What does Peter Gomes mean when he says about the Bible, “there are hard texts.”

Are certain rules within the Bible hard to follow?  Are certain parts of the Bible hard to understand?  Are certain parts of the Bible no longer relevant?  Within today’s culture, they are “hard?”

We have already seen in his discussion on the use of strong drink, America went through a period of nineteen years of prohibition.  What happened during that period?  Some Americans did not drink.  They felt that strong drink was harmful or sinful and they liked prohibition.  Some Americans found ways to drink that were illegal.  They liked alcohol and wanted it; no one could tell them not to drink, even their government.  Other Americans made untold riches providing the alcohol that the American people craved.  Did the ban on strong drink work?  I guess not; it only lasted nineteen years.

How did the ban work?  Even though the Bible did not provide “rock solid” Scriptural support for banning alcohol, anti-alcohol forces got legislation passed with a “Bible-based foundation” anyhow.

Gomes next turns to the hard text of racial injustice.  Surely the institution of slavery had no Bible basis.

Sadly, it did.  American slave-owners felt within God’s good graces as they owned other human beings.  Yes, one could even say they felt justified.

There are Biblical allusions to slavery throughout the Biblical text, one of the earliest being the story of Hagar, the slave girl who bore Abraham’s first child Ishmael.  When Abraham had a legitimate child by Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael were banished from the household and sent to the desert.

The Canaanites were put into slavery by Joshua after they were defeated, to “always be slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water” [Joshua 9].

The Old Testament story of Noah had multiple references to slavery as some say there were references that introduced not only slavery but also segregation and even apartheid.  Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually Joseph was put in charge of Pharaoh’s production of crops.  Part of his responsibility was the enslavement of a workforce to supply Egypt with food. 

Is the New Testament any better regarding slavery?

Even though Paul condemns the practice of slavery in places, it was widely accepted in the society of his day.  Gomes says this of New Testament Scripture: “Not only did New Testament morality fail to liberate the slaves or even to mitigate their lot in this life, but it required of the slaves obedience to their masters, even those masters who were not Christian, as a part of their duty to Christ” [Gomes, 89].

With all this as a background, it would seem that making a case for slavery would be easy.  The Bible does not condemn slavery, and everywhere in the Bible the practice of slavery is common.   The curse of Ham [Noah’s son] provided southerners justification for slavery.  Noah curses Ham’s descendants as slaves forever.

American large property owners in the south needed slaves to put crop on their sprawling properties because there was no machinery to do this and certainly they were needed to harvest that crop.  America’s revered leaders like George Washington owned slaves as well as Thomas Jefferson.  Instead of being condemned by Biblical Scripture, Southern slave-owners actually took solace in the comfort of their Bibles.  They felt their “peculiar institution” rested on Biblical grounds. 

Northern ideas about slaveholding were vastly different.  In essence, they saw the idea of a Christian owning slaves as sinful.   It was not enough to point to Noah, Abraham and Joseph.  When Paul said that slaves should be obedient to their masters as they should obey Christ, that was not enough to justify owning human beings.  They felt that  moral principles were in play here.  God’s people should not own God’s people.  Social practices like slavery might be evident in the Bible but moral principles outweigh the social norm or the need for some human solution for the production of crops.  Abolitionists  said Jesus preached love and charity and in most slave-holding situations, love and charity did not abound. 

Methodists [my denomination] like John Wesley and George Whitfield argued that the slave trade should be stopped since it was based on English maritime power.  “The holding of slaves, although permitted in Scripture was inconsistent with an understanding of the New Testament’s paramount teachings on spiritual rebirth, sanctification and evangelism” [Gomes, 94].   In sum, slave owners were guilty of “gross materialism and greed” because they regarded human beings [God’s children] as property for gain and loss.  Wesley and Whitefield knew that Scripture supported slaveholding, but also they felt that New Testament teaching supports the idea that slaveholders should release their slaves and make Christians of them, as an act of evangelism.

Like the shaky theology of prohibition, antislavery sentiment grew based on social reform not found in Scripture.  Abolitionists felt that the need to change this institution was there and it was a moral need. 

Would southerners budge?  Slavery supporter James Boswell wrote “to abolish a status which in all ages God has sanctioned…would not only be robbery…but it would be an extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saved from massacre and introduced to a happier life.”  Most did not want to change their practice of slaveholding at all.

Abolitionists argued that “chattel slavery” was more cruel that slavery in the Bible.* Comparing Biblical forms of slavery to chattel slavery is incorrect.  Chattel slavery is much more dehumanizing.  Abolitionists were compelled to use the moral principles of the Bible, applying the idea that injustice was being done to human beings.  Citing Revelation 22: 11-12 “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.  Behold, I am coming soon, bring recompense, to repay every one for what he has done.”  Abolitionists felt that there was no doubt; slaveholders would be held accountable for their acts on judgement day.

“Abolitionists had no patience with the…niceties of their Christian slaveholding opponents, and thought of them as Pharisees, who, while straining a gnat from their soup, would willingly swallow a camel” [Gomes, 96].

Abolitionists knew the devil could quote scripture for his own purposes and they felt their efforts to abolish slavery would not only free human beings but redeem Scripture itself.

They were serious in their task; in my next post on the hard text of race, we will see they are serious enough to fight a war. 

A war over the “hard text” of race…

*Chattel slavery. In this system, enslaved people were the personal property of their owners for life, a source of labor or a commodity that could be willed, traded or sold like livestock or furniture.  Biblical slavery was oppressive but human beings were not seen as a commodity?  [I use a question mark because I am not sure about the strength of this opinion, generally.]