Did Christianity create slavery?

Did Christianity create slavery? No.

Might it have been used to condone slavery in the American south? No doubt. 

How are we to think about it?


1) Slavery was universal in the ancient world and not racially based. Typically slaves were the spoils of war. The first nations in the world to outlaw slavery were Christian nations including Catholic Spain as the movement gathered steam through the Catholic middle ages. Much of the slavery of Africans was by Africans who sold conquered members of other African tribes to Moslem slave traders who then sold them into the international slave trade. Moslem nations were among the very last to abolish slavery. That Christian nations participated in that slave trade was more the evidence to the power of sin rather than to the triumph of Christianity. And it was Christian nations that abolished the slave trade.

2) Britain used its power and influence to eliminate the slave trade worldwide in the first half of the nineteenth century led by Christian principles rather than political or economic interests (British slavers made as much money as other slavers and they were opposed to the reforms that threatened their profits.)

3) Presentations of Christianity as the ideology used to hold slaves down strike me as propaganda. If Christianity was used by some in the south, consciously or unconsciously, to subject Black slaves, it also pricked the consciences of others to treat slaves as children of God. The reason we in the West believe "that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" is because Christianity taught us in the west that we are made in the image and likeness of God and what we do to the least of our brethren, we do to Me (Christ.) Christianity converted both the barbarians and the cultured Greeks and Romans, neither of whom believe in such an idea, through stories, by the courageous evangelization by monks and priests, and by martyrs. Belief in such a counter-intuitive view was only spread to Black Africa with the spread of Christianity where it is now the fastest growing region of the Christian faith in the world and is producing new martyrs every day.

4) Christian churches have done much to build Black communities and support the Back family. The government and the ideologues have done much to destroy the Black family finishing the job slavery started. Rebel against them not the Church.

5) The temptation is to blame something outside us not ourselves. I know this from my own shameful experience. That is sin talking not the Holy Spirit. The easy way out is blaming the Other rather than rallying yourself and pulling yourself up by your efforts and your friends' help. That is the culture talking whether Trump to the Hillbillies or the ideologues to Blacks. They are not our friends. They make money by shilling sin to our weakness.

6) I just got finished reading (actually listening to) J.D. Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy. Read it. It is not just the Black family the culture is destroying. I come from neither a Black nor a hillbilly family and yet I found much to identify with and shed more than one tear. Don't give in to the easy path that the culture portrays, the excuses it gives you or the enemies it lets you wallow in. Rather  take charge of yourself and triumph!

Blessed José Please Pray for Media Talking Heads Whose Attacks on Ted Cruz Display Their Ignorance

Blessed José Sánchez del Río is well on his way to being recognized as a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church, maybe as soon as Pope Francis' visit to Mexico next month.  He was the young man depicted in the movie For Greater Glory: The True Story of the Christiada and who, in some ways, stole the show.




Blessed José took his religion seriously. I wonder about the people whom Kathleen Parker says she knows who take their religion seriously.  Were he still alive, would he have been among those whom Kathleen Parker would likely have known?  “I don’t know anyone who takes their religion seriously who would think that Jesus should rise from the grave and resurrect himself to serve Ted Cruz,  I know so many people who are offended by that comment.” This bit of sociology of religion came in response to Senator Ted Cruz who said "If we waken and energize the body of Christ, we will win and turn the country around."

If we awaken and energize the body of Christ,”

If we awaken and energize the body of Christ,”

If we awaken and energize the body of Christ,”

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz continues his appeal to religious conservatives. “If we awaken and energize the body of Christ,” he recently said, “we will win and we will turn the country around.” - See more at: http://aleteia.org/blogs/deacon-greg-kandra/great-moments-in-journalism-stupid-pulitzer-prize-winner-edition/#sthash.a3py2AWq.dpuf

Quick review of Christianity 101: 

1) Do Christians believe Christ is still in a gave in Palestine awaiting His resurrection?

2) Do Christians refer to His church as the body of Christ?

If you answer "no" to 1) and "yes" to 2), you are not Pulitzer Prize material and probably not a member of the new post Protestant WASP elite who seem to run the country.  R.R. Reno analyzes them with great insight in the February First Things.  The sociologists do not study them explicitly.  Reno figures those who self identify in public opinion polls as 'none' for religious affiliation are a good approximation. He concludes, "Under the leadership of the post-Protestant WASPs who run almost all our establishment institutions, the Nones are the most dynamic force in our cultural and electoral politics. They now drive the culture wars. They’re the twenty-first-century values voters who are altering the political landscape."

Maybe we are seeing the revolt of the lowly of the world against those dressed in virtual purple.