Is Slavery Objectively Wrong?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll seek to answer the age -old question, is slavery objectively wrong?

And Tim, I think this is one of those conversations that more often than not, it's a very emotional type of conversation for a lot of people, in sort of an understandable way, especially if you have grown up in the

U .S., and really the South, because it's something that is taught about in schools.

Obviously, our country has a very specific history when it comes to slavery in general.

Obviously, we all know about the transatlantic slave trade that was going on during colonial times.

We know about chattel slavery that was going on until, what, 200 years ago,

I think. And so it's something that our country, the

U .S., has very specific ties to, and so that really influences how we look at this topic, how we discuss it.

It's a topic that's still being talked about today. When you think of chattel slavery, that's something that's still brought up often today, and in a certain way, a lot of people bring it up almost as if they are the ones who experienced the chattel slavery.

Yeah, you said it's understandable, and there's a certain element of it that feels understandable, but then the other element of it that you're talking about right now feels very not understandable, in that you have individuals who seem to be role -playing, live -action role -playing, as if they were plantation slaves early on in their life.

And it really isn't a sign of health for a society to still be bitter and bent out of shape about something that was ended 160 years ago, particularly when we're the kind of society right now that is engaging in the abominable practices that we're engaging in currently at the moment.

And so some of this discussion about slavery has the moral effect of blinding our eyes to the very real heinous acts that we're committing today, like child sacrifice.

I mean, we're worse than Nazis today, and whatever you say about slavery as a moral evil, and obviously the transatlantic slave trade had some great elements of monstrous moral evil involved.

It's nothing in comparison to the abortion kind of evil that is currently being perpetrated by people today, and so it is a sign of self -righteous hypocrisy to basically be unwilling to see, get the log out of our eye.

I mean, we're intent on removing the speck out of people's eyes before, when we have a huge log in our eye right now.

Right, and I think a lot of people, too, with this kind of conversation, to even ask this question, all they're going to hear is, okay, so you were in favor of chattel slavery.

You were in favor of transatlantic slave trade -type behavior. And I think that's part of what makes this conversation so hard to have, is you really can't even have it.

You can't even actually talk about slavery in any other context other than the type of slavery that the

U .S. partook in, right? Well, I understand what you mean, but then we're going to have it.

Yeah, obviously we're going to have it, because that's what we do, and we're okay with that, but then most people aren't.

You have to be the kind of person who just doesn't care. You care more about the truth than you care about what individuals who are unstable and poor thinkers are going to say about you.

So this is an emotionally charged topic for some, and you're living in a society right now, you can't really have, as you said, you can't have this discussion without being slandered and maligned.

Obviously it's an inappropriate question to ask, but one of the things that's funny about that is I've never owned a slave.

I'm a quarter Mexican, right? So I'm a quarter minority here. But then that doesn't really get me off the hook.

So I haven't owned a slave. I've never owned a slave. My parents have never owned a slave. I don't know anyone who's ever owned a slave.

So I refuse to apologize on behalf of things that I've never done before. But then

I think it's a fair moral question, and why it's an important moral question is because the Bible has a lot to say about this.

There's no shortage of atheists who are going to come along and essentially attack the Bible at this very point and basically just point to the immorality present in the

Bible because the Bible doesn't speak about slavery the way that many pastors who are trying to score political points speak about slavery.

So the biblical view of slavery is a lot more complicated than the simplistic kind of view of slavery that we're told to have.

So we're supposed to hear the word slavery and basically just go, ack, evil.

But then part of what's happening there is if we do that, we're throwing the Bible under the bus. And by extension, we're throwing the

God of the Bible under the bus. And I'm not precisely willing to do that. Right. And then once you're willing to go there, you're basically saying the

Bible is useless because there are certain parts of it that we've got to get away from. Well, I mean, that's essentially what atheists are pointing out.

And I just think you have a lot of Christians who haven't read the Bible very well. And a lot of the answers that we give on this topic are just reflective of people who are grossly ignorant about what the

Bible is saying. And it's embarrassing. So maybe if they would do the read the

Bible in a month challenge, they would get through some of these passages and they could educate themselves and do the work and do better.

Do better, yeah. Because, I mean, the Bible is not saying what contemporary evangelical elites are saying it's saying at this point.

So there's a lot of moves that we make on this topic that are not able to be textually grounded.

And we need to revisit what's actually being said and have more careful arguments at this point.

Sure. Okay. So the question to start everything off is, is it objectively wrong?

Is slavery objectively wrong? Yeah, I mean, to say that slavery is objectively wrong would be to say that it's an institution which itself is a moral evil and there's no conceivable situation where it could be okay.

And if you say it's objectively wrong, then what you're saying is the Bible is immoral.

Because the Bible does regulate slavery and it does condone slavery in certain situations.

And so the Bible is not a book that's anti -slavery in the way that many people want it to be.

So the Bible has a lot to say about that and it's not what people want it to say.

So I would say that slavery isn't objectively wrong. There are conditions in which slavery becomes immoral and then there are some conditions in which it's acceptable.

And really when it comes down to it, maybe I could give a definition of slavery that we're talking about in the episode that could be helpful.

But slavery is a condition in which one human being is owned by another, is under the owner's control, and has less rights than those held by free persons.

So basically, I'll read it again. Conditioning in which one human being is owned by another, is under the owner's control, has less rights than those held by free persons.

