Tradition betrayed

[Iconito]

Strawman.  It is not necessary to claim abolition as "a triumph of Religion" in order to cite abolition as (in part) a positive impact of Religion upon human rights.

On the other hand, it is naïve fondly to imagine that the "other factors" are hermetically separable from Religion.  Let's say it again:  it is not simply that Christianity is an element of Western social and intellectual life, over time it became the foundation, the framework, the mindset.

There are Other Factors which emerge from Western society, because the intellectual tradition of Christianity furnished the environment.

To quote Ben Franklin (Poor Richard, indeed): Praise-All and Blame-All are both Blockheads.

No straw man. Jeffrey said Religion was the determining factor in the abolition of slavery, i.e. an accomplishment of Religion, an achievement of Religion, a triumph of Religion, a feat of Religion... Although he also said "Abolition was powered by people who acted based on their religious beliefs", as if "Religion" and "people who acted based on their religious beliefs" were synonyms... They seem to be synonyms if the outcome is good. If we were talking about, I don't know, a group of Christians beating some gay man to death, then no, of course not... Those people would be just loonies and Religion would still be good, but I digress... The thing is Jeffrey said that, not me, so no straw man.

On the other hand, are you claiming everything in the West is ultimately an outcome of Christianity? I don't deny Christianity had a huge influence in the West (you think that is a good thing, right?), but everything, to the point that no "other factors" can be separated from it? That will make you number two in my ranking, displacing Florestan ("In case of conflict, personal conscience comes before any ritual or dogma and must be obeyed unconditionally (this is formally codified in the Roman Catholic Catechism, no less...)"... Jeffrey's "I experience God at a more intimate, deeper and tangible way than I do the air around us" stays number one)

[Florestan]

Blaming religion alone for slavery would be an equally flawed premise.  Or most of the other horrible things humans seem to enjoy so much.

Of course.

[Iconito]

Agreed.  Blaming religion alone for slavery would be an equally flawed premise.  Or most of the other horrible things humans seem to enjoy so much.

Of course.

(And of course there are things for which we can actually blame Religion alone... But we are only stating the obvious)

[DavidRoss]

There is no good (i.e. flattering) explanation for the refusal to give religions their due for making the world a better place...especially Christianity.

[bwv 1080]

Abolition was powered by people who acted based on their religious beliefs. The fact that religions people accepted slavery as a fact of life for 1800 years does not invalidate that.  When abolition started, it was religiously motivated people who started it.    Non religious motivation had almost no role to play until the movement was well under way, and even then it still maintained its fundamental position in the movement.  So, yes, religion was the determining factor.

except that it was the more heterodox branches of Christianity that were at the forefront of abolitionism - unitarianism and great awakening evangelicalism.  Both Roman Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism endorsed slavery.  If you read Southern writers, they would decry abolitionism as a symbol of the apostate North.  The Southern view of Slavery was at least equally religious and arguable more in line with orthodox Christian traditions:

The Northern section of the church stands in the awkward predicament of maintaining, in one breath, that slavery is an evil which ought to be abolished and of asserting, in the next, that it is not a sin to be visited by exclusion from communion of the saints. The consequence is that it plays partly into the hands of Abolitionists and partly into the hands of slaveholders and weakens its influence with both. It occupies the position of a prevaricating witness whom neither party will trust. It would be better, therefore, for the moral power of the Northern section of the church to get entirely quit of the subject.

...

In answering this question, as a church, let it be distinctly borne in mind that the only rule of judgment is the written word of God. The church knows nothing of the intuitions of reason or the deductions of philosophy, except those reproduced in the Sacred Canon. She has a positive constitution in the Holy Scriptures and has no right to utter a single syllable upon any subject except as the Lord puts words in her mouth. She is founded, in other words, upon express revelation.Her creed is an authoritative testimony of God and not a speculation, and what she proclaims, she must proclaim with the infallible certitude of faith and not with the hesitating assent of an opinion. The question, then, is brought within a narrow compass: Do the Scriptures directly or indirectly condemn slavery as a sin? If they do not, the dispute is ended, for the church, without forfeiting her character, dares not go beyond them.

Now, we venture to assert that if men had drawn their conclusions upon this subject only from the Bible, it would no more have entered into any human head to denounce slavery as a sin than to denounce monarchy, aristocracy, or poverty.

...

