Why Christians were more racist than Muslim in the old days

Some slave owners indeed raped their female slaves, and among them it was 'acceptable'.

Best not to conflate the church with the general Christian culture of the day, which often used certain bible narratives to support cruel and unjust actions. Many justified their cruelty against blacks for being cursed by God to serve them because of the sin of Canaan. In the case of indigenous peoples some early bible scholars believed they were the descendants of the Amalekites, which some used as justification for the genocidal campaigns against them.

Ex-muslim said:

A brief background about me; I am an atheist who was previously a Muslim.
I came here to ask you this question not really to debate you which religion is better. I just came here because I think you may be informative about this topic.
I have read about slavery in the US and how black slaves were treated and how this treatment was justified by religion.

#My question is: Were there priests, pastors or religious Christians who stood against this treatment by using religious arguments?

For instance, prophet Muhamad said that there is no difference between Arabic and not Arabic People and between white or black person, but except in piety, and that counts for Islam that at least it didn't encourage racism -there are a lot of horrible things were done to slaves by the name of Islam I am not here for criticizing Islam-

I just want to know #what Christianity said about racism and treating slaves? and what did good Christian do about that in the old days?

One of the horrible things in Islamic slavery that the owner of a female slave is allowed to have sex with her anytime he wants even without her content - raping her basically- regardless what Christianity says about raping slaves, #was it acceptable in the old days for the slave owner to rape his slaves?

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Yes, there were. The Abolitionist Movement opposed slavery on Christian theological grounds. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire on Christian theological grounds.

The founder of the first Baptist congregation in America, Roger Williams, was also one of the first Abolitionists in America at the same time slavery was taking hold. The early Baptists were so opposed to slavery that they didn't even allow hired servants among them.

Collection box for the Massachusetts branch of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1833-1870), reminding everyone of their duty to give using a Bible verse from St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. The box is from c. 1850, about a dozen years before President Abraham Lincoln issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation.

More to the point, and much, much earlier (predating Muhammad by several centuries) -- though notably not from the United States, obviously -- St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395) preaches in his fourth homily on Ecclesiastes the following:


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This is not to say that it is not easy to find many Christian societies in which slavery persisted for quite a long time, and there was much open and less-open racism, but to paint this in as simplistic a way as the OP does necessitates being very (negatively) selective, and hence yields a very inaccurate comparison between Christianity and Islam.

Ex-muslim said:

A brief background about me; I am an atheist who was previously a Muslim.
I came here to ask you this question not really to debate you which religion is better. I just came here because I think you may be informative about this topic.
I have read about slavery in the US and how black slaves were treated and how this treatment was justified by religion.

#My question is: Were there priests, pastors or religious Christians who stood against this treatment by using religious arguments?

For instance, prophet Muhamad said that there is no difference between Arabic and not Arabic People and between white or black person, but except in piety, and that counts for Islam that at least it didn't encourage racism -there are a lot of horrible things were done to slaves by the name of Islam I am not here for criticizing Islam-

I just want to know #what Christianity said about racism and treating slaves? and what did good Christian do about that in the old days?

One of the horrible things in Islamic slavery that the owner of a female slave is allowed to have sex with her anytime he wants even without her content - raping her basically- regardless what Christianity says about raping slaves, #was it acceptable in the old days for the slave owner to rape his slaves?

Click to expand...

Slavery was common and acceptable to the pre-Christian Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and every ancient culture. Within about 500 years of the advent of the Christian faith however, slavery was done away with. But it was reintroduced after contact with Islam. And that did include sexual exploitation of slaves. Almost half of all Black men in the USA have a Y chromosome derived from a White Male, which means at some point a slaveowner raped a slave. It was common. It was not an acceptable Christian practice however.

It was the efforts of Christians such as Wilberforce who sought to ban slavery. In the USA it took a great civil war to ban slavery, where about 700,000 soldiers died in the conflict. Slavery in the USA was almost exclusively racial. Islamic slavery was more about the spoils of war, and not always racial. Thus Black African Muslims could enslave their neighbors and sell them to Europeans to work new world plantations.

The New Testament of the Bible doesn't mention slavery very much. When it does, it says that a slave should do his work and the slave owner should treat his slave well. That they should have a relationship above and beyond that of slave and owner, as brothers. That was ultimately going to ruin slavery, and a huge classical institution ended as Christianity spread. It was resurgent in Islam, and then spread back into Europe mostly for economic reasons. Some Christians tolerated the resurgence of slavery while others didn't. The eventual forbidding of slavery in Christian lands almost abolished it world-wide. But it lives today in ISIS and Boko Haram and other extremist Islamic groups. It also survives in the sex trade mostly in Asia.

Christianity got rid of slavery TWICE in it's history. First it got rid of classical slavery inherited from the Roman Empire. Then it got rid of Islamic slavery which snuck back into Europe and most of the Americas. Almost anyhow.

To allow the raping of a slave would contradict the sexual ethos of Christianity from the beginning. I can't think of any Church Father or anyone of importance who would have encouraged it or accepted it as an acceptable practice.

Ex-muslim said:

A brief background about me; I am an atheist who was previously a Muslim.
I came here to ask you this question not really to debate you which religion is better. I just came here because I think you may be informative about this topic.
I have read about slavery in the US and how black slaves were treated and how this treatment was justified by religion.

