Is Slavery Objectively Wrong?

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

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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.

02:07

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

02:15

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

02:30

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

02:39

Our country has a very specific history when it comes to slavery in general.

02:47

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

02:53

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

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

03:07

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

03:18

And I mean, it's a topic that's still being talked about today.

03:24

When you think of chattel slavery, I mean, 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 experience the chattel slavery, right?

03:40

Yeah, I mean, you said it's understandable, and there's a certain sense in which, yeah, maybe 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 never,

04:05

I mean, 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 discussions about slavery has the moral effect of blinding our eyes to the very real heinous acts that we're committing today, like child sacrifice.

04:38

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.

04:52

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, and 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.

05:17

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

05:32

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.

05:45

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

05:56

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

06:03

Yeah, obviously we're gonna have it, I mean, we're gonna have it because that's what we do, and we're okay with that, but then most people aren't, yeah.

06:11

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

06:35

Like, it's, obviously, it's an inappropriate question to ask, but then one of the things that's funny about that is

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I've never owned a slave, and I'm a quarter Mexican, right, so I'm a quarter minority here, and so, but then that doesn't really get me off the hook, so I haven't owned a slave,

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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

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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, and there's no shortage of atheists who are gonna come along and essentially attack the

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Bible, at this very point, and basically just point to the immorality present in the Bible, because the

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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

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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.

07:51

Right, and then once you're willing to go there, you're basically saying the Bible's useless, because there's certain parts of it that we've gotta get away from.

08:01

Well, I mean, and that's essentially what atheists are pointing out, and I just think you have a lot of Christians who haven't read the

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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

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Bible is saying, and it's embarrassing, so maybe if they would do the read the

08:17

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.

08:25

Do better, yeah. Do all the buzzword, 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 very, 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.

08:53

Sure, okay, so the question to start everything off is, is it objectively wrong?

09:00

Is slavery objectively wrong? Yeah, I mean, to say that slavery is objectively wrong would be to say that it's a 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

09:20

Bible is immoral. So, because the Bible does regulate slavery, and it does condone slavery in certain situations, and so it does, like the

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

09:37

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.

09:46

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

09:56

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.

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

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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 then, in a lot of ways,

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I mean, this really is like, if you were to step back, this is not an American problem.

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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.

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This is a human, fallen human condition kind of issue.

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

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So, we think that we're past all this. We have slaves, we have 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.

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

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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.

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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?

12:01

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

12:12

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

12:23

Okay. 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

12:32

I wanna say that no, in of itself, that institution is not, in of itself, morally wrong, okay?

12:40

It's just a necessary entailment of life in a fallen world. And so, but under certain conditions, it can be wrong, and under certain conditions, it can be morally permissible, if that makes sense.

12:54

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

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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.

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So, there are things that, just let me spell that out a little bit, like 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, okay?

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

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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, okay?

13:58

Yeah. 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

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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, right?

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

15:00

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 gonna go regroup and come back again, right?

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I mean, so like, what do you do, you know? Well, maybe they learned their lesson, Tim. Man, you know, 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 -

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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.

15:28

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

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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.

15:40

Well, I mean, I think maybe, let me, you know, 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 is just to say, hey, you know, keep them under guard, right?

15:59

Mm -hmm. 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?

16:08

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

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So force labor. Hey, you wanna eat? You work, okay? So you're forcing them to work, right?

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Put, you know, they wanna fight you, right? Like harsh punishments for that, right?

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So, and then like give them a chance to maybe earn their freedom, you know, try to persuade them over time slowly.

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But I mean, this isn't gonna be some immediate thing. And I think most, you know, countries that have experienced war, it's not as if like you, you know, everything just goes to normal, like immediately once the battle is over with, right?

16:48

Ah, 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.

16:55

I mean, that's just not the way it works. I mean, that's - Well, I mean, one example of that is just World War I and World War II, right?

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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.

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

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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, what is, it doesn't just go away.

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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.

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And like, all of that's pretty naive about the way that the world actually works. And so you have to figure out what you're gonna do in these kinds of scenarios.

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And like, the answers are, like, you can, you know, you can just not give answers and just emote and say, well, slavery is bad.

17:54

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

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And like, what can you do? You know, 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.

18:17

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

18:35

Yeah. Like, them moving on in their mind. So, like, 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.

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

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

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I'm just saying that, like, 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, you know, they don't have the right to bear arms, they don't have the right to vote, you know?

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I mean, and then you're forcing them to work, you know, 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?

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So, like, that's just a necessary component of society in general.

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

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

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If jail's not the option, let's say jails are not the option, I don't think jails are the best option anyways, but, all 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.

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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?