So under that definition, slavery is not objectively wrong. And the Bible does describe certain situations in which slavery under that definition would be okay.

And there are certain bad ways to enter into slavery. And in a lot of ways, this really is like, if you were to step back, this is not an

American problem. So most people who are talking about this as some sort of Western problem, particularly American problem, every society throughout the history of the world has had slaves.

This is a fallen human condition kind of issue.

So every society throughout the history of the world has had slaves. Not only that, America currently has slaves.

So we think that we're past all this. We have slaves. We have a prison system. So we take men who have committed certain crimes, we put them in cages, we take away their rights, we force them to work.

You know, that is slavery, right? We just don't call it that. So what's happening is a lot of people are just,

I have a sentimental, emotional reaction to this word.

But this concept is a universal concept. And in many ways, it's a necessary universal concept in a fallen world.

And you have to figure out what to do with it. And you can just change the name of it and make yourself feel better and pat yourself on the back.

Or you can deal with the concept as it exists. And this is, in many ways, it's a necessary concept in a fallen world.

Sure. So with all that being said, is slavery objectively right?

Answer that however you see fit. Answer that however you see fit. So I wouldn't want to say without qualification that slavery is objectively right.

I would say that slavery itself is, there are certain conditions in which in a fallen world, slavery is a morally permissible option.

So it's a morally permissible option in certain conditions. But then if you're asking it in the reverse, is it objectively wrong?

Then I want to say that no, in of itself, that institution is not, in of itself, morally wrong.

It's just a necessary entailment of life in a fallen world.

But under certain conditions, it can be wrong. And under certain conditions, it can be morally permissible, if that makes sense.

So you mentioned the Bible doesn't outright condemn slavery the same way that most do today.

So why didn't it? Well, part of this gets at what I was saying, that it's a necessary institution in a fallen world.

So there are things that, just let me spell that out a little bit. There are things that people can do in which you, like the morally just thing to do is to take away certain aspects of their freedom.

So there are things that you can do. And part of this is related to just the reason, like we're sheltered in the

West from war and how war actually works and how certain consequences of living life in a fallen world happen because we're not just next door to a tribe that has sworn a blood oath, for instance, to conquer us.

So I mean, you can imagine the kind of scenario. And many African tribes, even during the time of the transatlantic slave, were in this kind of scenario.

And many African tribes are still in this kind of scenario today where the tribe across the way has sworn a blood oath to conquer you and destroy you.

So then what do you do if they come in as invaders in order to destroy you, and you win?

You have to ask, what do you do if you win? And there's some kind of oath that they've taken to utterly wipe you off the face of the earth.

Well, you let them all go, obviously. Right. You have different options, right? So you have different options of things you can do at that point.

So one is you can wipe them all out, right? So they've declared genocide on you, okay?

Well, you can in turn respond to that by declaring genocide on them. So that's option one, okay?

Sure. Option two is you have the technological advantage, you win the fight.

I mean, option two is what you said, which is catch and release kind of scenario, right? Well, you catch and release, they're just going to go regroup and come back again, right?

I mean, so what do you do? Well, maybe they learn their lesson, too. Option three is to talk to them over a cup of coffee and see if you can persuade them that this blood oath business is—

The winsome approach. The winsome approach. And there's a lot of people that just simply can't understand why that wouldn't work, because they're that naive.

But assume, though, that they come trying to kill you, and they did kill a lot of you, right?

But you won, it was a bloody fight, and you got it. What do you do at that point? You have the overwhelming technological advantage.

I mean, I think maybe—let me modestly say that maybe enslaving them at that point would be the best option, the most humane option, the most gracious option, the most charitable option at that point.

It's just to say, hey, keep them under guard, right? Keep them under guard.

They don't have the same rights and privileges as citizens have at that point because they're under guard, okay?

Like you know they're going to try to slit your throat the moment they can. Keep them under guard, right? Give them some work to do.

So forced labor, hey, you want to eat? You work, okay? So you're forcing them to work, right?

They want to fight you, right? Like harsh punishments for that. And then give them a chance to maybe earn their freedom.

Try to persuade them over time, slowly. But I mean this isn't going to be some immediate thing. And I think most countries that have experienced war, it's not as if everything just goes to normal immediately once the battle is over.

Right? Oh, well, we got a little carried away. You know, blew up all your family members and everything, right?

Got a little nuts there with all that. I mean that's just not the way it works. Well, I mean one example of that is just World War I and World War II, right?

Like so you have Germany fighting, I mean a multiple front war.

And then they're forced to sign a peace treaty when it's clear that they're going to lose the war.

And then, you know, 20 years later, 25 years later, they immediately start another one.

Well, I mean there's sanctions, there's things you can do, and there's all sorts of, but I mean it's not just like, it doesn't just go away, you know?

It's not just, hey, we all trust you. It's not just, hey, live next door, be our neighbor, you know? Because Jesus told us to love our neighbor, and like all that's pretty naive about the way the world actually works.

And so you have to figure out what you're going to do in these kind of scenarios. And like the answers are, like you can just not give answers and just emote and say, well, slavery is bad.

But what do you do in those kind of scenarios where you have someone who's declared genocide against you?

And like, what can you do? And it may be it's just that you, maybe at that point, slavery becomes the best of a bunch of bad options to where you gradually over time give them more freedom if they show themselves to be responsible, give them a way to earn trust.

