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== The Decline of Slavery under Christianity ==

== The Decline of Slavery under Christianity ==

Christianity was born into a world that was overwhelmed with slavery, with Rome, the dominant world power in the time of Jesus, utterly dependent on slave labor.  The life and teachings of Jesus and His followers, described in the New Testament, while not forbidding slavery nor organizing any campaign against it, struck at the very roots of slavery, drying up its power much as herbicides work on killing stubborn weeds from the roots. up.<ref>Rouster, History of Slavery, p.6.</ref>

Christianity was born into a world that was overwhelmed with slavery, with Rome, the dominant world power in the time of Jesus, utterly dependent on slave labor.  The life and teachings of Jesus and His followers, described in the New Testament, while not forbidding slavery nor organizing any campaign against it, struck at the very roots of slavery, drying up its power much as herbicides work on killing stubborn weeds from the roots up.<ref>Rouster, History of Slavery, p.6.</ref>

Jesus dignified labor by working as a carpenter.  He took the form of a servant.  He washed the disciples' feet.  He commanded us to love our neighbors and do good to our enemies.  He had a habit of calling people back to the beginning of things, and in the beginning God created people free.  Christianity promoted the equality of its members, accepting slave and slavemaster as equal brothers and sisters serving side by side in the church (Galatians 3:28).  Christianity, like Judaism before it, taught that God gave humankind the dignity to choose for ourselves.  That is possible only in liberty and not in slavery.  These influences worked quietly at first, for Christians were not a world power or even a majority.  Most had no political power, and they lived in a totalitarian system.  Yet because of the Christian emphasis on love and mercy, slavery was soon rid of most of its extreme features of cruelty.  In early Christian writings, there was an emphasis on being free in spirit to serve Christ even if one's station in life was as a slave.  Ambrose wrote that the slave "might be superior in character to his master and might be more truly free" (LaTourette, p. 622.

Jesus dignified labor by working as a carpenter.  He took the form of a servant.  He washed the disciples' feet.  He commanded us to love our neighbors and do good to our enemies.  He had a habit of calling people back to the beginning of things, and in the beginning God created people free.  Christianity promoted the equality of its members, accepting slave and slavemaster as equal brothers and sisters serving side by side in the church (Galatians 3:28).  Christianity, like Judaism before it, taught that God gave humankind the dignity to choose for ourselves.  That is possible only in liberty and not in slavery.  These influences worked quietly at first, for Christians were not a world power or even a majority.  Most had no political power, and they lived in a totalitarian system.  Yet because of the Christian emphasis on love and mercy, slavery was soon rid of most of its extreme features of cruelty.  In early Christian writings, there was an emphasis on being free in spirit to serve Christ even if one's station in life was as a slave.  Ambrose wrote that the slave "might be superior in character to his master and might be more truly free" (LaTourette, p. 622.