fidelis wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Speaking as a Christian conservative, I once held the opinion, as many of my peers continue to do, that homosexuality is a choice and having nothing to do with genetics.
I've not changed my position on this so much as I've revised it. Because of the ties of what may be "unnatural" sex, homosexuality, and idolatry, the Biblical position on homosexuality is that it is sinful.
Therefore, because the condition of sin has been inherited throughout history from Adam, that makes it a genetic condition, and homosexuality would necessarily be included in that condition.
You can therefore use the Fall to make a valid, Biblical case for genetic predisposition for violence, deceit, criminal insanity, and so on.
But just as we all have some of those sinful tendencies, we also are capable of self-control and self-determination. If someone who felt a predisposition towards homosexual tendencies believed that homosexual activity was sinful and prohibited in following the will of God, that person COULD very well make a conscious effort to avoid homosexual activity. It's not unheard-of for homosexuals to give up that lifestyle in favor of heterosexual relationships.
You seem quite fond of this little quaint book. Will you do me a small favor? In your Holy Bible, in Leviticus, there is a verse 25:44. Do you agree with it? If yes, feel free to cite the Bible as evidence. If not, I'm glad you could understand where us liberals are coming from.
I can understand where you liberals are coming from, regardless. That doesn't mean I'm compelled to agree with you!
And yes, I do agree with that verse. I'm not sure what you're getting at though. What exactly do you take issue with?
As to why I agree with it: At the time that the Law was written, slavery was an established institution. The Israelites experienced this first hand in Egypt. They would have known full well what slavery and chattel meant. This verse specifically references taking slaves from OTHER nations or from foreign residents living in Israel (or Canaan). You wouldn't enslave your own people, which I think is at the heart of and the real point of this verse. On the other hand, there are separate provisions for Israelites enslaving each other, and the Law requires that they be set free and has special provisions as to how an Israelite may voluntarily become bound to another (nail 'em to the door--I'm not making this up!).
There's another way to look at the context of this verse. That period of time lacked any kind of system of incarceration. Forced labor, as harsh as that would be, would still be preferable to prison in that keeping servants would have been a tremendous responsibility. But at least they were cared for. They were supposed to be, anyway. I mean, we all know there's a wide disparity between what God wants us to do and what we actually do. I don't know offhand what Jesus would have said on this, but asking why we would even need to enslave others would not be inconsistent with His teachings. Jesus DID make a case against divorce, for example, that demonstrates, given the complexity of marriage law, why it might be preferable to avoid marriage and committed relationships altogether (together with laws prohibiting adultery, this would mean lifelong celibacy). The same principle applies to this law. If you can't treat slaves in accordance with human decency, never mind the Law of God, why bother owning them at all? There is no law that REQUIRES anyone to own slaves. Part of the letter and spirit of the Law is that the Israelites were permanently the slaves of God Himself. The result of obedience is blessing; the result of disobedience is punishment. The culmination of willing servitude to God is the ultimate freedom under His protection. What is truly sad is how quickly the Israelites forgot this after Joshua died. Parallel this with how quickly Christians forgot their own persecution after our faith became the state religion of Rome. Such gross misrepresentations of Biblical truth have become rationalizations for owning chattel and even encouraging and promoting it. Even worse than that is how various people who feel strongly against Christian faith have used those very same passages to attack Christianity as a whole. We Christians do still have a lot to learn, not the least of which is the correct context and meaning of verses like this.