But it may take years and years and years, right? Of doing that kind of thing to where you can get to a place where we can move on.

And none of that's, that's not all dependent on you, just like that depends on them moving on, okay?

Like them moving on in their minds. So if you have scenarios like that, I mean, prison, like I don't know that prison is like, the way that we do prison right now in America is profoundly unjust in that it's at taxpayer expense.

And so you commit a crime and everyone has to pay for it, not just you. But I mean, like most people, most people if you're not like leaning libertarian at that point, and I think the

Bible had a lot to say about that too. So I'm not just saying that that's purely a libertarian urge,

I'm just saying that most people aren't leaning that way with that, but they don't really have any problem with putting a person in a cage, taking away their rights.

They don't have the right to bear arms, they don't have the right to vote. I mean, and then you're forcing them to work, whatever you're doing, like you're responding to the reality of a person, like that people can do certain things that cause them to change their social status and force them to like, you can commit certain crimes and lose your rights, right?

And functionally lose your freedom, okay? So like that's just a necessary component of society in general.

So like there are things people can do that are putting themselves in certain situations. So, I mean, for example,

I mean, what do you do like if you steal a bunch of stuff from someone? Go to jail right away.

Right, well, if jail is not the option, let's say jails are not the option. I don't think jails are the best option anyways, but, right, so we think the best option is jail, but like, let's say you, like the problem with that is you go to jail, you don't pay that guy back.

Right. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. So let's say that you stole $100 ,000 worth of his money and you have no way to pay it back and you blew it all, right?

Blew it all on drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, whatever. You stole the money and you don't have a way to pay it back.

What should happen to you? Okay. So, you know, the Bible says that you should make restitution and not just,

I mean, not just like pay the amount back, but pay it back in multiples of itself. But how do you do that?

Like under the current prison system, you're going to go, like you steal that $100 ,000 from them and then they have to pay for you to live in jail.

Yeah. Right. And not get their money back. Okay. So tell me, is that just, is that right? Is that honorable?

Is that moral? Now, what if you could work as their slave for years in order to pay it off?

Which is more moral? Which is right? Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, probably the one where the victim actually gets restitution.

Right. So, but then like if you're just going to emotionally react against this word, you're okay with profound levels of injustice.

Do you get what I'm saying? Like, so you get to steal that $100 ,000, you don't even pay it back. You just, you know, just declare bankruptcy.

It's all over with, you know, move on. Like, what do you say? It'd been much better if you were that guy's slave.

You get what I'm saying? To actually earn it back. Now you may not like that. And we may morally respond like as if that's outrageous, but everyone knows what's just.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. So what

I think earlier, you mentioned that there are certain situations in which the

Bible says that it is just objectively wrong. Slavery in certain situations is objectively wrong.

So what are some of those situations that it mentions? Yeah. So, I mean, I think let's see.

X is 2116. Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him.

Shall we put to death? So in that scenario, man stealing is considered a capital offense. So man stealing essentially is that,

I mean, basically just imagine is kidnapping, you know, but for adults and children.

So you kidnap someone, you force them into slavery. There's nothing more immoral than that. So that would be an individual who has done nothing wrong and has done nothing deserving of slavery.

And you fundamentally step in, you take away their rights and you force them against their will to do what you're telling them to do.

So in that situation, the Bible unequivocally condemns that there's no justification for that whatsoever.

There's no way to paint a happy smile on it. That's wrong. So the Bible would say that's a capital offense, meaning you should be put to death.

Okay. So that's definitely part of what you're talking about. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, but is that the only, well, you have slavery that in the old

Testament is essentially regulated. So, you know, the main prohibition is the prohibition against man stealing, but then you have different rules.

So you're not allowed to, the Israelites were not allowed to basically turn their fellow

Israelites into slaves, if that makes sense. So, you know, most of like what's happening here in this kind of discussion is you have like a debt slavery kind of thing that's happening with the

Israelites with a year of jubilee. So what they were not allowed to do is turn one of their brothers into a slave in perpetuity.

You know, the year of jubilee would be every seven years, there'd be a release of debt. And so they weren't to rule ruthlessly over their brothers and sisters in the same way that they might with the pagans.

And so there's just a different standard of rules there as far as that goes. And so man stealing was always prohibited period the end.

But then, you know, there's a lot of things in there that are maybe a bit surprising to people in general.

So you have a lot of laws in particular in Exodus 21, which talks about like the different rights between slaves.

But then, you know, when you're getting to like Leviticus 25, let's see, I'll read a few verses.

Leviticus 25, 39, if your brother becomes for poor besides you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave.

He shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. Okay. Okay. So they're not allowed to like, if like that would be kind of a debt slavery kind of thing, but you're not allowed to treat him like a slave just as a hired worker.

He shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers.

You shall not rule. This is a verse 43. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly, but you shall fear your

God. But then verse 44, as for your male and female slaves, whom you may have, you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are those around you.

You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you who have been born in your land and that they may be your property.

It says, and you may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. So there's a double standard there as it relates to, you know, slavery within the nation and slavery outside of the nation in the

Bible, you know, says a lot of things in there, which are mostly offensive to everyone around this, but basically you're allowed to purchase a slave legitimately acquired, but you're not allowed to purchase a man's like a, from the nations, but you're not allowed to purchase or you're not allowed to make one of your brother's slaves in that way.

