A Smithsonian Institution sign is seen on the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on March 28, 2025. KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY/Newsweek – See the Newsweek article sparking this post.
Recently, the President pondered about slavery in the context of what he suggested was one sided history presentations at the Smithsonian. Certainly, one can point to possible errors, but the President made a big one himself. Plenty of people on social media have regrettably expressed similar things before and since. He said that their portrayal of U.S. history was too negative and focused too much on “how bad Slavery was.”
Well, unfortunately, slavery was worse in the USA than many understand or admit. Don’t take my word for it. Read first hand slave narratives from diaries and interviews: extreme poverty, dismemberments, whipping, rape, murder, and more abominable acts were a norm. Many potential slaves, Native American, African and others, historically feared slavery more than death. In fact, you read of suicidal acts rather than being dragged into slavery or returned to it.
So if anyone is wondering, in the best of circumstances one could imagine, slavery is wrong. It was and always has been steeped in sin, a sign of our fallen world not God’s Kingdom. In Genesis, every human was created in God’s image, male and female alike. Some (I sadly know from experience) will say God allowed it. They will point at a few verses which l agree seem to affirm slavery in that period, but even in speaking of the Ten Commandments, Mosaic law called for better treatment and freedom processes for slaves.
God’s patience with our sin should not be confused with God’s approval of it. (God was not too keen on Israel having a king other than God or the Temple in Jerusalem being built either, for they could lead to idolatry and other sin. Yet, God consented.) By the time the Church comes around, Jesus has extended the understanding of the neighbor whom we should love as oneself to include everyone. Paul emphasizes how slave and master should live within the existing structure while prioritizing Christ, as he did regarding women, but he never argued for slavery. He argued that Christ’s plan is to make all one. In the dangerous context of the Roman Empire where slavery was so embedded, order valued, and social roles defined, he expects Jesus back soon. He didn’t want anything to hinder the spread of the Gospel, so within an unjust fallen world, he counsels humility, patience and love even to one’s enemy. Living faithfully was his primary concern whether a slave or any other lot in a fallen life.
Yet, God did not stop speaking in biblical times. As the Church grows and becomes more diverse, as education spreads (both knowledge and wisdom are said to be gifts of the Spirit), as people pray, meditate on scripture, preach and teach about our Lord, the consensus and understanding grew that slavery and prejudice of any kind is sin. The Spirit works through such holy discernment to try to open our hearts to God’s truth. So again, God called and created everyone. Jesus is to call all peoples to himself. And we are to love one another and see the Christ, the sacred, in one another – in everyone whether friend or foe, believer or not.
Still to this day, prejudice of all kinds, slavery, and ignorance sadly continue to exist. Some people don’t want to see their ancestors as “bad,” but we are all sinnners, so let’s get over it. Going in circles about the multiple causes of the Civil War is a distraction distancing us from the horror. Slavery always takes away a person’s self determination, rights, dignity, health and ultimately life. It’s a kind of theft and murder, as Luther extended those commands similarly to many sins in his Large Catechism. (He suggests we are all murderers at times as we lack care for our neighbors or live selfishly.) As I often quote from Jesus, let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Slavery was evil. It was and remains sin. Let’s leave it at that.
Our ancestors might not have understood this was a sin, but we now do. So, we shouldn’t forget or be shy about their errors. We can learn from them. Sinner-saints all, certainly there could be signs of kindness or generosity back then like now. Yet let God be their ultimate judge, for we have our own sins still to address including modern slavery and human trafficking.
Good thing God is still patient and kind. For, we all need his forgiveness.
© 2025 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author. Scripture passages are from the NRSVue translation.
2pennyblog 
The blog post correctly identifies slavery as a grave sin. Scripture leaves no doubt that to steal a man, sell him, or hold him as property is evil in the sight of God. The Apostle Paul, when listing the ungodly acts condemned by the Law, includes “enslavers” among murderers, perjurers, and liars (1 Timothy 1:10). In the Old Testament, the Lord explicitly condemned man-stealing with the penalty of death (Exodus 21:16). So, to confess that slavery is sin needs no modern insight or special consensus. The Word of God itself has spoken clearly on this matter.
Yet this is where the blog’s theological argument falters. It suggests that the Church slowly “grew into” the realization that slavery is sinful, as though God had only whispered dimly in the Scriptures and we have now discovered fuller meaning through our own modern wisdom. This way of reasoning is foreign to Lutheran theology. The Word of God is not a seed that evolves by human consensus, but an eternal truth, “God-breathed” and clear, and self-authenticating. What changed through history was not revelation, but man’s hardness of heart and his sometimes-willful ignorance of what God had already revealed. To make slavery a question of progress rather than clear Law and Gospel is to slip into a theology governed by time and culture, not Scripture.