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

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

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

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

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And not get their money back, okay? So, tell me, is that just? Is that right? Is that honorable? Is that moral?

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

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

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

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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?

21:33

Like, what do you, you know, so it'd have been much better if you were that guy's slave. You get what

21:38

I'm saying? Mm -hmm. 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.

21:48

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

21:53

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

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

22:06

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

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Exodus 21, 16, whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

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So in that scenario, man -stealing is considered a capital offense. So man -stealing essentially is that,

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I mean, basically just imagine it as kidnapping, you know, for adults and children.

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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, right?

22:52

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

22:58

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

23:06

But is that the only? Well, you have slavery in the Old Testament that is essentially regulated.

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So the main prohibition is the prohibition against man -stealing, but then you have different rules, so you're not allowed to, the

23:20

Israelites were not allowed to basically turn their fellow Israelites into slaves, if that makes sense.

23:28

So what's happening here in this kind of discussion is you have like a debt slavery kind of thing that's happening with the

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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.

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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.

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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 there's a lot of things in there that are maybe a bit surprising to people in general.

24:12

So you have a lot of laws in particular in Exodus 21, which talks about like the different rights between slaves, but then when you're getting to like Leviticus 25, let's see,

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I'll read a few verses. Leviticus 25, 39, if your brother becomes 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?

24:35

Okay. So they're not allowed to, 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.

24:43

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.

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You shall not rule, this is verse 43, you shall not rule over him ruthlessly, but you shall fear your

24:59

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.

25:09

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.

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So there's a double standard there as it relates to slavery within the nation and slavery outside of the nation.

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And the Bible says a lot of things in there which are mostly offensive to everyone around us, but basically you're allowed to purchase a slave legitimately acquired, but you're not allowed to purchase a man from the nations, but you're not allowed to purchase, or you're not allowed to make one of your brothers slaves.

25:47

In that way. Okay, so it seems like in some ways,

25:54

I don't know that I wanna say slavery is heavily regulated in the

25:59

Old Testament, but then there is a robust code of law for how to interact with slaves, right?

26:07

It is regulated, yeah. There are rules about the rights of slaves and so it's not just,

26:13

I mean, I think heavily regulated is a fine way to put it. But then all this presupposes essentially that there's a legitimate way to become a slave.

26:21

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

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

26:52

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

27:01

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

27:06

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

27:19

Right. 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

27:29

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 wanna make it.

27:41

So because the Bible, it doesn't condemn it anywhere, there is no thou shalt not have slaves command, right?

27:50

Right. Telling us that it's evil. In fact - Even in the New Testament, yeah, slaves obey your earthly masters.

27:56

Right, right. So it doesn't even go away after Jesus comes. It's just, the

28:01

Bible recognizes that it's a permissible option and the

28:07

Old Testament gave the Israelites very specific laws to regulate slavery. So it's clear that as a

28:16

Christian, unless you wanna go like the Andy Stanley route and you wanna just unhitch yourself from the

28:23

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

28:32

Right. Yes or no? Okay. Yeah, God never says it's wrong. He doesn't say it's outright wrong.

28:37

He says man's telling's wrong, right? Yeah, he gives some examples of certain specific scenarios in which it is wrong, but then just in a vacuum -

28:51

It is under the control of another person, has less rights than another person, and forced into involuntary servitude.

29:00

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

29:09

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

29:16

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

29:21

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

29:30

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

29:39

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

29:46

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

29:52

Bible, okay? And if you read the Bible, Leviticus 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?

30:07

And you may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a position forever. Whatever that says, it isn't saying what

30:14

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

30:20

Bible is saying there. And I think as Christians, you never wanna apologize for the

30:25

Bible. You never wanna 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.

30:36

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?

30:46

So there's a lot of passages like this that people just apologize for. And what they're doing is they're attacking

30:53

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

30:58

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

31:04

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

31:11

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 we're typically outraged by and scandalized by, they're the kind of things that God typically calls abominations, you know, in the

31:27

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, okay?

31:36

Right, yeah. And to, you know, basically, normalized, you know, throwing your kid, offering your kids up to Moloch, right?

31:45

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

31:51

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?

32:01

And I think, yeah, we did a good, like it's, slavery is not a desirable state of affairs, okay?

32:07

Like as a permanent institution, that is in some sense race -based, and so there's a lot of problems with 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 was problems related to it.

32:28

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

32:38

It should be an undesirable state of affair. 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.

32:52

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

33:01

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.

33:11

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?

33:22

And that's part of what's happening is that if you reject this as an institution in general, then you just, you come up with all sorts of problems, essentially.

33:30

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.

