CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY - IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY INFORMATION

CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY - IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY INFORMATION

The largest slave trade in the history of the world was created by Christian European nations.  This is a fact.

It is also a fact that the Bible very specifically endorses slavery. In America before the Civil War, the majority of evangelical Christians were totally convinced that "their personal relationship with Jesus Christ" authorized them to own slaves.

Some evangelical factions in recent times did oppose the slave trade.  In England they helped abolish it in the early 19th century.  The radical abolitionist John Brown defended his raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1859 as an act against slavery born out of his Christian conviction.

However, throughout most of Christian history slavery has received the official sanction of the church.   Leading figures in the Catholic Church, from St. Augustine, to numerous popes, considered the enslavement of other human beings to be a perfectly acceptable practice sanctioned by God.  After the Reformation, this was a tradition that carried over into many Protestant sects as well.

The set of quotes below makes clear the depth of pro-slavery sentiment within the history of Christianity.  They are not intended to be an exhaustive list.  Rather, they are but a fraction of justifications based on Scripture that were used to uphold the existence of slavery.