Okay. So, so it seems like, it seems like in, in some ways,

I don't know that I want to say slavery is like heavily regulated in the old

Testament, but then there is a robust, you know, code of law for how to interact with slaves.

Right. It is regulated. Yeah. There are rules, you know, about the rights of slaves.

And so it's not just, I mean, I think heavily regulated is fine way of putting it. Okay. But then all of this presupposes essentially that there's a legitimate way to become a slave.

And then I think what we've done is we've described different scenarios where, where someone might legitimately, like where slavery might be the legitimately just option in that way.

So, you know, like in terms of debt, slavery, if someone becomes a slave due to a debt that they, like they need to pay back, then, you know, buying those slaves, selling those slaves, allowing them an opportunity, graciously work off the debt they've acquired, that's better than, you know, everyone getting defrauded and that's justice.

And there's certain decisions you can make, you know, with, you know, tribal issues and war kind of issues, you have a different kind of wrinkle that's happening there.

So, you know, when the Israelites are coming into the promised land, you know, like there's, there's a very real sense in which

God is giving them this land. And then if there are nations around them that are trying to conquer them, like they're not just gonna, you know, if they believe that the land belongs to them, they're not just gonna go away because you tell them to.

So, like, so there's certain situations along those lines. And so you have blood feuds that are going on, you have war kind of slaves, you have debt kind of slaves, you have a lot of different scenarios, but the

Bible doesn't seem to just unequivocally condemn it. And I think there are certain situations that if you think about, you might realize it's a little more complicated than you're, you want to make it.

So, because the Bible, you know, it does, it doesn't condemn it anywhere.

There is no, thou shalt not have slaves command. Right. Telling us that it's evil.

In fact, even in the new Testament, yeah. Slaves obey your earthly masters. Right. Right. So it doesn't even go, go away after Jesus comes.

It's just, you know, the Bible real recognizes that it's a, you know, permissible option.

And the old Testament gave the Israelites very specific laws to regulate slavery.

So it's, it's clear that as a Christian, you know, unless you want to go to like the

Andy Stanley route and you want to just unhitch yourself from, from the old

Testament entirely, it seems like you, you can't deny the fact that God never says slavery is wrong.

Right. Yes or no. Right. Okay. Yep. So God never says it's wrong. He doesn't, he doesn't say it's outright wrong.

He says, man, stealing's wrong. Right. Yeah. He, he gives some examples of like, you know, certain specific scenarios in which it is wrong, but then just at, you know, just in a vacuum.

As a social institution where an individual is under the control of another person has less rights than another person and forced into involuntary servitude.

There are scenarios where that could be morally justified. Right. So as Christians, we can't, we can't avoid that.

So should we like, I mean, is that something that we should be ashamed of? Should we apologize to people for it?

Like, what do we do with that? I think you, you never apologize for the

Bible. So God obviously knows a lot better than us. And I think that, you know, sometimes I make people enraged with anger because I just refuse to apologize for any of these things.

You know, I remember when I was at Southern Russell Moore was, you know, trying to make a politically correct statement.

And he said that there's nothing more abhorrent to a biblical worldview than that. One man should own another man.

And, you know, that's the kind of thing you can say that you can score political points there, but then, you know, you do have to actually read the

Bible. Okay. And, you know, if you read the Bible, Leviticus, you know, 25, 45 says you may buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you who have been born in your land, that they may be your property.

Okay. And you may be queathed them to your sons after you to inherit as a position forever, whatever that says that isn't saying what

Russell Moore is saying. So I think one of the things you have to do is you, you can't ignore what the

Bible is saying there. And, you know, I think as Christians, you don't, you never want to apologize for the

Bible. You never want to try to soft pedal what's in there. Your job is, you know, if there's something that's like culturally outrageous right now, your job is to figure out why it makes sense.

And so what your job is, is to read the Bible and to be God's defense attorney at that point, and try to figure out why he's saying what he's saying and why is it different?

You know, so there's a lot of passages like this that people just apologize for and what they, what they're doing is they're attacking

God in that way. And, you know, God doesn't really like that. And, you know, when Job was questioning

God, God had some things to say to him, you know, for a few chapters, you know, where were you when

I laid the foundation for the world? So it's never right or good or safe to question God, his ways are not always his thoughts are not our thoughts.

And, you know, there are things that come in and out of fad, you know, as societies, but whatever we were, you know, all the things that were typically outraged by and scandalized by, they're the kind of things that God typically calls abominations, you know, in the

Bible. So, you know, you can't trust our current impulses here. You know, our current impulses are to turn our country into Sodom and Gomorrah right now.

Yeah. And, you know, basically it normalized throwing your kid, offering your kids up to Moloch.

Right. So we're evil and moral society, and it's not a big surprise that we can get some of these things wrong.

Now, I think in this area where most people are reacting is that slavery feels like it's like,

Hey, didn't we do a good thing by getting rid of it as it existed in America? And I think, yeah, we did a good, like it's slavery is not a desirable state of affairs.

Okay. Like as a permanent institution that is in some sense, race -based.

And so there's a lot of problems with the American slavery as it existed. And that it, you know, there wasn't any mechanism for, you know, slaves gaining their freedom.

And it was race -based in that way. And there, there was problems related to it.

