Reexamining What Early Christians Thought About Slavery

Acknowledging that the Declaration of Independence was a slaveholder’s document isn’t about being “unpatriotic,” “hating your country,” or locking our society within a hopeless, fallen genealogy. In other words, we’re not simply doomed to repeat the worst reflexes of a checkered legacy. The story doesn’t end there because people deprived of their freedom used this very document to defend their rights. They elevated democracy beyond what the founders could even imagine. I think something similar could be said about Christianity and its early acceptance of slavery. Lying about this past won’t help us understand the present or build a better future.