Indeed, the first organization of the church as a visible society, separate and distinct from the unbelieving world, was inaugurated in the family of a slaveholder. Among the very first persons to whom the seal of circumcision was affixed were the slaves of the father of the faithful, some born in his house and others bought with his money. Slavery again reappears under the Law. God sanctions it in the first table of the Decalogue, and Moses treats it as an institution to be regulated, not abolished; legitimated and not condemned. We come down to the age of the New Testament, and we find it again in the churches founded by the apostles under the plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost. These facts are utterly amazing, if slavery is the enormous sin which its enemies represent it to be. It will not do to say that the Scriptures have treated it only in a general, incidental way, without any clear implication as to its moral character. Moses surely made it the subject of express and positive legislation, and the apostles are equally explicit in inculcating the duties which spring from both sides of the relation. They treat slaves as bound to obey and inculcate obedience as an office of religion � a thing wholly self-contradictory if the authority exercised over them were unlawful and iniquitous.

...

Let us concede, for a moment, that the law of love, and the condemnation of tyranny and oppression seem logically to involve, as a result, the condemnation of slavery; yet, if slavery is afterwards expressly mentioned and treated as a lawful relation, it obviously follows, unless Scripture is to be interpreted as inconsistent with itself, that slavery is, by necessary implication, excepted. The Jewish law forbad, as a general rule, the marriage of a man with his brother�s wife. The same law expressly enjoined the same marriage in a given case. The given case was, therefore, an exception, and not be treated as a violation of the general rule. The law of love has always been the law of God. It was enunciated by Moses almost as clearly as it was enunciated by Jesus Christ. Yet, notwithstanding this law, Moses and the apostles alike sanctioned the relation of slavery.

The conclusion is inevitable, either that the law is not opposed to it or that slavery is an excepted case. To say that the prohibition of tyranny and oppression include slavery is to beg the whole question. Tyranny and oppression involve either the unjust usurpation or the unlawful exercise of power. It is the unlawfulness, either in its principle or measure, which constitutes the core of the sin. Slavery must, therefore, be proved to be unlawful before it can be referred to any such category. The master may, indeed, abuse his power, but he oppresses, not simply as a master but as a wicked master.

But apart from all this, the law of love is simply the inculcation of universal equity. It implies nothing as to the existence of various ranks and graduations in society. The interpretation which makes it repudiate slavery would make it equally repudiate all social, civil, and political inequalities.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1124

[Iconito]

There is no good (i.e. flattering) explanation for the refusal to give religions their due for making the world a better place...especially Christianity.

But Religions also have their due for making the World a worse place. It's like we love to run in circles, right? 

Religion had a fundamental role in Human History. Also crawling was fundamental to me. Now I can walk, run, drive a car, take a plane... Are you guys willing to discuss Religion here and now?

[kishnevi]

except that it was the more heterodox branches of Christianity that were at the forefront of abolitionism - unitarianism and great awakening evangelicalism.  Both Roman Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism endorsed slavery.  If you read Southern writers, they would decry abolitionism as a symbol of the apostate North.  The Southern view of Slavery was at least equally religious and arguable more in line with orthodox Christian traditions:

First off, to clear up one sort of confusion, it should be understood that what the Bible referred to as a slavery was rather different from what that word meant in, say, the 19th Century US, or for much of the Gentile world as it was known to, for instance, the first century Christians.  In the Old Testament, slavery was a status better described as permanent servant--the slave was not the master's property in the way that an 1835 Southern plantation owner could say slaves were his property.  That's why the Bible generally uses the word "bondman/bondwoman" and derivate terms.  What the master could do to the slave was far more limited, and he had specific responsibilities to his servants.  And there was an intermediate category in which the 'slave' only served for a certain number of years.  So different was the concept that, in contrast to 19th century Fugitive Slave laws, the Bible forbids returning an escaped slave to his master--the presumption was that if the slave ran away, he must have had some very good reasons to do so.  The whole milieu was rather different--we're talking about family farms or one family households in villages and towns in which the "slaves" lived with the family, sleeping and eating under the same roof (although, like 19th century servants in general, they might have slept and ate in different parts of the building).

This difference of course was not always known or acknowledged in 19th century discussions.

What you quote is of course pertinent to the discussion, but it only proves that, first, ecclesiastical institutions are prone to all the flaws that institutions are prone to, including following the crowd instead of leading it.

But I'll rephrase my point this way: that the Abolitionist movement was started in large part by individuals who did so because of their religious beliefs;  without those beliefs they would have not started agitating for Abolition;  and without them Abolition would have not been much of anything.  Therefore it is proper to give "Religion" the credit for Abolition, just like "Religion" gets the discredit for the Inquisition and the Crusades.

