UNDERSTANDING SLAVERY, INJUSTICE AND OPPRESSION
The issues of slavery, injustice and oppression are among the most mysterious and important Biblical issues, along with idolatry, that must be understood if we are to have a good understanding of God and how he expects his people to relate to one another. Anyone who doubts the importance of these three concepts would do well be be review the frequency with which they are found in the Bible:
STUDY TIP: Because there are so many scriptures that address these terms, we have combined relevant scriptures into the following four group. Look for key words such as slavery, justice and oppression. |
We find examples of oppression often in world history. In these modern days, religious oppression and persecution appear increasingly in the news and research reports that document the rise of religious hostility around the world. While God is concerned about all of these kinds of oppression, they are not the focus of scriptures on oppression. The kinds of oppression, hostility and persecution that we read about in history and the news are typically inter-religious in nature and are symbolically represented in stories about competition between religious nations for physical territory that symbolically represents the hearts and minds of people who support religious leaders with money and praise.
STUDY TIP: See these links for more about religious conflict;
God is not unconcerned about relations between different religions, but Biblical references to oppression are typically focused on conflicts within religions. these conflicts are played out symbolically in the tribes of Israel. But these events are not God’s doing. Conflict happens naturally within religions and between religions because religions are created by humans who, by nature, are greedy for all the rewards that religion provides.
Old/First Covenant religionists are on their way to becoming New Covenant disciples when they observe mistreatment, injustice and unfairness in all kinds of environments — but especially in religion. They may see examples in government policies and social attitudes and practices where one population (public or private) has undue control over another population or individuals. And they will be especially sensitive to inequities and abuse in religious settings. These circumstances all describe what the Bible calls injustice, slavery, oppression and persecution. We only need to look as far as the contentious issue of slavery in the United States for an example that exemplifies how one powerful person (or group) subdues and controls another person (or groups) who has less power. This historical example can be viewed as a picture of how powerful religious leaders control (i.e. enslave) religious followers.
When religious leaders use/abuse their followers for personal gain, God calls what they do injustice, greed and dishonest gain. He also calls keeping people in slavery to religion injustice. Since religion uses people and keeps them in slavery, religion is injustice.
Many times God commanded his people to “do justice.” Those commands apply to Christians and Jews today just like it was a command to Israel. Doing justice is a key expectation that God has of his people. There is no way that the importance of the command to do justice can be overstated.
Doing justice is essentially a command to reverse injustice. Christians might tend to excuse themselves from this command because it is in the Old Testament and it has strong associations with laws, lawyers, judges and courts, but that thinking does not excuse them from doing justice. God’s command to “do justice” applies to every generation and everyone — including people who are not lawyers and judges.
When we understand that religion is slavery we will see that each and every religious person has a responsibility to do justice — first for themselves and then for others. We do justice for ourselves by extricating ourselves from religion, and we do justice for others by telling them the truth about religion and encouraging them by example and words to set themselves free from religion also. Doing justice, therefore, is how we destroy religion and set the captives free from religion. It is a companion to God’s command to tear down idols and high places which is discussed in detail in TEARING DOWN IDOLS, ALTARS AND HIGH PLACES.
God’s purpose in setting captives free from religion is to deliver justice to people who have been treated unjustly by religion. The following is an outline of God’s view of injustice:
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These considerations are the context in which God finds all religious kingdoms, including Judaism and Christianity, to be his enemies. Religions have captured the hearts and minds of his people and put his people in bondage. Therefore, he is angry and is taking vengeance on religion. And he expects those who have been set free from religion to help others gain freedom. That is what he means by “do justice.” Justice, freedom from religion, and intimacy with God are the results when New Covenant disciples love their neighbor as themselves.
STUDY TIP : See this link for understanding of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.
We begin by accepting that God is ultimately teaching us about spiritual things — not about physical things and not about history. He introduces the spiritual idea that we, as natural beings, will have difficult understanding, with a physical concept that we do understand. In the matters of slavery, oppression and bondage we have a worldly understanding of these terms but do not quickly or easily understand the spiritual intent that God is trying to communicate to us through these terms.
In the process of understanding God, we must first accept that he uses parables and hyperbole to communicate his strong feelings about spiritual matters. People who believe that they are created in God’s image should share his strong feelings about these spiritual matters. For example, most people have strong feelings about slavery, injustice and oppression as they exist in the natural world. These natural feelings are clues about God’s feelings about spiritual slavery, spiritual injustice and spiritual oppression.
People who have never been physically enslaved will not have the same level of revulsion toward slavery as those who have been victims of slavery. People who don’t have strong feelings about the natural expressions of slavery, injustice and oppression that have historically existed in the world will have trouble understanding God’s feelings about the spiritual expressions of these words with respect to slavery to religion.
People who do not share God’s feelings about the spiritual expressions of these words should be concerned because lack of such feelings is a very good sign that they have not been released from captivity themselves. For them, there is no sense of remembrance of captivity to religion in Egypt because they are still slaves in Egypt. And if that is true, they are still guilty of being part of an unjust, slave-holding, religious system that oppresses and afflicts people. They are Old/First Covenant religionists and not New Covenant disciples.