And, you know, just having, like, like this should be an undesirable state of affairs in any, any way you slice it.

It should be an undesirable state of fear. We're all created in the image of God. We don't have a right to, you know, just for no reason whatsoever, take away the rights and abilities of others.

So this man, stealing idea is a big deal, right? So, you know, I don't have the right to just subjugate you and dominate you and make you into my property to do whatever

I want. I don't have that, right. But there are certain actions that people can take, which make something like this, whatever you want to call it.

And most people don't want to call it slavery. There's actions that individuals can take where this is just the most benevolent option you can come up with.

And you can try to come up with other solutions, but you may make a bunch of problems, you know, and, and as part of what's happening is if you reject this as an institution in general, then you just, you come up with all sorts of problems essentially.

Yeah. And so some of the problems are like the prison system is part of the problems that we've come up with because we don't like the idea of this institution.

Yeah. And, and I know we said this a few different times already, but it really does. Once you, once you're able to reject one aspect of any part of the

Bible, the whole thing is unreliable at that point. When you're saying something is infallible, it's the word of God.

you know, it's here to teach us what is right and what is wrong. The minute that even, you know, one sentence of what that book commands us to do and what it says is good.

And, and what is evil the minute that any one of those sentences is wrong, the entire thing cannot be trusted anymore.

And so you have a lot of, you have a lot of Christians who essentially are taking an Andy Stanley kind of approach to this kind of thing.

and they are accustomed to, you know, I mean, like they're very easy, like dumb kind of arguments that Christians will make on this topic.

And so anytime an angular, you know, passage in the old Testament comes up like a passage in the old Testament where, um, we, um, our current sensibilities as a society are running afoul.

I mean, there's any number of Christians who are going to come along and basically just say, Hey, you know, that's the old Testament, right? So they'll go on a

Marcionite kind of direction where they just basically cut the Bible. Hey, that was the old covenant. We're not under the old covenant.

Don't worry about it. We don't eat shellfish anymore. You know, are you wearing a shirt with two different fabrics?

I hope not. Right. And so these are just stupid arguments. Okay. Like they're stupid, they're infantile, they're childish.

And like, they're not dealing with the reality of what's actually being there. And so it's just like a wholesale dismissal of anything that happens.

The problem is the Bible says, whatever is written in former times was written for our instruction, right? As examples to us.

So like these things are meant to be examples to us who live at the end of the age and all that. So you can't just ignore these things that are written for examples of the law.

You know, the, the Pagans were to look at the law of, and God had given the

Israelites and say, what nation is it that has a God so new to them with statutes that are so righteous and justice.

These, you know, statues that I put forward before you today, like this is meant to be

Israel's wisdom in the side of the nations. And you look at it and like, you can have an, you can have an impulse to criticize it, or you can have an impulse to try to understand it, try to understand what you should be doing is asking, well, why was this better than everything that existed at the time?

And you should be comparing what we're doing right now with what you find there. And if you do, if you make those kinds of calculations, one of the things you'll see is that man, like what we're doing right now is flawed in a lot of different ways.

And like, we think that we're so moral and superior to the old covenant law, but it really, like we're, we're, we're committing gross and monstrous evils that, you know, we could do a lot.

We, we, we could do better to learn from law in these ways. So in short, don't apologize for it.

It's there for a reason. One, once you go, once you go there, the whole Bible is, is fallible basically.

Yeah. I mean, you know, unless you want to adopt some kind of stupid posture where, you know,

Jesus came to liberate us from the tyrannical old covenant God or something like, I mean, you just, you're just going down a road that leads to formal heresy at that point.

So whenever you're having this kind of conversation, it feels, you know, we mentioned this right at the beginning that you really can't even, you really can't.

All right. Number one, you're not allowed to have this conversation, right? You're not allowed to have it at all because we have a very specific history with slavery as Americans.

And because of that history, you're just, you're not allowed to even talk about this unless you're, unless you're going to Russell Moore.

Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately, I'm not a professor at a seminary anywhere, so they, they, I wouldn't get fired for what

I just said. So they don't have books in me in that way. Like me, meaning that, you know, they don't have council power on me in that way.

you know, if, yeah, I imagine like if I were a seminary professor somewhere, I would lose my job for saying this.

Right. Right. It's that, it's that big of a, you can't talk about this. Even though most churches,

I mean, if I were a pastor at most churches, I would probably get fired for, you know, saying just for, for having the impulse to try to defend the

Bible at this point. Right. So it feels like we have to, talk about how does it compare to what the

Bible, you know, tell, told the Israelites, for example, what the

Bible told them to do with slaves. Right. So you're talking about, like Americans.

Yeah. Like Chad, chattel slavery, trans American, or trans Atlantic slave trade.

I mean, it feels like you, you have to talk about like what, how do these stack up with what the

Bible actually says? Right. Because, because like you said, like you said earlier, there's a lot, there was a lot of things that were really wrong about it.

Right. But then, but then, you know, it, for most people, it's probably like a, because that happened, all slavery and every situation is always wrong.

And you can't, you know, you can't talk about it or we'll cancel you or something, or we'll, we'll get really mad at you and yell at you on the internet or try to kill you or something.

So, so how exactly does chattel slavery stack up to what

God said? Slavery should look like when it's, when it's implemented. There's different components here that you can think through as it relates to these things.

