Could slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, then how could perpetual enslavement be justified? In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world. Slave owners in the Caribbean and elsewhere established governments and legal codes based on an ideology of "Protestant Supremacy," which excluded the majority of enslaved men and women from Christian communities. For slaveholders, Christianity was a sign of freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion. When Protestant missionaries arrived in the plantation colonies intending to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity in the 1670s, they were appalled that most slave owners rejected the prospect of slave conversion. Slaveholders regularly attacked missionaries, both verbally and physically, and blamed the evangelizing newcomers for slave rebellions. In response, Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries articulated a vision of "Christian Slavery," arguing that Christianity would make slaves hardworking and loyal. Over time, missionaries increasingly used the language of race to support their arguments for slave conversion. Enslaved Christians, meanwhile, developed an alternate vision of Protestantism that linked religious conversion to literacy and freedom. Christian Slavery shows how the contentions between slave owners, enslaved people, and missionaries transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race in the early modern Atlantic world.

A COVER-UP OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS... Centuries ago, English translators perpetrated a fraud in the New Testament, and it’s been purposely hidden and covered up ever since. Your own Bible is probably included in the cover-up! In this book, which includes a study guide for personal or group use, John MacArthur unveils the essential and clarifying revelation that may be keeping you from a fulfilling—and correct—relationship with God. It’s powerful. It’s controversial. And with new eyes you’ll see the riches of your salvation in a radically new way. What does it mean to be a Christian the way Jesus defined it? MacArthur says it all boils down to one word: SLAVE “We have been bought with a price. We belong to Christ. We are His own possession.” Endorsements: "Dr. John MacArthur is never afraid to tell the truth and in this book he does just that. The Christian's great privilege is to be the slave of Christ. Dr. MacArthur makes it clear that this is one of the Bible's most succinct ways of describing our discipleship. This is a powerful exposition of Scripture, a convincing corrective to shallow Christianity, a masterful work of pastoral encouragement...a devotional classic." - Dr. R. Albert Mohler, President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary "John MacArthur expertly and lucidly explains that Jesus frees us from bondage into a royal slavery that we might be His possession. Those who would be His children must, paradoxically, be willing to be His slaves." - Dr. R.C. Sproul "Dr. John MacArthur's teaching on 'slavery' resonates in the deepest recesses of my 'inner-man.' As an African-American pastor, I have been there. That is why the thought of someone writing about slavery as being a 'God-send' was the most ludicrous, unconscionable thing that I could have ever imagined...until I read this book. Now I see that becoming a slave is a biblical command, completely redefining the idea of freedom in Christ. I don't want to simply be a 'follower' or even just a 'servant'...but a 'slave'." - The Rev. Dr. Dallas H. Wilson, Jr., Vicar, St. John's Episcopal Chapel, Charleston, SC

Early Christians frequently used metaphors about slavery, calling themselves slaves of God and Christ and referring to their leaders as slave representatives of Christ. Most biblical scholars have insisted that this language would have been distasteful to potential converts in the Greco-Roman world, and they have wondered why early Christians such as Paul used the image of slavery to portray salvation. In this book Dale B. Martin addresses the issue by examining the social history and rhetorical and theological conventions of the times. The first half of the book draws on a variety of historical sources – inscriptions, novels, speeches, dream-handbooks, and agricultural manuals – to portray the complexity of slavery in the early Roman empire. Concentrating on middle-level, managerial slaves, Martin shows how slavery sometimes functioned as a means of upward social mobility and as a form of status-by-association for those slaves who were agents of members of the upper class. For this reason, say Martin, “slavery of Christ,” brought the Christian convert a degree of symbolic status and lent the Christian leader a certain kind of derived authority. The second half of the book traces the Greco-Roman use of political rhetoric that spoke about populist leaders as “enslaved” to their followers, especially to members of the lower class. This provides the context for Paul’s claim, in 1 Corinthians 9, that he has enslaved himself to “all” – that is, to those very people he is supposed to lead as an apostle. Martin thus interprets this statement to mean that Paul identifies himself with the interests of persons with lower status in the Corinthian church, calling on those with higher status to imitate his self-debasement in order to further the interests of those below them on the social scale.

The slave Onesimus is the central figure in the letter to Philemon, but he remains silent throughout the discourse. Studies of the letter focus on whether or not Onesimus was a fugitive slave, and on the question of Paul’s intentions for him: did he want Philemon to accept him back as a brother in faith; did he expect Philemon to return Onesimus to him for his own use; or was Paul hinting that Philemon should manumit Onesimus? This study centers on Onesimus as an intentional convert; the first Christian slave whose name we know. Using research about early Christian slavery, slavery in the Roman world, and comparative evidence from African-American slave narratives, this study starts from the assumption that Onesimus had his own motives and aspirations in pursuing his association with Paul, and reconstructs his voice using hints within and outside the text that suggest his agency and subjectivity.

Exploring what it means to be a slave of Christ, Murray J. Harris assesses the nature of slavery in the Greco-Roman world in this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume. He describes the New Testament's attitude toward slavery and discusses related topics like spiritual freedom, lordship, ownership and privilege.

Paul's epistle to Philemon is one of the shortest books in the entire Bible, and it certainly leaves plenty to the imagination. From the pen of an accomplished New Testament scholar, this vivid historical fiction account follows the slave Onesimus, fleshing out the lived context of first-century Ephesus and providing a social and theological critique of slavery in the Roman Empire.

This is a study that digs deeply into this 'other' slavery, the bondage of Europeans by North-African Muslims that flourished during the same centuries as the heyday of the trans-Atlantic trade from sub-Saharan Africa to the Americas. Here are explored the actual extent of Barbary Coast slavery, the dynamic relationship between master and slave, and the effects of this slaving on Italy, one of the slave takers' primary targets and victims.