[Vision2020] slavery, Bible, 10 commandments

[Joe Campbell]

Fine. I disagree.

Joe Campbell

On Apr 16, 2009, at 4:46 PM, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com 
 > wrote:

> I agree with most of what Keely had to say except two points:
>
> 1) I don't think the OT condones slavery as we understand the world  
> slavery to be in the 21st Century. But I was taught the Bible is  
> about emancipating the soul, not the body, so it allows it and lays  
> down rules to prevent, deter, and severely limit abuses of  
> authority, included that of those with slaves and men debited to  
> them. The economics of the past and men depended on their ability to  
> sell themselves for about 7 years to get food, clothing, shelter,  
> and pay off debt. Wealthy men depended on the ability to buy men to  
> do labor. That is the way the system worked, they didn't have an  
> employer -employee  union relationship the way we do now.
>
> 2) As a Catholic, I disagree that the First Commandment doesn't  
> include loving God and your neighbor. That was the point of the Ten  
> Commandments. If think if you talk to any Catholic Priest they will  
> tell you that loving God and you neighbor are in the Ten  
> Commandments and must be followed above any other commandment.
>
> I believe if your interpretation of the Bible suggests that you  
> violate Loving your God or Loving your Neighbor, you are reading it  
> incorrectly, because I don't think God would never lay down a  
> command that violated Him.
>
> "But slavery is and always was wrong.I agree with Ralph that IF the  
> Bible says otherwise, it is wrong. My view is that it doesn't always  
> mean what it literally says."--Joe C.
>
> Joe, that made no sense to me whatsoever. I don't think there are  
> any phrases about slavery in the Bible that Ralph quoted that were  
> not meant literally.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Donovan
>
>
>
>
> --- On Thu, 4/16/09, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] slavery, Bible, 10 commandments
> To: "keely emerinemix" <kjajmix1 at msn.com>
> Cc: "<vision2020 at moscow.com>" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Thursday, April 16, 2009, 10:58 AM
>
> Keely,
>
> With all due respect, I don't think the move to justify slavery is  
> the right way to save Christianity. Slaves in Greece were property  
> and could be beaten. Not good.
>
> A better way would be to say that the moral lessons of the Bible are  
> best understood within a virtue ethic than a deontological ethic. It  
> does not give a list of rules but a way of life, a way toward virtue.
>
> Slavery is wrong but even the slave owner has some virtues; he is  
> not virtuous since he also has some vices. Maybe that is the message.
>
> But slavery is and always was wrong.I agree with Ralph that IF the  
> Bible says otherwise, it is wrong. My view is that it doesn't always  
> mean what it literally says.
>
> Joe Campbell
>
> On Apr 16, 2009, at 10:20 AM, keely emerinemix <kjajmix1 at msn.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> I'll try not to get us further off topic, but a few points I'd make:
>>
>> 1.  Ralph is correct.  The Old Testament does condone and regulate  
>> slavery, and the New Testament, while presenting a Gospel that is  
>> incompatible with slavery or any other form of social hierarchy or  
>> oppression, does not explicitly condemn the practice.  It is  
>> important to realize, however, that Hebrew slavery was not only  
>> more beneficient than that of the pagan cultures around the Jewish  
>> people, but that it was radically different than the race-based,  
>> permanent, violence-controlled, man-stealing, hate-based slavery of  
>> the antebellum south, which could not be justified, period, under  
>> any circumstance for these very reasons.  Hebrew slavery was not  
>> race-based, not permanent, and more correctly what we would likely  
>> call, even as we properly find it abhorrent, an indentured  
>> servitude.  The New Testament slavery discussed by Paul was  
>> basically of the same sort and, again, an improvement over slavery  
>> practices of other non-Yahweh-worshipping cultures (this is how I'm  
>> using the term "pagan").  The Gospel of Jesus Christ had as one of  
>> its inevitable outcomes the eventual end to the slave practices of  
>> the day among Christians -- again, a slavery entirely different  
>> from the inexcusable slavery of the antebellum south.  The movement  
>> of the Spirit in Christiandom, and, later, the work of thousands of  
>> Christ-worshipping abolitionists (including my great-great-great  
>> grandparents, both ordained ministers) brought about the end of  
>> slavery in "Christian" America and the understanding, finally and  
>> comprehensively, that the "owning" of another person's labor and  
>> security, not to mention the attempt to rob them of body, soul and  
>> spirit, is wrong.  Why God moved incrementally in abolishing any  
>> form of slavery, I don't know.  But it's foolish to pretend that  
>> the OT doesn't lay out strict regulations of an accepted practice,  
>> and equally so to pretend that the NT either encouraged slavery or  
>> specifically condemned it.  The NT church, instead, affected  
>> society by adopting in itself the egalitarian spirit of the Holy  
>> Spirit.  The Apostles weren't social reformers, and we might wish  
>> they were, but they preached a message that believers came to  
>> understand, and not as rapidly as we wish they had, was  
>> incompatible with the Kingdom of God among them.
>>
>> 2.  Nowhere in either OT account of the Ten Commandments does it  
>> say to love your neighbor as yourself.  It shouldn't need to, and  
>> nothing in the Decalogue makes it possible to legitimately not love  
>> your neighbor.  Rather, the Ten describe how to love God and how to  
>> live lovingly amongst humanity.  It's nonsensical to claim that  
>> "love your neighbor as yourself" is part of the Decalogue -- it  
>> isn't -- and it's absurd to claim that the idea of loving one's  
>> neighbor isn't the whole point of the Ten.
>>
>> 3.  Yeah, I said Christ-worshipping abolitionists, and to claim  
>> that the slavery of the antebellum south was somehow in any way  
>> Godly is only a bit more offensive, and wrong, than claims by  
>> Wilsonites that those who worked to abolish it were motivated by  
>> hatred of God (Southern Slavery As It Was/Black and Tan, Wilson and  
>> Wilkins).  And, further, the Gospel message is an egalitarian one,  
>> and Federal Vision, patriarchy, "complementarianism" and any other  
>> male-favoring message is at odds with it.
>>
>> Period.
>>
>> Keely
>> http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.
>
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