How do you know? You’ve just acknowledged that He didn’t have a position on it:
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I am not defending slavery…relax. I am just stating that Jesus neither condoned nor condemned slavery because he saw it a function of life in a different time period. He did condemn evil, he did condemn sin, he did condemn all the wickedness that comes with those two. In those days there were also good masters, so Jesus would have condemned the evil and condoned the good. Today slavery is not a normal practice and not required for survival.
I should add that the need for slavery is no longer necessary in our society, for centuries, and all that remains is the evil part.
OK, so your response was completely irrelevant and unrelated to my comment. You just decided to make it anyway, for whatever reason. Thanks for clarifying.
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So you are claiming that slavery is not a per se evil?
Would slavery today be acceptable, as long as it were practiced by a “good master”?
I don’t think you are doing a good job of distinguishing the relative morality of ancient versus modern slavery.
You might want to consider the first rule of holes.
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The funny thing (“funny” as in peculiar or odd) is that the same apologists who try to distinguish “good” from “bad” slavery bases on the culture of the times are usually the same ones who deride atheists as moral relativists, and say atheists have no possible grounding for “objective” moral values.
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I have noticed that the prominence of moral relativism versus moral absolutism in arguments often tends to vary according to which view is most amenable to justifying God’s actions. 
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It’s a close to certainty as anything in human affairs can be that Roe v. Wade will not be overturned. The American people have come to take the right to first-trimester abortions for granted, and there won’t be any going back on that.
The traditional Christian view has been that all laws other than those pertaining to morality are no longer binding. So the dietary law, the ceremonial law, and all kinds of laws pertaining to ancient Israelite warfare and economics and social life – all are no longer binding. That includes the provisions for slavery. And in fact it didn’t take Jesus to get rid of slavery; it had ceased to be a fact among the people of Israel centuries before his time.
I didn’t say there was. I said that many Christians consider it to be murder, and therefore consider it to be something Jesus would forbid.
Not every Christian belief is found directly in the Bible. Some of them are derived from reasoning about what is in the Bible. The Roman Church, for example, has a vast literature on reproductive ethics, abortion, the ethics of medical experimentation – none of it found in the Bible. It doesn’t follow that it isn’t carefully reasoned out on the basis of what’s in the Bible.
Would you care to specify that “something”, are are you happy to just make assertions without providing evidence?
See above; if something is logically derivable from what Jesus does teach, then it’s not a misrepresentation. For example, there is nothing in the Bible against copying a movie so you don’t have buy it. Neither Jesus nor Moses forbids it. But they do forbid stealing. And Christians reason, quite correctly, that copying the movie is stealing. It would be pathetic to argue that copying a movie (or song, or anything else) without permission is not stealing because the Bible does not mention movies, pop songs, etc.
A sweeping generalization. Would you care to specify who it is that generally ignores the teaching of Jesus Christ? Which Christians do this? And which Christians do follow the teaching of Jesus Christ? Should I hazard a guess they they members of your own denomination, the UCC?
People don’t vote merely on the basis of what someone has done; they also take into account what they fear someone will do, based on their expressed values and proposed projects. For example, if you fear the imposition of certain affirmative action laws, you know that it’s more likely that Democrats than Republicans will favor such laws, and you can vote accordingly.
Even if that is true of Democrats generally, it does not follow that it is true of all Democrats elected to office, or who hope to be elected to office, and it is such people who make the laws, not the rank and file members of the party. In any case, as I’ve already explained at length, conservative Christians have a much higher standard for what counts as “Christian” than liberal Christians do. “I’m a minister of the United Church of Christ, and therefore I must by definition be Christian” would in some circles cause conservative Christians to double over in laughter.
I’m curious.
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What biblical basis is there for this differentiation? And who gets to decide what does or doesn’t ‘pertain to morality’?
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Isn’t slavery a moral issue?
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Isn’t children cursing their parents a moral issue? If so, doesn’t this division mean that the death penalty still applies for it?
This whole thing seems to be nothing more than an ad hoc excuse to cherry-pick the rules that they like. If you want to do it, it can’t possibly be a moral issue (so slavery is okay). If you don’t want people to do it, then it must be a moral issue (so homosexuality isn’t).
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Be as curious as you like; what I was the standard view within historical Christianity. If you are challenging my summary statement, trot out your historical evidence from Luther, Calvin, Aquinas, Augustine, etc. But assuming you aren’t…
Christianity isn’t required to have a Biblical basis for everything. At least, not a direct Biblical basis. Your question indicates a Protestant conception of Christianity. Which is odd, given you’re not a Protestant, or a Christian at all.
If you doubt that the distinction was made well, you are free to invest time studying the authors who made it. The way to learn the history of Christian thought is to study it, not to fire shots back and forth on blog sites.
As you have asserted Eddie.
And I would question how a “higher standard” would allow in some of the reprobates below.
I’m sure that the claim that they’re Christians would make liberal Christians cry rather than laugh.
What is the point of your citing people who you know I would not agree with and that I would not count as examples of a well-thought-out conservative Christian faith? And why, when the discussion is about conservative Christians, do you pick the wing-nuts? Many conservative Christians aren’t like this. You’re cherry-picking the worst of the lot, so you can put conservative Christianity down. Why don’t you try actually spending time with some decent, moderate, conservative Christians? Your picture of conservative Christian thought is based on sound bites, not any deep familiarity with the religion. And you’re not alone here on this point.
What is my point @Eddie?
It is that the standards of your conservative Christians aren’t “high” so much as warped beyond recognition, when they laugh at a a minister of the United Church of Christ calling themselves a Christian, simply because of their denomination, but accept these reprobates.
I have seen some pretty darn horrific hate spewing from the mouths of a number of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preachers. Are they more Christian than the UCCs Eddie?
I’m so very tired of your endless and ad nausem “explaining” of who you think to be the wrong sort of Christians. Get yourself elected the head of a Christian denomination Eddie, or better yet start one of your own. Then you can go ahead and excommunicate every Christian you don’t like for heresy. Until then nobody cares which Christians you don’t like! (Admittedly, I don’t think anybody would care even if you did, unless your denomination started calling crusades or something.)
So was Geocentricism, at one time. I’m sorry, but that does not confer reliability.
Christianity isn’t required to have a Biblical basis for everything.
But it probably should have one for throwing out a large amount of the rules in its sacred texts. Otherwise, why bother with sacred texts?
If you doubt that the distinction was made well ...
I’m asking who made the distinction, and how. That is a necessary first step in determining whether the distinction is reliable.
I would also note that, as this distinction has no direct basis in scripture, it would be difficult to claim that some different distinction would be heretical, so could quite easily provide leeway for some other denomination of Christianity to ‘throw out’ a different set of the OT laws.
Well, I wish I was as certain about that. But regardless, you seem to have forgotten that you are talking about the perceptions and beliefs of conservative Christians in America, and not about the accuracy of those beliefs. Surely you do not doubt that large numbers of these people believe the GOP can overturn Roe v Wade by stacking the SCOTUS with conservative-leaning judges, and that this is a major reason that they support the GOP.
But just in case you do doubt this:
Ah, I see. So I guess that’s why American conservative Christian are so supportive of gay equality, and never cite the Old Testament in opposing to gay rights.
Honestly, you deride others for being ignorant of American politics, but you write about the subject as if you’ve been living on Pluto for the past 40 years.
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From what I have seen, those fears are stoked by fellow Republicans. Fox News and various radio shows are great examples. It would seem that Democrats would need to convince conservatives to look at reality instead of the fear stoked within the conservative echo chambers. That’s not an easy task.
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