Monotheistic faiths have known the misery of slavery

At the annual Spring McGinley Lecture, the topic of “Slavery and its Aftermath: Jews, Christians and Muslims Confront Racism and Inequality,” was discussed by Father Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., and responded to by Megda Teter, professor of history at New York’s Fordham University, and Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, of the department of religion and human values at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.

According to Fordham University’s website, the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society was established in 1988 to attract distinguished scholars interested in the interaction of religion with the legal, political and cultural forces in American society. The Chair is in tribute to the Rev. Laurence J. McGinley, S.J., who served as president of Fordham University.

Catholic bishops since the promulgation of their 1979 pastoral letter on racism, titled “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” have been confronting the evil of racism. In their pastoral letter, they clearly taught that “racism is a sin: a sin that divides the human family, blots out the image of God among specific members of that family, and violates the fundamental human dignity of those called to be children of the same Father.”

The McGinley Lecture this year sought to uncover some of the historical antecedents found in the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam concerning the barbaric trade and acceptance of human bondage or slavery – especially in regards to the procuring of some 18 million Africans between 1500-1900 C.E.

It is noteworthy to mention that all three faith communities have been on both sides of this human tragedy at different times in our histories. In fact, we have all, at different times, known the misery of enslavement as well as the evil of enslaving other human beings. The focus of the lecture, however, primarily focused on the mass enslavement of Africans and its aftermath as the foundation for the racism and inequality that is still experienced by descendants of these enslaved people throughout the world.

Judaism’s sacred scriptures often deal with the recurring theme of slavery. In the ancient world in which our father in faith, Abraham, lived, slavery was an accepted institution by most societies at that time. One of the central events and themes of the Torah, of course, is the story of Moses and the Exodus experience. Throughout Jewish history scripture stories, teachings of the sages and rabbis often touched upon the accepted practice of slavery. Megda Teter noted that, “European Jews, while marginalized in Europe in the colonies, participated in the European colonial enterprise (of slavery). … As Father Ryan noted, Jews were on both sides of this story, but most often in-between.”

In Christianity, Father Ryan explained, Christians, like Jews, took slavery for granted as part of the world economic system in which they found themselves at the time of Christ and for many centuries thereafter. The New Testament makes this very plain. The so-called Deutero-Pauline letters attributed to Saint Paul – genuine parts of the New Testament, but post-Pauline in their authorship – feature stock moral exhortations for wives to obey their husbands, children to obey their parents and slaves to obey their masters. In spite of our shameful history of tolerating slavery over the centuries in different ways, it is Saint Paul who gives us the most profound condemnation of this institution when he said, “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26-28).

Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, in his response to Father Ryan’s observations on Islam and slavery, said, “Indeed, Jews, Christians and Muslims have all been accused of complicity in the slave trade. Professor Ryan captures it adequately in his lecture when he states that ‘Christians, like Jews, took slavery for granted as part of the world economic system in which they found themselves at the time of Christ and for many centuries thereafter.’ The same can be said of Islam. In the case of Islam, ‘urf’ [an acceptable custom] has often been integrated into the Islamic theological structure. Dr. Abou El-Fadl [UCLA School of Law] argues that Islamic jurisprudential inquiry serviced the socio-political reality of Arabia through the Qur’anic text.”