33:39

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

33:50

Bible, the whole thing is unreliable at that point. When you're saying something is infallible, it's the word of God, it's here to teach us what is right and what is wrong.

34:04

The minute that even one sentence of what that book commands us to do and what it says is good and what is evil, the minute that any one of those sentences is wrong, the entire thing cannot be trusted anymore.

34:20

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

34:25

Right. And they are accustomed to, I mean, they're very easy, dumb kind of arguments that Christians will make on this topic.

34:35

And so anytime an angular passage in the Old Testament comes up, like a passage in the Old Testament where our current sensibilities as a society are running afoul,

34:47

I mean, there's any number of Christians who are gonna come along and basically just say, hey, that's the Old Testament, right? So they'll go on a

34:52

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

34:58

Old Covenant. Don't worry about it. Not under the law. We don't eat shellfish anymore. Are you wearing a shirt with two different fabrics?

35:04

I hope not. Right, and so these are just stupid arguments, okay? Like they're stupid, they're infantile, they're childish, and they're not dealing with the reality of what's actually being there.

35:16

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 is written for our instruction, right?

35:23

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.

35:29

So you can't just ignore these things that are written for our examples. Of the law, the pagans were to look at the law of God had given the

35:39

Israelites and say, what nation is it that has a God so near to them with statues that are so righteous and justice?

35:45

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

35:50

Israel's wisdom in the sight of the nations, and you look at it, and you can have an impulse to criticize it, or you can have an impulse to try to understand it.

35:58

Try to understand, and what you should be doing is asking why was this better than everything that existed at the time?

36:05

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

36:18

And we think that we're so moral and superior to the Old Covenant law, but really we're committing gross and monstrous evils that we could do a lot.

36:31

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

36:36

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

36:45

Yeah, I mean, unless you wanna adopt some kind of stupid posture where Jesus came to liberate us from the tyrannical

36:53

Old Covenant God or something, I mean, you're just going down a road that leads to formal heresy at that point.

37:01

So whenever you're having this kind of conversation, 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?

37:12

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 going the

37:28

Russell Moore. Yeah, fortunately, I'm not a professor at a seminary anywhere, so I wouldn't get fired for what

37:35

I just said, you know? So they don't have hooks in me in that way. Like, meaning, you know, they don't have council power on me in that way, but you know, if, yeah,

37:46

I imagine, like, if I were a seminary professor somewhere, I would lose my job for saying these kind of things. Right, right, it's that big of a, you can't talk about this.

37:55

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

38:04

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

38:13

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

38:19

Bible told them to do with slaves, right? So you're talking about, like,

38:27

American slavery? Yeah, like, chattel slavery, trans -American, or trans -Atlantic slave trade.

38:33

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

38:39

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

38:48

But then, you know, for most people, it's probably like a, because that happened, all slavery in 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 get really mad at you and yell at you on the internet, or try to kill you or something.

39:10

So how exactly does chattel slavery stack up to what

39:16

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

39:26

And so the definition I gave at the very beginning was 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.

39:37

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

39:52

So, you know, in that way, you know, most people, most people just want to waive like a simplistic kind of dismissal and say, hey, it was all indentured servitude in the

40:00

Bible, right? Sure, yeah. Again, people say that all the time, but that's just not what it was, okay? So it was indentured servitude for fellow

40:08

Israelites, right? So it was debt slavery for fellow

40:13

Israelites with a limited timeframe on it, but it wasn't like that for the nations. And so they don't wanna make these distinctions because it just seems nicer just to dismiss it all as debt slavery, but that's just not what we're talking about, okay?

40:31

So like the idea of owning someone, so like owning someone as property, like the shadow element of the slavery component there, that does find correspondence in the

40:45

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

40:51

Conditioning once one person, one human being is owned by another, that owned portion, that finds correspondence with the

40:58

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

41:06

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

41:11

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.

41:18

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 the slave is his money.

41:27

So that's like monstrous to our eyes at this point. When 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?

41:39

So you have a different set of rights system, but then there are some rights that are just lesser rights.

41:46

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, so I imagine it's saying, like in a more modern context, it would be things like, hey, you might not have the right to vote, for example, but then you are gonna have a right to your bodily health.

42:00

So if someone beats you and you lose your eye due to it, you're gonna be freed, right?

42:07

Yeah, so there's distinctions you can make at that point. But what really is happening with the

42:14

American slave trade system, and 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.

42:25

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

42:34

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

42:40

So a lot of this is just tribal wars and things like that that are happening. So part of it's that.

42:46

Now, what made the American system different than the

42:55

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

43:05

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

43:18

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

43:31

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

43:41

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

43:46

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

44:07

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

44:13

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

44:20

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

44:29

And so this became less about like debt slavery or tribal slavery at that point.

