Good Christians Can Own Slaves
So it’s possible for a slave owner to be a good Christian and have a Christian slave and treat him right.
In Douglas Wilson’s own words: 6 quotes from 2005 to 2026, from Black & Tan, Making Sense with Sam Harris and Blog & Mablog, each cited to the source.
The reason why many Christians will be tempted to dismiss the arguments presented here is that I am saying (out loud) that a godly man in 1850 could have been a slave owner. But this “inflammatory” position is the very point upon which the Bible speaks most directly, again and again. In other words, more people will struggle with what I am saying at the point where the Bible speaks most clearly. There is no exegetical vagueness here. Not only is the Bible not politically correct in modern eyes, it was not politically correct one hundred and fifty years ago.
The issue is whether a Christian man could have lawfully owned a slave in 1850 America without being necessarily guilty of a moral outrage. Was slave ownership malum in se, an evil in itself? The answer to that question, for anyone who believes the Bible, is that it was possible for a godly man to own slaves, provided he treated them exactly as the Scripture required.
Bare minimum honesty requires Christians, if they say ‘I’m with the Bible all the way,’ well, we have to say according to the Bible, a man could be a responsible Christian and a slave owner and not be in sin simply because he was in that relationship... So it’s possible for a slave owner to be a good Christian and have a Christian slave and treat him right. That’s possible, which ardent abolitionists denied. So I would affirm the slave owners in the South had the better part of the argument there.
Our humanistic and democratic culture regards slavery in itself as a monstrous evil, malum in se, and it acts as though this were self-evidently true. The Bible permits Christians in slave-owning cultures to own slaves, provided they are treated well. You are a Christian. Whom do you believe?
Today if an abortionist sought membership at my church, he would be refused unless he repented and abandoned his murderous practice. But if our churches had existed in the antebellum South, and a godly slave owner who treated his slaves with kindness sought membership, I could not refuse him without seeking to be holier than Christ. Such a desire would be wicked, and this wickedness was at the heart of the radical abolitionist dogma.
My actual views on slavery are to be found in my book Black and Tan, and in my forthcoming commentary on Philemon. That commentary is entitled Slow Abolition, Paul's Letter to a Slave Master.