As part of what Wilson terms No Quarter November---with its very telling Pirate Flag logo---he's written a post titled Inerrancy as the Queen Mum of Evangelicalism which he chides Christians for not accepting the common secularist belief that the Bible condones slavery. His argument can be summed up with a simple syllogism:
A. The Bible, as the Word of God, is without error.
B. The Bible has passages relating to the treatment of slaves.
Conclusion: Slavery is a divinely-inspired institution.
While the premises are true; the conclusion is false. This is obvious from the fact that the Bible also has passages relating to divorce, which I doubt that Wilson would argue is a godly institution. It also has passages relating to the conduct of kings, arranged marriages, and oxen should be treated---none of which (in the literal sense) have anything to do with Christian conduct today. The reason that these things are still a part of the Scripture is because as Civilization advances what once took on a literal meaning takes on a spiritual one. There is still slavery today: the slavery of sin; and we can understand such passages as the one from Leviticus which Wilson quotes as a way we should treat those living outside the Body of Christ. The idea of compassionate slavery means today that we should treat unbelievers with compassion and empathy until they achieve equality, in the spiritual sense.
The entire third chapter of the Catechism is devoted to how Scripture should be understood and it wouldn't hurt many Christians to read it. That's especially true of articles 109-111:
*109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.75
110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76
111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."77*
This is the problem both with cultish movements like the Red Pill and with Biblical 'skeptics'. They read through the eyes of human prejudice while, as St. Paul says, quenching the Holy Spirit. A very early Christian writing ascribed to Paul's companion St. Barnabas speaks at length of how Legalism descends upon those who ignore the Spirit for the Letter. Speaking of the Jewish circumcision, he says: "Therefore He has circumcised our ears so that we may believe His Word. But as for that ritual in which the Jews trust; it is abolished as He Himself has said. For the Circumcision of which God spoke was not of the flesh; but they have transgressed His commands, being deceived by an Evil Angel."
So to answer the rhetorical question that Wilson poses about slavery-related passages in the Bible: "This is a law straight from God. Is it a good law or a bad law?", we affirm that it is good; but not in the way that Wilson understands it.
Considering that the modern Church's position on slavery is very unequivocal; Wilson is left dangling in the same position that many would-be reformers find themselves: explaining just when the Church went into 'apostasy' on the Slavery Issue. He snorts: "Does the Holiness of God conflict with all of your Enlightenment assumptions that you mistook for holiness?"
In the New Testament, we find St. Paul speaking to issues concerning Christian slaves and Christian masters. Long before The Enlightenment---actually around the 13th Century--- the Church forbade Christians from owning other Christians as slaves. And that decision came about after several decades of lobbying by Church officials: many of whom had already banned the practice within their own Diocese. And in 1537, His Holiness Pope Paul III dropped the bombshell in the Papal Bull Sublimiius Deus which stated that aboriginal peoples of newly-discovered lands "were human beings and not to be robbed of their freedom or possessions" and a corollary encyclical ordered excommunication for those who violated the policy.
It's also interesting to note that when Mexico declared its independence from Spain in 1810, the priest Father Hidalgo who led the revolt abolished slavery throughout the country: a far bolder step than our own Founding Fathers took.
Thus, I think its safe to say that the Bible never actually justified slavery; but in ancient times took it for granted that it was a social condition. Regardless, even relative to the time and place, the Biblical regulations for the treatment of slaves was quite radical and progressive for the era. Some Roman critics of Christianity used to deride it as 'a slave's religion' because Christians actually argued that slaves had rights. Under Roman Law, slaves had fewer rights than livestock. A Roman could get fined for beating a horse; if he beat a slave nobody paid attention.
However enlightened it was then, everyone recognizes today that Slavery is immoral and it's shameful that it even needs to be discussed in the 21st Century. Our forefathers did what they could against a practice that most saw as a necessary evil back then; and others even justified it because they simply didn't know any better. But today? What's Pastor Wilson's excuse?
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