44:37

It became kind of cemented into the fabric of what was happening that Africans were subhuman, animal -like and so less human than the higher races and then worthy of subjugation at that point.

44:54

And so then you had kind of a permanent system of slavery based on this category of race.

44:59

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

45:05

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

45:12

Yeah, you're basically denying the fact that everyone is made in the image of God, right?

45:22

Everyone's made in the image of God and then we're all descendants from Noah and his family, right? Noah and Mrs.

45:28

Noah. Noah and Mrs. Noah. And before that, Adam and Eve, right? And so in that way, basically when you're attaching kind of this evolutionary scientific racism to it, then you're turning it into a very different thing than the

45:43

Bible has in mind. So the predominant 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 slavery in terms of tribal violence.

45:58

I mean, but the reality is Westerners were not going into Africa and personally enslaving anyone, okay?

46:03

Right. They were just purchasing it. But the Bible says like, if you're found purchasing anyone, let's see, in Exodus, Exodus, I believe it's 21, 16, whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

46:22

So fundamentally, to the extent to which this was based on man -stealing, this is a capital offense.

46:28

And anyone who buys him or steals him is guilty of it. And so I think slavery as it existed in America was a monstrous evil and we shouldn't be behind it whatsoever.

46:37

There's no moral justification for any of it. Like we should be wholly repelled by the whole project.

46:45

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 famous theologians want to make it.

46:58

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

47:08

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

47:18

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

47:27

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

47:34

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

47:40

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

47:45

And it's not clear to me that the way that we ended it all really helped produce any long -term good, right?

47:56

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

48:03

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

48:10

But fundamentally it was something that I think we all needed to get done with. Right, yeah, especially just because of the origins of it.

48:18

I hadn't really thought about the scientific racism stuff.

48:24

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

48:31

US, it was white people enslaving, well,

48:36

I mean, they're buying black slaves, right? So the majority of slaves in the

48:41

US would have been Africans. So obviously, you know that, but then I don't know that we always think about why it was that way and how people came to those conclusions.

48:53

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

49:01

Who is conveniently white, right? Well, no one wants to, I mean, no white atheists.

49:07

White atheists. No, I mean, really, I mean, this is logically, Darwinism produces this notion of racism anyways, and it's inextricably tied to the project.

49:19

And most people don't realize how clearly tied to that project it is.

49:26

I mean, but that is the project, okay? Right. And so we're told that we're crazy as Christians because we object to Darwinism in general, but logically, if you're a

49:39

Darwinist, you should be a racist. It makes much sense. Right, like, you know, it is pretty funny that you look at these things and Darwinism, it leads to racially motivated slavery, and then it also leads to 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 like roots in, you know, trying to basically get rid of certain races, right?

50:25

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

50:36

US, right? And so you have these terrible things that are motivated by Darwinism and evolution.

50:47

But then - Yeah, I mean, you had a hundred million dead from Stalin, atheism in Russia, you know, 60 million in China, Cambodia, 1 .7

50:55

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

51:08

Right, yeah, because of atheism and the conclusions that basically you have to come to in order to be an atheist, right?

51:17

And so it is pretty ironic that this, that kind of belief system has killed so many people, so many people, and then people still defend it, and schools teach it still.

51:35

Right, and Christians are seen as the immoral ones. Right, right, and we're the immoral ones for defending what

51:41

God said is permissible, right? So, okay, so the question then becomes, okay, so what do we do with this info?

51:50

I mean, are we supposed to start taking slaves ourselves? You know, is that what we should do as Christians, or is this purely like a theoretical exercise that we're performing at this point?

52:07

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 stir everything up, or what's the point of knowing what the

52:21

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

52:27

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

52:33

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 gonna point out these passages, and you need to know why they're there and what they're for and not apologize for them.

52:49

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

52:55

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 in society in general.

53:04

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

53:18

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

53:24

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

53:32

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

53:41

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

53:47

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.

53:54

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

54:01

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

54:06

So is this the right form of slavery? Now to the extent to which we could, you know, advocate for just laws, what do we do with that, right?

54:15

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?

54:27

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

54:33

And, you know, there's a lot of, like 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?

54:44

And, 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.

54:50

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 are ramifications for this.

55:00

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

55:06

But then I think the primary, you know, right now the primary importance of this kind of topic is its apologetic value.

55:13

In terms of just 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

55:21

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

55:30

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.

55:40

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

55:45

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

55:54

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 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?

56:12

So we thank all you guys for listening to us, supporting us week in and week out, and we look forward to having you on the next one.

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56:39

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.