The Apostle Paul did not mount a revolution against Roman slavery, nor did he endorse it. What he did was far deeper: he proclaimed that in Christ the divisions between slave and free are meaningless, since all are one in Him (Galatians 3:28). He counseled bondservants to live faithfully in their calling, and masters to act with justice and mercy, not because the institution was righteous but because in every station the Christian life is lived under Christ’s lordship. He even encouraged slaves, if they could gain their freedom, to do so (1 Corinthians 7:21). This is the Lutheran understanding of vocation and the doctrine of the two kingdoms: the temporal kingdom may tolerate or abolish such institutions according to justice, but in the kingdom of Christ all are already free, for the greater slavery — slavery to sin and the devil — has been destroyed at the cross.
And here lies the greater problem with the blog post. It becomes caught up in naming sin without truly preaching Christ. It condemns slavery, yes, but it never really addresses the scandal that affects us all: every man and woman is born into slavery, not to an earthly master, but to sin itself. Jesus said, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). The very heart of the Gospel is not that we have improved society or recognized past evils, but that Christ Jesus has redeemed us with His blood. He bore not only the evil of slavery but the sin of every heart, including those sins we would rather excuse or hide. St. Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15). That is the true Christian confession. That is what sets us free.
Luther, in his Large Catechism, reminds us that theft is not only taking what is not ours, but failing to help our neighbor improve and protect what is his. By that very standard, slavery was an ongoing act of theft and murder. There is no doubt it was condemned by the commandments. But so is every daily moment where one fails to love his neighbor as himself, fails to serve with compassion, or lives in selfish indifference. In the end, all of us are guilty, slave and free, young and old, past and present. All stand condemned. And all alike need the One Redeemer.
So the problem with the blog is not that it calls slavery sin — that is true. The problem is that it settles for moral proclamation without placing Christ crucified at the center. It leaves the reader with indignation against past wrongs but not with repentance for personal sins nor with the comfort of the Gospel. To simply say “slavery was evil; let God be their judge” is not yet Christian preaching. Christian proclamation must say: “Slavery was evil, and so is the sin in my own heart. Yet Christ has shed His blood even for this. In Him, we who were once slaves to sin have been set free, forgiven, and made sons and daughters of God.”
This is the freedom no human master can take away, the freedom no earthly law can grant, the freedom Paul himself sang about in chains. And it is this freedom alone which inspires Christians to resist all forms of slavery and oppression, not as virtue-signaling or social activism, but as the fruit of faith working in love. For having been set free by Christ, how could we ever justify enslaving our neighbor? Christ has made us heirs together of His kingdom, redeemed not by silver or gold, but by His holy, precious blood. And in that blood, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, but one Church, holy and spotless, ransomed for eternity.
Well, I am going to have to respectfully but forcibly disagree with you. Much of the Church especially in the US did argue that the Bible supported slavery. That’s not ancient history. Even Luther said councils could err. And so do people and their societies. This doesn’t impact God’s truth, it reflects our own brokenness and stiff necked, sinful approach to life – all of us. This error in the US churches was a big part of my studies in seminary since I attended a seminary in the south that had theologians who did just that. They used scripture to defend slavery. Every post I make is not going to go into the explicit details you wish, say for example about Paul’s view of slavery. My personal blog has been shared since about 2012 and an ongoing conversation. Plus, desired readability and my own time available impact its content length and depth. Of course, Paul argued that slavery was ultimately meaningless. Folks with any biblical literacy know that. He argues male and female was meaningless too. Yet, I know, unknown to you until now, I’m writing partly as a response to an online interaction with educated Baptist’s who argued with me weeks before this controversy that God’s word approved of and defended slavery. That’s absurd, and it’s often echoed in Christians who try to minimize the evils of slavery in our history. This blog is not just for Lutherans, nor is every blog post going to be a seminary level treatise, nor does it need to be. “The problem is that it settles for moral proclamation without placing Christ crucified at the center.” My goodness, do you not know me after almost seven years? I try to make Christ the center of everything I do and say but it need not be explicitly stated especially each and every time when trying to reach people outside our understanding. If that were the case,I would not have facilitated so many people finding and returning to faith since the 1990s. Sometimes we need to be all things to all people and communicate in a way that won’t prove a stumbling block, a conversation ender, or even lead to cut off. I explicitly allude to our current sin, not just the past, in our society and us. I