To browse Academia. This response to Scott Key's "The Tragedy of Slavery" contextualizes the early Christian church's relationship with slavery, highlighting how biblical figures like Paul navigated the complex social order of their time.
The analysis examines the evolution of the church's stance, showing that while early Christians often rejected slavery, subsequent church leaders became complicit in its maintenance as Christianity became institutionalized. The response ultimately calls attention to the church's historical role in perpetuating slavery, despite moments of resistance from individual figures.
The Christian antislavery movement began in the eighteenth century and secured the abolition of slavery but now modern slavery has emerged and changed the context of the battle to abolish slavery again.
This dissertation explores the nuances between the eighteenth century abolitionism and the twenty-first century antislavery movement, in light of current mission theology, and modern slavery studies, in order to understand how the Church can best respond to the issue. A biblical contextualisation and application of scripture is included. Christianity has a complicated relationship with slavery in that Christian beliefs were one of the greatest contributions to slavery in the first place, but also as Christian thought began to evolve and certain theologians began to come up with ideas such as liberation theology, some segments of Christianity also have a lot of influence in the abolition of slavery as well.
We see these two thoughts at play within the writings of Frederick Douglass who tends to rightly blame Christianity for slavery, as well as its role in the abolition of slavery. The writings of Harriet Jacobs give a different perspective on the role of Christianity in slavery, for Jacobs it was a source of empowerment and helpful in finding her freedom. This shows that the Bible can be used to promote either slavery or emancipation, depending on who is reading the Bible.
