The message was that Christian’s shouldn’t look down on slaves or see them as any lesser. I see it as calling people to act as John Brown, to not only free the slaves but to look at them as one’s full equals
Not disagreeing that it’s a contradictory mess. It’s why sola scriptura is a ridiculous theology that can justify anything and that even tradition doesn’t fix it. But also that’s the vibe I got from that epistle. Though if it was written by Paul I probably misinterpreted it, but iirc it wasn’t wasn’t one of the Pauline epistles.
ETA: it looks like it’s the first of Paul’s letters. Paul was weird. Early Christianity basically took an extremely egalitarian stance, but Paul contributed romanization of it and implemented a lot of the misogyny, justification of power, etc that we all know and hate about Christianity. That wave was where Christianity went from what today we would consider an internationalist anarcho communist movement packaged in a religious cult and began the dismantling of the revolutionary elements of it into a religion where the most progressive leader in centuries is condemning transness as a concept and bars women from the priesthood. A religion that left the pacifism it began with and became the state religion of the Roman Empire without actually changing the Roman Empire’s cultural rules. Where certain things the cultists would’ve likely been more accepting of than Roman pagans became condemned as pagan and anti Christianity.
And it’s important to remember this only happened because Jesus if he was real and accurately recorded, was likely a man suffering the beginnings of a mental illness while preaching.
The message was that Christian’s shouldn’t look down on slaves or see them as any lesser. I see it as calling people to act as John Brown, to not only free the slaves but to look at them as one’s full equals
Except for all the verses on how to properly punish and manage your slaves as well as detailing how slaves must serve their masters.
The book has a detailed record of how it considers slaves different from people.
Not disagreeing that it’s a contradictory mess. It’s why sola scriptura is a ridiculous theology that can justify anything and that even tradition doesn’t fix it. But also that’s the vibe I got from that epistle. Though if it was written by Paul I probably misinterpreted it, but iirc it wasn’t wasn’t one of the Pauline epistles.
ETA: it looks like it’s the first of Paul’s letters. Paul was weird. Early Christianity basically took an extremely egalitarian stance, but Paul contributed romanization of it and implemented a lot of the misogyny, justification of power, etc that we all know and hate about Christianity. That wave was where Christianity went from what today we would consider an internationalist anarcho communist movement packaged in a religious cult and began the dismantling of the revolutionary elements of it into a religion where the most progressive leader in centuries is condemning transness as a concept and bars women from the priesthood. A religion that left the pacifism it began with and became the state religion of the Roman Empire without actually changing the Roman Empire’s cultural rules. Where certain things the cultists would’ve likely been more accepting of than Roman pagans became condemned as pagan and anti Christianity.
And it’s important to remember this only happened because Jesus if he was real and accurately recorded, was likely a man suffering the beginnings of a mental illness while preaching.