How the Historical Jesus Set the Oppressed Free
“Jesus Unrolls the Book in the Synagogue” by James Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.
“Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease”
The accomplishments of many great religious figures become even more impressive if one is a nonsupernaturalist as I am. Many of them have made a big difference in the world, without, in my view, any supernatural aid.
The fourth chapter of Luke recounts how, after spending some time in the wilderness, Jesus came to preach in the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. Jesus read from the book of Isaiah these words (in accordance with the New International Version):
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Continuing, Luke writes:
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
In the almost 2000 years since then, there has been a remarkable turn away from the institution of slavery, owing in extraordinary measure to the influence of Christianity. And even without supernatural aid, the historical Jesus was a wellspring for Christianity.
In 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson eloquently makes the case for the contribution of Christianity toward the abolition of slavery:
This is not to say that Christianity, even in its incompletely realized form, was a failure. Quite the contrary: Christianity achieved the well-nigh impossible. The Christian doctrine elevated the individual soul, placing slave and master and commoner and nobleman alike on the same metaphysical footing, rendering them equal before God and the law. Christianity insisted that even the king was only one among many. For something so contrary to all apparent evidence to find its footing, the idea that worldly power and prominence were indicators of God’s particular favor had to be radically de-emphasized. This was partly accomplished through the strange Christian insistence that salvation could not be obtained through effort or worth—through “works.” Whatever its limitations, the development of such doctrine prevented king, aristocrat and wealthy merchant alike from lording it morally over the commoner. In consequence, the metaphysical conception of the implicit transcendent worth of each and every soul established itself against impossible odds as the fundamental presupposition of Western law and society. That was not the case in the world of the past, and is not the case yet in most places in the world of the present. It is in fact nothing short of a miracle (and we should keep this fact firmly before our eyes) that the hierarchical slave-based societies of our ancestors reorganized themselves, under the sway of an ethical/religious revelation, such that the ownership and absolute domination of another person came to be viewed as wrong.
It would do us well to remember, as well, that the immediate utility of slavery is obvious, and that the argument that the strong should dominate the weak is compelling, convenient and eminently practical (at least for the strong). This means that a revolutionary critique of everything slave-owning societies valued was necessary before the practice could be even questioned, let alone halted (including the idea that wielding power and authority made the slave-owner noble; including the even more fundamental idea that the power wielded by the slave-owner was valid and even virtuous). Christianity made explicit the surprising claim that even the lowliest person had rights, genuine rights—and that sovereign and state were morally charged, at a fundamental level, to recognize those rights. Christianity put forward, explicitly, the even more incomprehensible idea that the act of human ownership degraded the slaver (previously viewed as admirable nobility) as much or even more than the slave. We fail to understand how difficult such an idea is to grasp. We forget that the opposite was self-evident throughout most of human history. We think that it is the desire to enslave and dominate that requires explanation. We have it backwards, yet again.
Steven Pinker points out how violence in general has declined over time in The Better Angels of our Nature. This too, in my view, owes importantly to the work of Jesus.
This Christmastime, I want to loudly proclaim Jesus as a hero for nonsupernaturalists as well as for those who believe in him as a supernatural being. We have a lot to celebrate.