And so the definition I gave at the very beginning was conditioned in which one human being is owned by another is under the owner's control and has less rights than those held by free persons.

So in that way, the Israelites were allowed to own as money or property, slaves from the nations, and they were allowed to purchase and buy slaves from the nation to be even an eternal possession for them.

you know, in that way, you know, most people, most people just want to wave like a simplistic kind of dismissal and say,

Hey, it was all indentured servitude in the Bible, right? Yeah. Again, people say that all the time, but that's just not what it was.

Okay. So it was indentured servitude for fellow Israelites, right? So you, you, it was debt slavery for fellow

Israelites with a limited timeframe on it, but it wasn't like that for the nations. And so they don't want to make, they don't want to make these distinctions because it just seems nicer just to dismiss it all as, as, as debt slavery.

But that's just not what we're talking about. Okay. So like the idea of owning someone, so like owning someone as property, like the shadow or the shadow element of the, of the slavery component there, that, that does find correspondence in the

Bible. What's different though is, so like, let's see, let me walk through the features here.

Condition was one person, one human being is owned by another, that owned portion that finds correspondence with the

Israelites. That's their interaction with the nations owned by another person under the owner's control that has correspondence, has less rights than those are free persons.

So there's a variety of old covenant laws, which are, you know, getting at this point, right?

So whoever, let's see when a man strikes a slave male or female with a rod and the slave dies under his hands, he shall be avenged.

So he has some rights. He has a right to life, right? But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged for his, for the, for the slave is his money.

So that's like monstrous to our idea for, to our eyes at this point, but a man strikes the eye of a slave male or female and destroys it.

He shall let the slave go free because of his eye. Right. So you have a different set of rights system, but then there are some, there's some rights.

They're just lesser rights. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So I imagine, you know, it's saying like in a more modern context, it would be things like,

Hey, you, you might not have the right to vote for example, but then you are going to have a right to like your bodily health, you know?

So if someone beats you and you lose your eye due to it, you know, you're going to be freed.

Right. Yeah. So, you know, there's distinctions you can make at that point, but what, what really is happening with the

American slave trade system? And there's, there's a debate on whether or not it was all man stealing that was happening, which made the whole system fundamentally unjust, or if a lot of it was tribal violence.

you know, I don't, I'm not a good enough historian to know, like what percentage is what, but then

I've read enough to know that it's a lot more complicated than it, just all being man stealing in that way.

So a lot of this is just tribal wars and things like that. They're happening. So, you know, part of it's that now what, what made the

American system different than, than the

Israelite system and the system of slavery in the ancient world is that like the American system became kind of, became race -based basically.

So, you know, when you had Darwin's origin of the species and, you know, the preservation of the favored races, or however that subtitle goes there at that point,

Darwinism essentially is racist fundamentally. And so what you had was you had like a system that was in place, but then, you know, with Darwinism attached to it, you had kind of a hierarchical understanding of human beings.

And so human beings are viewed in hierarchy to one another. So, there were like lesser races and there were favored races in this kind of scenario.

And then, you know, big surprise that Caucasians were at the top under this arrangement. And then, you know, you have like the

Asians and then underneath that you have Africans. And so, you know, the idea there was that a human being is divided up into racist or racist races, basically subhuman species that are evolutionary higher on the ladder from their, you know, supposedly common ancestor with the apes, so to speak.

And so Africans were seen as lower races. They were seen basically lower on the evolutionary ladder.

And by virtue of their placement as being lower on the evolutionary ladder, they were considered basically subhuman, right?

So then, then you have a system of slavery that is then finding its justification in what's described as scientific racism at that point.

And so this became less about, you know, like debt slavery or tribal slavery at that point, it became kind of cemented into the fabric of what was happening, that these, that, you know, that Africans were subhuman, you know, animal like, and so like less human than, you know, the higher races.

and then worthy of subjugation at that point. And so then you had kind of a permanent system of slavery based on this category of race.

So it's race based in that way. And so there's nothing more, you know, unjust than that.

Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, so that doesn't find any correspondence to a biblical worldview whatsoever.

Yeah. You're, you're basically denying like the someone, you know, someone, the fact that like everyone is made in the image of God.

Right. Everyone's made in the image of God. And then we're all descendants from, you know, Noah and his family. Right. Right.

No, Noah and Mrs. Noah. And before that, Adam and Eve.

Right. And so in that way, basically you're, you, when you're attaching kind of this evolutionary scientific race racism to it, then you're turning it into a very different thing than the

Bible has in mind. So the predominant like difference there at that point is this race based element. And then there's some discussion to be had about whether or not it was all man stealing or whether it was, you know, slavery in terms of tribal violence.

I mean, but the reality is Westerners were not going into Africa and personally enslaving anyone. Okay. Right.

They were just purchasing it. But the Bible says like, if you, you know, if you're a found purchasing, anyone will see an

Exodus. Exodus. I believe it's 2116.

Whoever steals a man and sells them and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death. So fundamentally, you know, to the extent to which this was based on man, stealing, this is a capital offense and anyone who's buys them or steals them is guilty of it.

And so I think it's, you know, slavery as existed in America was a monstrous evil and we shouldn't be behind it whatsoever.

There's nothing, there's no moral justification for any of it. Like we should be wholly repelled by the whole, whole project.

