Morality, Religion & Philosophy: April 2019 Archives
Sometimes early Christianity is criticized for not explicitly condemning slavery or demanding its elimination, but instead "merely" recasting slaves as valuable to God and worthy of equal human dignity. I think this criticism is unfair for many reasons which I won't outline here. I want to highlight a verse that I recently discovered which does point to the inherent evil of slavery, surprisingly from the book of Revelation, chapter 18. The chapter is about the destruction of Babylon / Rome, and calls out all the evil people who are lamenting the loss of their nexus of sin. Skipping down to verse 11, we get to the merchants:
And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her [Babylon / Rome], since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.
The word "slave" there is sōma: "the body both of men or animals".
The word "soul" there is psychē: breath, life, soul, that in which there is life.
You can see the contrast. These vile merchants act as if they are trading mere bodies, without recognizing that the slaves are living souls created in the image of God. The cargoes that make up the majority of the paragraph are morally neutral: wood, metal, trinkets, treasures. Nothing inherently good or evil, until final words: you merchants buy and sell human souls.
The wealth of Rome was built on slavery, and the Bible identifies that evil and condemns it.
Mike Pence doesn't seem so paranoid anymore, does he?
On March 29, Democrat Lucy Flores accused former Vice President Joe Biden of acting inappropriately toward her in 2014 with an extended kiss on the back of her head. Biden, a probable candidate for the 2020 presidential election, has denied any wrongdoing, although he is known for treating women in an overly affectionate and sometimes downright creepy manner. At times, he steps over the line of decorum into the realm of the unwanted and awkward. This is common knowledge. ...The vice president [Mike Pence] has very strict, personal standards concerning how he interacts with those of the opposite sex. Without a doubt, they leave no room for misconduct. By doing so, he respects women in general and most importantly, his wife, Karen. Despite the good that this personal code does, the media has run a campaign of ridicule that includes articles like How Pence's Dudely Dinners Hurt Women, Mike Pence poses biggest threat to women in a generation, say campaigners, Mike Pence's Marriage and the Beliefs That Keep Women from Power, and a piece from mid-March about a current Democratic candidate's feelings on the subject entitled Harris says it's 'outrageous' that Pence limits one-on-one meetings with women, just to name a few.
Apparently, respecting your wife and other women too much, enough to remove any past, present, or future doubts, is a bad, bad thing. In the #MeToo era, where there is a range of improper behavior on a scale of Biden to Weinstein, society at large could actually use more of Mike Pence's attitude. Shouldn't the absence of indecorous conduct be a thing to applaud?
I've written about Mike Pence and the Billy Graham rule before. It's important to always treat women (and men!) with respect, and it's also important to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