If Biblical slavery is thought to be unjust, let's look at an actual application of Leviticus 25:44. The book of Joshua chronicles the actual conquer of Canaan which, whether you agree with it or not, was a horrific, bloody affair regardless of which side you were on. God spelled out that the Israelites were to completely wipe out the people of Canaan. If you were a Canaanite of that time, you would have known your time was up and if you wanted any chance of survival, your best bet would be to take your family and as many things as you could put on a donkey and GET OUT. God spelled out that there was to be no mercy. Men, women, children... GONE. No special deals (covenants). No defense in court. Just get rid of 'em. Joshua records that this didn't happen exactly the way God wanted. Some survivors were left in the remotest territories, which God was perfectly content to allow because foreign settlement of land until the Israelites arrived would have kept the land from being overrun by wild animals. But at issue was the way certain covenants were made without consulting God first. Breaking a covenant was perhaps the highest crime one could commit and divine punishment was a guarantee. So when a special deal was made with one group of survivors, even though it arose from deceit, the promise still had to be honored. It set a bad precedent and opened the way for other special deals that would violate God's commands. There are other examples of Israelites fighting against groups who were especially tenacious. Rather than trusting that God would hand them over, the Israelites just gave up fighting them. The Bible isn't clear on why, it just simply states that they "refused to leave." Rather than commit more military to the cause and risk greater loss of life, they opted to enslave them.
If you were one of these people, you had basically three choices: Get out, die, or go to work. Though slavery in this instance was clearly the wrong thing to do in God's eyes, does it not seem MUCH more merciful than the brutality of human slaughter? That's up for debate of course, i.e. genocide is quicker than slavery and could therefore be argued as the ideal act of mercy. All I'm saying is servanthood might not seem like much to us today, but back then a slave could at least say he still had his life!
Slavery had negative consequences for God's people because their masters gradually came to adopt the customs of their servants, e.g. idol worship. Is it not interesting that God gave two prohibitions against slavery? The first was against Israel taking His own people as slaves. The second was against taking for slaves any people God had singled out for death. This clearly makes a case for slavery not being a God/Biblical institution, but a man-made social class.
I think what was SUPPOSED to happen was that the Israelites were to come in, wipe out the inhabitants of Canaan, and open up diplomatic and trade relations with their neighbors (which might have included the slave trade). Foreign free residents were to observe all the customs and rituals of Israel, as were the slaves. It was a perfect opportunity for the Israelites to demonstrate God's love and mercy since their slaves would have been adopted into God's family by default. This point (first sentence of this paragraph) is entirely opinion, of course, because that's not what happened and we have no real way of knowing what would have happened.
I think taking Leviticus 25:44 as a blank check for anyone/everyone going out and enslaving people is just simple bad theology. Likewise, using it to discredit Christianity/the Bible is deliberate disregard for Biblical context, meaning, and intent. Here is another law concerning slaves, Deuteronomy 23:15-16: "Do not return a slave to his master when he has escaped from his master to you. Let him live among you wherever he wants within your gates. Do not mistreat him." As I said before, prison systems did not exist in Israel at this time (besides, they were nomads at the time of Deuteronomy and were only on the cusp of conquest when Moses gave these laws, as opposed to the earlier book of Leviticus), so slavery was about the closest one could get to long-term incarceration. Remember, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, which meant one could be fined a monetary equivalent for the wrong he committed against another--work it off if you can't pay it. Whether the slave was an Israelite or a foreigner, this passages makes no distinction. It does imply unfair/unjust treatment of slaves existed/would exist, otherwise why would a slave want to leave his master? All a slave has to do is escape, which at that time couldn't have been all that difficult.
Now, do I personally think that slavery is right and good and proper? Of course not. Does the Bible explicitly condemn slavery? No, otherwise there would have been no need for Leviticus 25:44 to even have been written. But does the Bible sanction/justify/mandate it? Again, no. Opinion alert: I think that the Law also has to apply to God's people with consideration to the culture in which they live. If you lived somewhere that allowed the ownership of slaves, it would be up to you and your conscience as to whether you could or would own slaves yourself. If you chose to do so, then using the OT as a guideline for good and ethical treatment of servants would not be a bad way to go. For me and my conscience, I don't believe that enslaving people is the best and right thing. But I can also see how in OT times slavery would be much less demoralizing than imprisonment. At least they had some rights to their families and social interaction and the hope of being cared for.
06 Apr 2010, 5:57 am