BTW, you underestimate the importance of "established" churches in the growth of Abolition--the first Abolitionists in England were primarily drawn from the Church of England, and those that were not were from Methodism and Baptist backgrounds, which can not be called "heterodox"  within the context of Protestantism.  (After all, from a Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox POV, it is possible to think of all Protestantism as heresy of one sort or another).    In New England, Abolition can be linked as much to the traditional Congregational churches--the "established church" there--as much as it can be to Unitarianism, which was (in the USA at least) an institutional outgrowth of Congregationalism.

Iconito's posts display such a high percentage of willful ignorance and determined refusal to understand the issues involved--not to mention sneering at something he apparently only dimly understands--that there is no point in replying to them.

[Florestan]

Jeffrey, as you very well know I don't always agree with you, but this time I have no other option than to

[Karl Henning]

Also crawling was fundamental to me.

Still is, apparently.

[Florestan]

Both Roman Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism endorsed slavery. 

Please prove it.

Additional exercise: please prove that Eastern Orthodoxy endorsed slavery.

[Iconito]

Still is, apparently.

You need to work on your tendency to call people stupid, immature, or otherwise mentally handicapped when they question your opinions, beliefs, religion... It's childish, it's uncalled for, it doesn't advance the discussion and I'm sure Jesus wouldn't like it. Be nice. Trash my arguments, my opinions, my beliefs all you want, but don't make it personal. Please. Thank you.

[Karl Henning]

Both Roman Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism endorsed slavery.

Please prove it.

Hint: It will at the very least involve finding a top-down reversal of Paul III's Sublimis Deus of 1537. Good luck!

[Florestan]

I'm sure Jesus wouldn't like it.

I love it when people who have absolutely no use for what Jesus taught are sure about what Jesus would do/not do/like/not like.

[bwv 1080]

Please prove it.

Hint: It will at the very least involve finding a top-down reversal of Paul III's Sublimis Deus of 1537. Good luck!

which avoided the issue of the Atlantic slave trade, but endorse is too strong a word - tolerate in practice is more accurate

[Iconito]

Iconito's posts display such a high percentage of willful ignorance and determined refusal to understand the issues involved--not to mention sneering at something he apparently only dimly understands--that there is no point in replying to them.

Hey, I was only objecting to what you said earlier. You are only now giving a better explanation of what you meant... I'm afraid you are mainly resenting the sneering, but you guys are not innocent of that either. Besides, sneering (Actually I would say "a little teasing" instead of "sneering", but that's just me) is OK as long as it doesn't get personal, I think...

As for your restated point: You still have religious people/institutions (i.e. Religion) at both sides of the abolition issue, and there lies lays one of my objections (the other being the 1800 years delay that you somehow explained saying slavery wasn't that bad before... I still have doubts but let's leave it there). Kudos to those who started the abolition movement, but you can't give Religion credit for it if you had Religion opposing the movement as well... It's like praying for a group of ill people's health, some get well, some die, and then you go ahead and give praying credit for those who got well... What about the others? Let's not deny those who started abolition acted on their religious beliefs, but then what about the others? This is what you need to explain instead of calling me ignorant and stupid.

[Florestan]

endorse is too strong a word - tolerate in practice is more accurate

That's a welcome step backward, yet not enough. Please produce proof that the Roman Catholic Church & the Eastern Orthodox Churches officially supported and justified slavery.

[Iconito]

I love it when people who have absolutely no use for what Jesus taught are sure about what Jesus would do/not do/like/not like.

I'm not sure... Please do help me: Would Jesus like Karl (or Jeffrey, or anybody) calling me stupid, immature, or otherwise mentally handicapped when I question his opinions, beliefs, religion?

[Iconito]

That's a welcome step backward, yet not enough. Please produce proof that the Roman Catholic Church & the Eastern Orthodox Churches officially supported and justified slavery.

You are getting a little too technical and demanding... Do you have proof of God's existence, so we can end the damn religion discussion right now? 

Also, I read somewhere about a couple of Popes buying and owning slaves, so...

[DavidRoss]

But Religions also have their due for making the World a worse place. It's like we love to run in circles, right? 

They do?  Islam aside--which is a religion in the same way that Socialism or Communism are religions--I'm hard pressed to recall or even imagine any ways in which religions have made the world a worse place.  Enlighten me, please, if you would be so kind.

[Karl Henning]

What happened to Die Nacht's post? He actually read the article and realized that it was not the slam dunk he counted on?

For the record, he helpfully found this article on Wikipedia.