Bible and Theology on Slavery

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Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of me...

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The Expediency of White Supremacism

Author

Ken Wytsma

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In order to justify colonialism, an idea like white supremacy was needed. The concept that whites were chosen by God and superior to people of color, who were less intelligent, less deserving, and sav...

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The Narrative of Racial Difference

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Bryan Stevenson

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In this excerpt by Bryan Stevenson, the civil rights attorney and author of Just Mercy, explains the origins of racial identity and difference, necessitated by a slave-based (American Christian) socie...

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Adapted from Deuteronomy 7:6-11

Author

Dustin Ray

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 7:6-11

Pastor: For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was no...

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The Story of Amazing Grace

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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John Newton authored one of the most beloved hymns for English-speaking black Christians in the world, yet he spent his early life transporting African slaves to the New World. He was born in 1725, w...

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A Christianity for Those with their Backs Against the Wall

Author

Howard Thurman

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Scripture

Exodus 3:7–10, Isaiah 58:6–10 , Amos 5:21–24, Luke 4:16–21, James 2:1–7, Psalm 9:9–10

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent th...

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Ephesians 5:22-6:9 | The Mystery of Christ and the Church

Author

Bradley Long

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Scripture

Ephesians 5:22-33, Ephesians 6:1-9

Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...

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Adapted from Numbers 23:19-22

Author

Dustin Ray

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Scripture

Numbers 23:19-22

Leader: God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. All: Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Leader: The LORD...

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Let us pray. Almighty, powerful,

Author

Jacob Traeger

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Let us pray. Almighty, powerful, creator God So often we think we know best. We confess to you our sin alongside the sin of all humanity. We have tried to master creation rather than care for it. We ...

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God, you call us to prayer. Throughout

Author

Ellen R. Dawson

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Scripture

Exodus 2:23-25, 1 Samuel 1:10-11, 1 Kings 3:9-12, Acts 4:29-31, Luke 7:37-38, Exodus 3:7-10, Esther 4:16

God, you call us to prayer. Throughout the Scriptures, we read about your people praying. The Israelites cried out for you to rescue them from slavery. You sent them Moses. Hannah wept, asking you t...

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Author

John R. W. Stott

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Scripture

Colossians 4:1, Ephesians 6:5-9, Philemon 1:16

What Paul does is transform the master-slave relationship by insisting that both masters and slaves have the same heavenly Lord and are accountable to him. The emphasis is on mutual responsibility und...

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Author

William Wilberforce

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Scripture

Amos 5:24, Jeremiah 22:3, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 58:6

Never, never will we desist till we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been s...

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Independence Day to the African Slave

Author

Esau McCaulley

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When Frederick Douglass asked his famous question, “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” he didn’t simply ask a question about the United States of America . He asked a question about Amer...

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Differences in Economics from the Ancient World to Ours

Author

Ben Witherington III

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At this point in the discussion some will remark that the Old Testament says a good deal about being prosperous and even occasionally speaks about wealth, but not about money per se. That is the case ...

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"Pure" Christianity and A Slave-Based Christianity

In this short excerpt, the abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass describes the tension between faith in Christ and faith in a form of Christianity willing to enslave an entire race of peopl...

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A Venomous Creature At Your Bosom

Author

Frederick Douglass

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Scripture

Matthew 25:40, Jeremiah 22:3, James 2:1, Psalm 82:3-4, Micah 6:8

Frederick Douglass describes how the evils of slavery and racism acts as a sap on the integrity of both our country and our faith in a God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free: Fello...

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Thinking Biblically about Work and Ownership

Author

Ben Witherington III

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In modern Western culture we place a high value on work, which is fine, but one of the philosophical assumptions that can come with such values is that we assume that we own what we earn or buy. From ...

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Galatians 4:4-7

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Scripture

Galatians 4:4-7

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you a...

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The Unfulfilled Atheist

Author

Brian Loritts

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Some years ago, I was approached by a young man in our church who described himself as an “unfulfilled atheist.” He wanted to know why he should consider Christianity. I responded to him by asking him...

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Spirituals and Suffering

Author

Luke A. Powery

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There is no lack of pain and suffering in the world. Look around. Read the newspaper. Click on the Internet. Scroll Facebook or read a tweet. Suffering is always present like the paparazzi. It seems t...

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God blessed them, and God said to them,

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Genesis 1:28, Genesis 2:15, Exodus 20:9-10, Psalm 90:17

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth' Lord be with those who work and worship The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to ti...

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The Song of Israel

Author

Mike Cosper

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This is the song of Israel. It begins with the starlit hope of the patriarchs as they sing bleary-eyed songs of their promised future. It becomes a slave song, sung in the chains of Egypt, and evolves...

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The Original Sin of Racism

Author

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Keywords

Racism

The original sin of racism in America began with a deeply flawed and demonic notion that shaped this nations development. Bad science claimed that black bodies were biologically deficient, then extrap...

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Curious About Oregon

Author

D. L. Mayfield

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The Latin root of curiosity means “cure,” which makes me wonder if it isn’t a way to heal some of our oldest sicknesses. Like, perhaps, the “amnesia of affluence” that theologians point out in the Bib...

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The Gospel is Freedom

Author

John Stott

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Scripture

Psalm 119:45, 2 Corinthians 3:17, Romans 6:22, Galatians 5:1, John 8:36

Its [Romans] message is not that ‘man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, as Rousseau put it at the beginning of The Social Contract (1762); it is rather that human beings are born in sin ...

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Father of heirs and orphans, Salvation

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

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Father of heirs and orphans, Salvation of saint and sinner, Draw near and forgive us. Forgive us for clinging to law more than grace. Forgive us for choosing slavery when you offer us adoption. Forgi...

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The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Author

James Cone

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 61:1, Jeremiah 22:3, Micah 6:8, James 1:27, Matthew 25:35-36, Psalm 82:3-4, Isaiah 58:6-7

In the wake of slavery and the Civil War, there was so much ugliness in black life that one would have had to be blind not to see it. And nothing, absolutely nothing, was uglier than lynching in all o...

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Evil is Nearby

Author

Matthew Keller

Keywords

Evil

The sad and tragic truth is that evil is never far away. Not far from where you sit right now, men, women, and children, are being forced into every type of slavery and prostitution, by people so fera...

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Inspired by Deuteronomy 29

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 29:null

Pastor: God our Redeemer, you have saved your people through Jesus Christ, your Son. You have delivered your people out of slavery to sin and have freed us into new life. Yet, we still wander through ...

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A Kingdom of Priests

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:9, Isaiah 11:6

When the Hebrews, recently enslaved but now free, were gathered at Sinai to begin their formation as a free people, God spoke the words that defined them over against their four centuries of slavery i...

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