Slaves of Dignity: for Wicked or Holy Purposes?
AbdAlRahman said:
Still find it strange
Cous God forbid slavery in the Qu'ran
I find that strage the bit on that God didint forbid it in the bible is becouse ive heard that the bible is filled with human rights and all.
AbdAIRRahman, it's nice to have you posting on our forum.
My understanding is that what people call "human rights" is not the only yardstick to measuring right and wrong. Don't get the wrong idea. I am not undervaluing human beings!!!! I simply believe there is another way to discern between right and wrong and it is not about "human rights."
It depends what you mean by "slaves." Slavery is
not inherently evil. It's only because Adam ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that slavery has the potential to be "evil." When Adam ate that fruit, his human nature was corrupted by the knowledge of evil. He was then capable of thinking evil thoughts.
Lying, selfishness, arrogance, greed, lust and hatred are a result of Adam eating the fruit.
Slavery is where you offer your whole life in service to another. You are bound to this role for life. This is basically what slavery is in essence.
Of course, this bondage can be exploited. Because your destiny is in the hands of another (your master), the one who has power over you can order you around, torture and bully you. When this happens, your master is responding to the dark side of his human nature. His selfishness and arrogance has consumed him either partly or wholely. The power has gone to his head.
This opens up another issue. What do we mean by "slavery?" The kind of slavery described in the Christian Gospel is quite different to that opposed by today's United Nations and human rights movements. You will find in the Gospel that there is barely anything about the trading and selling of slaves. The apostles did not teach people how to exploit slaves. They told people to respect them.
Slaves are told to work hard (for God and not men) and masters are not to lord it over their slaves because whether you are a slave or master you are still a part of the kingdom of God.
This is why the Christian Gospel neither encourages nor forbids slavery.
Slavery, "in theory," according to today's society, is evil. Most people think of slavery as either getting whipped, poked and prodded, or simply being constantly told where to go, what to do, doing someone's else's work, not having the freedom to do what you want, and basically losing your dignity.
The idea that comes from the Gospel is that slavery has its bright and dark sides. The dark side has no role to play if people follow the bright side of their human nature. The slave, with all his good intentions, will work hard, be diligent and conscientious in his work and his master will not lord it over his slave with his authority.
The "master and slave" relationship are merely a temporary aspect of the lives we live in this world. They cease to exist in the next world and next life. The master is no better than the slave and the slave no worse than his master.
We are, in a sense, "slaves" in this world because of the governments we serve, rules and regulations we must follow, we are bombarded by media influences, and have our lives controlled by the political systems/structures that regulate our lives.
As Christians, we are told not to oppose these structures and arrangements, despite how unbearable, intolerable or abominable we find the world around us. That does not mean we will not oppose injustices, but it's just that we must understand that the world around us may not see its own injustices.
That's what it was like back then. Slavery was a part of the legal and social arrangements of that time and Christians couldn't simply decide to go against it because it would also mean opposition to the Roman political system, Roman culture and everything it represented. To have a slave was to be a Roman citizen.
For Christians to do that it would have been "anti-Roman." It was not the purpose of the Christian Gospel to be enemies of state.
The idea was that as a Christian you could be a "slave master" without having the character and personality traits normally associated with "slave masters." Because you were a follower of Christ and part of God's kingdom, you wouldn't be so concerned about making money and self-preservation to have to treat your slaves badly to get them to do work. It's as if they're not really your slaves at all, but God's slaves.
On the other hand, if you were a slave, as a Christian you would be diligent in your work because you work for God not men. You belong to the kingdom of God and are not so worried about your standing in relation to other slaves. You don't become so selfish as to try and impress your master and make him think you're better than the other slaves. You belong to God.
Slavery only becomes evil when your dignity and self-respect is constantly being abused and attacked. That's what you mean when you talk about "human rights."
Islam means "submission to God," so Muslims are slaves of God and follow the rules and regulations sent down to them by God.
In the past, people were slaves because they didn't have dignity. Now, as followers of Christ, we are slaves of God for a different reason. We live as slaves to gain dignity, not to lose it.
Is slavery wrong? Actually, it would be the exact reverse if we live the right way.
Being a slave doesn't mean you lose your dignity.
Slavery not being forbidden by the Gospel doesn't mean it was corrupted. It's actually the other way round. We are so accustomed to think that slavery is only used for wicked purposes that we don't realise how it can be used for holy purposes.
