Ep.6 Connecting the Bible and Slavery

The Bible and Slaver


The Church has also issued a number of Cardinal Bulls (religious legislation) commanding the forced conversion of every heathen and even ordering the enslavement of the "infidels." 

Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull entitled "Ad Extirpandum" authorizing the use of torture for the extraction of confessions to heresy and motivating them to convert and/or revert to the Church.

Goa Inquisitions Pope Nicholas V's papal bull "Romanus Pontificus" sanctioned the enslavement of Indians, Saracens, Turks, Moors, Jews, and "to invade, capture, search out, subdue and vanquish all Saracens, and Pagans whatsoever, infidels and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed...and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery...and convert them..."

Frederick Douglass once wrote, "But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity."

Indeed, in virtually every instance that mankind is disbursed into diversity, the narrative is cast as the negative consequence or punishment for a perceived sinful act.

1. The Tower of Babel
2. Noah's curse upon his son Ham for seeing his drunken nude body.

Then you have Michelangelo's use of his cousin and aunt as models for Jesus and Mary. Solidifying the false notion of Jesus being Caucasian. Despite, the Biblical description of him as being the complexion of "burned brass," and "brass."

According to the internationally accepted definition of "racism" as defined by the United Nation and its 192 member states,?any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.?  Hence, according to this, the Bible is ripe with racism.

Followed by the copious Biblical passages commanding slaves to be obedient to their masters and never attempt escape, granting owners the right to beat their slaves: one passage even stating 'if a slave dies from their injuries received from a beating from his/her master, the owner is not to be held at fault if the slave dies the next day-rather than that same day. Individuals subjected to this edict must have endured excruciating pain over that time frame: (Exodus 21:20-21 ESV)
?When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money."

The proverbial "thin line" between the slave socities attitudes and behaviors regarding the treatment and status of slaves is called the acknowledgement of their "personhood." In other words, whether slaves are 'persons' or merely 'property.' There are distinct Biblical passages which refer to slaves as "property" belonging to their owner: (Leviticus 25:44-46 ESV)
"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly."

Those societies and cultures whom respected all human life, regardless of race, ethnicity, and religion provided their enslaved with "personhood" status-and accompanying this position were inalienable human rights which can not be infringed upon by any individual, collective, or institution.

Concommitantly, the dearth of such status meant that slaves were nothing more than property and were to be used at their owner's discretion. While slaves were to obey their owner in every regard as ordained in secular and especially to be considered an obedient Christian:

Titus 2:9-10 ESV
Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

1 Peter 2:18 ESV
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.

Luke 12:47
"And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating."

Though, the Bible provided corpus rights to the owner, Judeo-Christian shari'a (religious jurisprudence) offered very little recourse towards slaves and their quest for emancipation. When slavery is concentrated upon a single "racial" demography, brute force alone cannot maintain their submission. There must be willing cooperation among those oppressed, and the most efficient method to accomplish this task is with religious conformity and indoctrination. Therefore, African-Americans were conditioned to hate themselves and believe that God had cursed them by making their skins Black. Meanwhile, their Caucasian-American oppressors were similar to God and therefore favored by Him.

Additionally, the darker your complexion, the more you were despised by God. The psychological torment which accompanied American racism caused a psychological trauma which has and will continue to ensure among its oppressed for generations to come. This is partially responsible for America as being acknowledged as instituting the most inhuman method of human enslavement in mankind's modern history.

As social scientists, when examining the rate of conversion among a subjugated demographics- we consider the level of aggression employed in converting the masses, coupled with the amount of time required for the majority of the populace to change to their new religion. Keeping in mind the conversion paradigm entails the normative that the more rapid a majority conversion is achieved the more aggressive the measures employed. Conversely, the longer for the majority conversion to be reached-signifies that aggression has been substituted with freedom of choice.

Even issuing a direct comparison regarding the religious conversion among slaves between the predominantly Christian United States and the predominantly Muslim nations of Morocco (which was the first nation to recognize American independence from Great Britain), Algeria, Tunisia, and Mauritania: according to the research by scholars of African-American Studies; at least 33% of the Africans that arrived to the US were Muslims, while less than 1% were Christians. Upon their arrival to the US, the Africans were immediately forbidden from practicing their religion and forced to practice Christianity. Evenso, many secretly continued to practice Islam, preserving it among their decendents for a few generations.

During the 18th Century a number of White-American sailors who were shipwrecked, or fell to the circumstances of Arab pirates, found themselves enslaved by North African Muslims. Contrary to slavery in the United States, some of the White-American slaves were afforded an earn or purchase their freedom. Moreover, unlike White-American Christians who imposed the Christian religion by upon their slaves by beatings, torture, and murder-there is dearth in the empirical data of North African Muslim slavers ever attempting to forcibly convert their White-American Christian slaves to Islam. Incidentally, despite the North African method of slavery being far more humane than slavery practiced in the US, those White-American slaves who were to eventually receive their freedom, returned to the United States and became staunch abolitionists against slavery. The conditions and treatment of slavery they endured entailed their treatment and recognition as human beings, rather than property. 

African-Americans remain as the most despised and oppressed ethnicity in this country. There have been absolutely no benefits to remaining here and being third-class citizens. One could argue that our ancestors were being tested as the Israelites to see if we would retain our religion.

If you evaluate our Pre-Christian conversion while Muslims to our forced convesion as Christians-there is a huge disparity in our status.

The continent has produced the planet's first universities: Sankora in Timbuktu, Al Azhar in Cairo (still active and considered the oldest active institute of higher learning on Earth), and Kareein in Morocco.

Pre-Colonial Africa was exceptionally nuanced, thereby producing numerous advanced civilizations as Mali, Songhai, Timbuktu, the Mandinka, Fulani, Hausa, Abyssinia, Nubia, Dynastic Egypt, the Moors who introduced public sanitation, libraries, hospitals, advanced mathematics, astronomy, and many more innovations; all of which were directly responsible for lifting Europe from its Dark Ages-and countless more empires.

In fact, our numerical system 0-9 are actually Classical Arabic numbers (Contemporary Arabic numbers are borrowed Indian numerals) that were introduced to Europe by Moors.

Of course, America has reinvented the ethnicity of Moors as Arabs. On the contrary, they were actually Blacks and Berbers who became 'Arabized' much like Egyptians, Sudanese, etc.

It is of no coincidence that the decline of most civilizations coincide with White invasions. You are aware all 3 of the world's earliest universities are located on the African continent? University of Kareein (Fez, Morocco), Sankore University (Timbuktu, Mali), and Al-Azhar University (Cairo, Egypt). Not are you aware of the African Moors whom introduced public sanitation, libraries, hospitals, advanced mathematics, astronomy, and many more innovations; all of which were directly responsible for lifting Europe from its Dark Ages. In fact, our numerical system 0-9 are actually Classical Arabic numbers (Contemporary Arabic numbers are borrowed Indian numerals) that were introduced to Europe by Moors. Of course, America has reinvented the ethnicity of Moors as Arabs. On the contrary, they were actually Blacks and Berbers who became 'Arabized' much like Egyptians, Sudanese, etc.

However, as Christians we became weak, subservient, uneducated, forgotten our history, etc. Conversely, African-Americans who have rediscovered our faith have become some of the most proud and educated African-Americans per capita. It is rare to meet an African-American Muslim ignorant of our post convert achievements, but most African-American Christians can only recount our history beginning with White enslavement.