explicitly allude to human trafficking because even in Fredericksburg it happens. In your writings, I have noted and expressed to you that you often tend to (or seem to) project your hot button theological issues and slogans over and over again onto what others say and do. Yet throughout, I point to God’s action enlightening us and calling us to repentance. I think you are off the mark here, meaning well, not theologically wrong technically, but realizing it or not, your response is in an attack stance. I’ve let it be posted, as you’re not wrong in what you say in many ways theologically, but you have wrongly Interpreted what I say and why. This is not a sermon, or a paper in seminary, it’s a short blog post about current events related to Church and faith. Christians have failed when it comes to acknowledging slavery right up through today, and any acknowledgment of its evil is not just some secular consensus (not what I was alluding to at all) but I suggest a Spirit led prayerful one explicitly in the blog. The Spirit has informed us. The Spirit gives us wisdom and knowledge. That includes our take on slavery. That’s always been my belief, but I’m not ignorant to how people resisted the Spirit and some Christians still do as they say to me, “Slavery was not that bad.” Or in another cartoon for kids that slavery was better than killing them. Or as a Christian nationalist theologian reportedly told a black person in his congregation that it would not be a sin for him to own him if he treated him well. You’re approaching this with a laser beam precision when a wider view is needed. Modern Christian’s still are misusing the Bible and not listening to the Spirit when it comes to slavery. That’s abysmal. “To make slavery a question of progress rather than clear Law and Gospel is to slip into a theology governed by time and culture, not Scripture.” Good thing I wasn’t doing that then.
Sorry, I’m writing on my phone, I can’t seem to correct typing errors. I was trying to say that unknown to you, this was aimed at particular non-Lutherans that I know, but it is intended for a larger audience including non-Christians. Anyway, no harm no foul. We can talk more later. Peace+ – PS I’ve tried to correct it and better answer you. I apologize for any clarity issues as a result.
Thank you, for your thoughtful engagement on this critical issue. While I remain firmly convicted by the scriptural and confessional clarity of Lutheran theology regarding slavery and its moral status, I respect that we approach the history and theological interpretation from differing perspectives.
My commitment is to faithful proclamation of Law and Gospel, rooted in the historic witness of the Church and the enduring truth of Scripture. I appreciate your openness in dialogue, even as we recognize our differences—both in interpreting Christian teaching and assessing the Church’s past engagement with these matters.
Let us continue to strive together for honesty, repentance, and clarity as we bear witness to Christ’s redeeming work, even when we encounter disagreement.
In Christ
Paul
There is clarity today on slavery, true, but among the many Lutheran congregations in the Shenandoah Valley in the 1700s through today, Habron Lutheran (founded 1717) owned slaves and used them to build their building and serve the ministry. This was shared at their last big anniversary celebration in 2017, yet along with acknowledging slaves, they often fell back into calling them servants as documents of the time did. That’s unfortunate. During Jim Crow and segregation, they were on the wrong side of the issue. They were not the only ones, so when I say humans have to learn and with God’s help take planks out of their eyes, that’s what I am talking about. Amidst the LCMS, its founder, C.F.W. Walther, made some arguments against abolitionism, even as I don’t know of him owning slaves himself or being pro-slavery per se. They, too, were slow to welcome African Americans into the fold, and when they did, I have stories from personal experience in Richmond in the late 2000s that would (or should) concern anyone with a passion for justice and stance against overt racism. I will be happy to tell you in person. We cannot recognize Jesus without the Spirit’s help – not one of us. We cannot do any good without the Spirit’s help. That’s Lutheran theology, and that’s what I am drawing from. How can we discern things best? In community is the best way to go to avoid our own bias or lack of knowledge misleading us. We aren’t as far apart as you seem to want to believe. The truth is the truth, but Lutherans like all humans err over and over again. We have grown in understanding in some ways, and we have drifted in others – every single Lutheran denomination (sometimes more and sometimes less). I don’t have problems with claims of the truth of scripture, I have problems with our confidence that we can know it without the Spirit’s help without error. This is thanks to our fallen nature, and it is not the Spirit’s fault. Just like it took time and councils to better understand the Trinity, we need the Spirit’s help with everything including providing us the humility to recognize that we might be wrong when talking about such things – which I know you have agreed with in the past. (I share this for other potential readers.) History reveals that Lutherans – confessional and otherwise – were often blind to scriptural truth when it came to slavery. God was always against slavery, but we were slow to understand and follow God’s will. Thanks be to God there has been progress, but we will never be where we should be on this until Christ returns.