No excuses, no apologies whatsoever. Like it's bad. But then if you're answering this question in general, it's a lot more complicated than what, you know, famous theologians want to make it.

Right. Yeah. It seemed, I mean, it just seems like it's, it's riddled with, with issues pretty much from start to finish compared to, what the

Bible says. I'm sure maybe, you know, I, I'm sure probably out there, there were some, there were some, you know, slave owners in the

U S who, who, you know, hopefully treated the slaves that they did have like with respect.

But then I think, yeah, when you just think about, I think is that's definitely a lot more complicated than what people make it.

And so a lot of the slave narratives paint a different picture than the abolitionists do at that point.

And so, you know, what do you do when you're in the middle of an institution that's been going on for years and years?

Like, and like, it's, it's not clear to me that the way that we ended it all really helped produce any long -term good.

Right. So you have an entire like dependent class of people who you need to free and, you know, what's the best way to do it?

That's complicated. Yeah. But then there was, I mean, it was a lot more complicated than what they made it at that point.

But fundamentally it was something that I think we all needed to get done with, you know? Right. Yeah.

Especially just because of the origins of it. I hadn't, I hadn't really thought about the, you know, the sign, the scientific racism stuff.

I mean, I knew, you know, obviously like, you know, the slavery in the

U S it was like, it was, you know, white people enslaving. Well, I mean, you know, they're buying black slaves, right?

So the majority of slaves in the U S would have been Africans. So obviously, you know that, but then

I don't, I don't know that we always think about why it was that way and how people, you know, came to those conclusions.

And I think it is, it is pretty interesting when you, when you think about the fact that it's, it's basically due to an atheist, right?

Who is conveniently white. Right. Well, no one wants to like, I mean, no white atheists.

No, I mean, really. I mean, this is logically Darwinism produces this notion of race, racism anyways.

And it's inextricably tied to the project. And, you know, it's, you know, most people don't realize how clearly tied to that project it is.

I mean, but that is the project. Okay. Right. And so, you know, we're, we're told that we're crazy as Christians because we object to, you know,

Darwinism in general, but like logically, if you're a Darwinist, you should be a racist.

It makes sense. Right. Like, you know, it is pretty funny that, you know, you think you look at these things and Darwinism, it leads to, you know, racially motivated slavery.

And then, and then it also leads to, you know, this whole like abortion being as widespread accepted as it is when it's basically, you know, its origins are tied in a similar, like it has, it has like roots and, you know, trying to basically get rid of certain races.

Right. And, and you even still, you still see that happening today where, where black people are getting more abortions than any other race in the us.

Right. And, and so you have the, you have these terrible things that are motivated by, by Darwinism and evolution, but then,

Oh yeah. I mean, you had a hundred million dead from Stalin, atheism in Russia, you know, 60 million in China, Cambodia, 1 .7

million dead, you know, North Korea, 1 .6 million dead. Yeah. Yugoslavia, 570 ,000, you know, and, and the list goes on, but I mean, you, you have, you know, 200 million people dead in the 20th century.

Right. Because of atheism and, and the conclusions that basically you have to come to in order to be an atheist.

Right. And, and so it, it is pretty ironic that this, that, that kind of belief system has killed so many people, so many people.

And, and then people still defend it. And, and schools teach it still.

And Christians are seen as the immoral. Right. Right. And we're the immoral ones for, you know, defending what

God said is permissible. Right. So, okay. So, so the conclusion there is chattel slavery was wrong.

It was wrong. It was evil. So, you know, that's been said, we can move, we can move on from that.

The question then becomes, okay, so what do we do with this info? I mean, are we supposed to start taking slaves ourselves?

You know, is, is that what we should do as Christians or is this, is this purely like a, you know, a theoretical exercise that we're performing at this point?

Like, what do we do with this information? Are we just throwing ourselves out there at the mercy of the internet? Just cause, you know, just to, just to stir everything up or what, what's the point of, of, um, knowing what the

Bible has to say about slavery. I don't think you want to, I mean, I think you don't never want to apologize for the

Bible. You want to try to understand the logic of why God commanded what he has commanded. And it's always our job to defend

God and not to throw God under the bus. So, you know, as we're thinking about this kind of topic, I mean, obviously in the first case, you have a lot of, you know, unbelievers who are going to point out these passages and you need to know why they're there and what, what they're for and not apologize for them.

Um, so there's, you know, part of that is just trying to understand the character of God and understand what justice is.

And, you know, we're told to, you know, do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God. So we need to know what is just and what is right, uh, in society in general.

So I think part of it's that, I think, um, another part of this discussion, like practically, you know, it, we're just a nuclear bomb away from having to think through some of these things too.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So, I mean, like right now, Russia's invading

Ukraine and they're going to have to think through some of these things and think through what their stance is on, you know, all this, all these kinds of issues.

And so we're, we think we're civilized as a society right now, but things can go really bad and you're going to have to know what you think about these kinds of topics.

I mean, supposing you had some sort of invaders who have come and trenched himself over here and have to figure out what you're going to do.

And so there's a lot of these kinds of questions that we just have handed off to other people and we call them other names and we just don't think about what we're doing.

I think the, the main thing that like where the slavery question is relevant right now is a prison system.

So call it whatever you call it. It is a form of slavery. Uh, we're just using different words.

So is this the right form of slavery now to the extent to which we could, you know, advocate for just laws?

