In utter fairness, Jesus would be viewed as racist today. He condoned slavery. Many times he acnowledged it as a property status. Nowhere did he say slavery, owning a human as property, was wrong. Israel at least erected some safeguards for Jewish slaves. Paul also said to be content.
Sorry, but this is one Christian who believes Jesus was a product of his name and if he were more conscious of his God state, he would have taught resistance. Also, both Jesus and Paul apparently believed that the Second Coming was happening in the very near future.
If God has any applicability today, God must be stripped of 1st century cultural beliefs that no have place in civil society today.
One would believe that God would know about the abolition of slave trade in England, and the American Civil War. I have no idea how slavery was abolished in other countries. Slavery per se was forbidden in England ca. 1000.
Makes one wonder. Slavery in Jesus' and Paul's time was equal opportunity slavery. It was not limited to one race, So if Joseph Smith was the prophet of God, Smith should have none that Ham being all black people was stupid. The Witnesses should not have engaged in segregation. When I ws 11, I confronted an overseer when I heard it happened in the South. There was no moral qualm or doubt about the Society being correct. I told him it flatly contradicted most of what Jesus taught. He believed that the comfort of white Southern Witnesses was paramount. Well, I attended integrated halls. No one cared about my comfort. The fact that we were integrated made me believe we had God on our side. No thought was given to how rejected and hurt black brother and sisters must have felt.