#My question is: Were there priests, pastors or religious Christians who stood against this treatment by using religious arguments?

For instance, prophet Muhamad said that there is no difference between Arabic and not Arabic People and between white or black person, but except in piety, and that counts for Islam that at least it didn't encourage racism -there are a lot of horrible things were done to slaves by the name of Islam I am not here for criticizing Islam-

I just want to know #what Christianity said about racism and treating slaves? and what did good Christian do about that in the old days?

One of the horrible things in Islamic slavery that the owner of a female slave is allowed to have sex with her anytime he wants even without her content - raping her basically- regardless what Christianity says about raping slaves, #was it acceptable in the old days for the slave owner to rape his slaves?

Click to expand...

It was the Christian William Wilberforce who was motivated by other Christians to work to end slavery in the British Empire. He was influential because he was a member of the UK parliament. His story is well worth reading.

chevyontheriver said:

S
The New Testament of the Bible doesn't mention slavery very much. When it does, it says that a slave should do his work and the slave owner should treat his slave well. That they should have a relationship above and beyond that of slave and owner, as brothers. That was ultimately going to ruin slavery, and a huge classical institution ended as Christianity spread.

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This verse changes everything:

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. -- Ephesians 6

Roman masters considered slaves their personal property. But in this verse, Paul instructions Christian masters that their slaves were not their property, but the property of Christ...as they were themselves. Their slaves were no longer their property...their slaves were their responsibility.

Ex-muslim said:

A brief background about me; I am an atheist who was previously a Muslim.
I came here to ask you this question not really to debate you which religion is better. I just came here because I think you may be informative about this topic.
I have read about slavery in the US and how black slaves were treated and how this treatment was justified by religion.

#My question is: Were there priests, pastors or religious Christians who stood against this treatment by using religious arguments?

For instance, prophet Muhamad said that there is no difference between Arabic and not Arabic People and between white or black person, but except in piety, and that counts for Islam that at least it didn't encourage racism -there are a lot of horrible things were done to slaves by the name of Islam I am not here for criticizing Islam-

I just want to know #what Christianity said about racism and treating slaves? and what did good Christian do about that in the old days?

One of the horrible things in Islamic slavery that the owner of a female slave is allowed to have sex with her anytime he wants even without her content - raping her basically- regardless what Christianity says about raping slaves, #was it acceptable in the old days for the slave owner to rape his slaves?

Click to expand...

This is really a questioned aimed at Americans. I'm Australian and our country was founded mainly on convict labour and the convicts were mostly British. Africans have immigrated to here and last I heard only make up 1% of the population so I can't really relate to American thinking, however I still have an opinion on this.

I think the big widespread mistake is that people who claim to be Christians are Christians when they are not and other people take that at face value.
Most of the time people claim to be Christian because they don't understand what it actually means and they assume they are without understanding what it really means. Some people say they are Christian because their family is "Catholic or some protestant denomination" or because if asked would say of course they believe in God, but it's more of a label than anything else. They think if you are not a pagan and not some other religion then you are Christian. Most of these type of 'Christians' have not given their life to Christ or follow the Bible which is God's word to us. They are nothing but Christian in name only. To acknowledge Christ means to love Christ and follow his word. You can't be owning and beating slaves while also following Christ.
The two biggest commandments of Christ are to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves.
Mark 12:30-31
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

Then he tells us to look at the fruits- the word and deeds of a person to know who they are.
43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.
44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

So with that in mind:
#My question is: Were there priests, pastors or religious Christians who stood against this treatment by using religious arguments?
I don't know. Christians would.
Just because someone is a priest does not make them a Christian.
Anyone who makes it a practice to mistreat others is not a Christian.

I just want to know #what Christianity said about racism and treating slaves? and what did good Christian do about that in the old days?
God says that we are not to look to the outside of a person and again to love others as we love ourselves. Really that answers how we are to treat people. It doesn't matter what race or social standing they have.

#was it acceptable in the old days for the slave owner to rape his slaves?
Is that loving your neighbour as yourself? No? There is the answer.

Ex-muslim said:

Can you substantiate that please?

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In late antiquity there was a decrease in Roman slaves, which many contribute to Christianity. The Roman Melania and her husband are famous for manumitting 8,000 of their slaves in a single day, after their conversion to the Christian faith. There were several mass manumissions like this in late antiquity that are attributable to converting to the Christian faith.

Christianity didn't explicitly teach the new convert had to release their slaves however, but it does dictate treatment. Alongside the do unto others command, many Christians did free their slaves and become abolitionists as a result.

Slavery was basically dead for a long time within Christendom, as for what started it up again I'm personally unclear - but regardless, once it started up again, Christians by and large again stood against the practice.

The song amazing grace was written by a slave trader who, after being saved, immediately stopped participating in the trade and became an abolitionist...

As for "race", the Scriptures divide the human race (to which all mankind belongs, regardless of ethnicity) into two groups of people. Those in covenant with God, and those outside of covenant. It also teaches that any human being can be brought into covenant with God, regardless of ethnicity and that in Christ we are all brothers and sisters... so we treat even those outside covenant with the dignity we would a potential brother or sister, because we can see neither the future nor their heart.