What, what do we do with that? Right. So, you know, I think there's a lot of people right now who think the prison system is unjust, but what do you do like when someone commits a crime and how do they repay it in that way?

Right now you don't have a lot of great mechanisms to repay, you know, obligations that people have.

And, you know, there's a lot of, like we need, we need to think through, you know, like if we do get rid of the prison system in the way that it currently exists, what do you replace it with?

And, you know, how, you know, what does justice require in a lot of these things? And so I think we need to rethink through some of these things.

And I think, you know, for many people it is, I mean, for us right now, mostly it's just a theoretical topic, a theoretical discussion, but I do think there, there are ramifications for this.

And, you know, it could be that we're moving into situations where these are more relevant topics as well.

But then I think the primary, you know, right now the primary importance of this kind of topic is it's apologetic value in terms of just not, not throwing

God under the bus, understanding why God said what he says, you know, and the best thing you can do is just read the

Bible and think through how much of like your, your moral intuition is being governed by society general and what society finds currently scandalous.

How much of it is really just intentionally biblical. And I think the more intentionally biblical you are, the more you'll find that you don't fit, you know, with what people were saying at that point.

But there's a lot of things you can say on this issue to score cheap political points, but they're not accurate.

So I think if we, your people love the truth, love God, you're going to say what's right. You're not just going to say what's going to get you, you know, cheap applause.

Okay. All right. Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up this discussion. You know, obviously like we said at the beginning, it's, it's not really one that you're allowed to have, but the nice thing about starting a podcast where you can answer all the questions that you're not allowed to ask is we can talk about this kind of stuff.

Right. And, and do it under unhindered and, and, and just be honest with what the

Bible says and not, and like you said, not shy away from it, you know, not be ashamed of what

God has said just because a certain, you know, a certain society has decided that it is, it's so taboo that you can't even discuss the topic unless you're outright condemning it in every single way possible.

And, you know, and I just don't think that I think it is a, it is a good exercise, not only in, you know and helping us on, you know, remember that the

Bible is fully inerrant from start to finish, including the verses about slavery and we don't need to compromise on that.

But then I do think it is a helpful exercise to think through on a personal level, really just as like a, like you said, as a test to determine how governed we are, you know, by the current spirit of the age and how governed we are by the, the moral do's and don'ts that our current society has put on us.

And, and the reason I think that is so important is, is just because, you know, our society is evil.

I mean, our, our society is, is immensely evil. I don't know that I can understate how evil our society is.

We always look at, at, you know, Hitler and Nazi Germany as like the ultimate standard of evil.

And certainly he, you know, he was an evil man and they were doing evil things. As a nation.

But then whatever, whatever evil they have done, our country has done, you know, what tenfold at least just through abortion alone.

Right. And so, so if you're, so if you're governed by a, you know, if, if part of what influences what you view is right as right and wrong is what our current society says about certain things, you know, just know that you are being governed by a society that is perfectly okay with murdering 60 million babies and, you know, thirsts for the blood of more, you know, they, they're not even, they're not even bothered by it at all.

And, and so this is a good, this, this kind of topic is a good test to see how, how governed are you by their rules and what they say is right.

And what, what they say is wrong when they're so obviously misguided on so many different issues. and, you know, like you said,

Tim, right at the end, you know, we, we're sinful people. Part of, part of living in a fallen world is dealing with the reality that, you know, any comfort that we might have can be taken away from us.

And, and the blink of an eye, especially now, I mean, countries have, have so much destructive power and the various weapons that they have that,

I mean, it literally is just two key presses and a button is all it takes to change the lives of pretty much everyone in the entire world, you know, and, and a matter of hours.

And so, so we have to think through these things because you don't know what tomorrow holds.

You don't know what life looks like in, you know, a week, a month, a year, 15 years.

We don't, we don't know what life looks like. And it could be that life is a lot harder later on, and you have to deal with the harsh realities of, of, you know, of men who want to come after you, who want to destroy you and you have to deal with what do we do with them afterwards?

And that's not even to mention the whole prison system stuff. And what do we do with, with, with, you know, criminals because you have to do something with them and, and we need to, we need to do something that is just, and it brings justice to the victims.

It brings justice to the ones who are committing the crimes. And I'm not, I'm not so convinced either that our criminal system is the, is the standard, you know, for that.

so there, there's a lot of implications to this. And so it's, it's a lot of fun to be able to talk about these things and think through them and, and ask our, ask ourselves, what does the

Bible actually have to say about these things? And then be okay with that. and trust that, you know,

God knows a lot better than we know. God knows much better than, you know, the than the wisdom of, of evil and wicked bloodthirsty men.

So we should just trust him. We should, you know, and thank him for everything that he's revealed to us from start to finish

Genesis, all the way to revelation. And so, so it's fun to get, get to talk about these subjects.

Hopefully this has been something that's been helpful for you. It's been something that really challenges, you know, your thought process as it comes to how do we approach the

Bible? Don't be, don't be the kind of person like don't be the Andy Stanley type who decides, well, that's pretty hard.

So I'm just going to unhitch myself from the old Testament, because as soon as you do that, the new Testament doesn't make any sense.

You can pretend it does, but it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So we thank all you guys for listening to us, supporting us weekend and week out.

And we look forward to having you on the next one. I'll see you in the next one.