has the right to rule over others without their consent. From this revolutionary idea arose not only the abolition of slavery, but also American democracy. The principle of modern representative democracy is actually the same – no one has the right to rule others without their consent.

It should also be mentioned that, for example, in 1537, Pope Paul III spoke out against slavery with the Bull Sublimis Deus.

The benefit of Christianity and missionaries.

Many atheists object to Christianity’s contribution to society. An extensive discussion could be conducted about this, but for all the statements, let’s mention at least one eloquent comment. When I debated Christopher Hitchens in New York – it was an exciting encounter with a resourceful atheist opponent on a topic called “Is Christianity the Problem?”. Probably the most interesting question was asked by a man from the island nation of Tonga. He said Tonga had been mired in horrific blood feuds, tribal wars and even cannibalism for centuries. Then came the missionaries with their doctrine of God, the brotherhood of all men, and the afterlife. Today life in Tonga is much calmer and happier. The man turned to Hitchens and asked him: You have presented some interesting theories, but what can you offer us? Hitchens was momentarily speechless. The incredibly simple question caught him and the audience by surprise.