Idaho Pastor Douglas Wilson stated his case for “biblical slavery” in a new blog and accompanying video, arguing that had the biblical figure Philemon “lived in Alabama in 1850,” he’d be within his right to enslave people.
Wilson’s post was part of his “No Quarter November” tradition. During the month of November each year, Wilson focuses on releasing content that, to his mind, says “what needs to be said to a rebellious culture.”
“As everyone should know by now, biblical slavery is my most favoritest subject in the whole wide world,” said Wilson. “I turn to it most every chance I get, and I even recently turned in the manuscript of an honest commentary on Philemon.”
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Wilson explained:
The book is a letter from the apostle Paul to a dear friend and slave owner, a man named Philemon, and the letter explains the circumstances around the reason for the letter, which is the return of a runaway slave named Onesimus. Onesimus had done some significant wrong to Philemon, had run away, and had somehow encountered the Apostle Paul, who had led him to the Lord. Having done so, he returned Onesimus to his master, along with exhortations to receive him as a brother in the Lord now.
“We need not go into all the things that the letter is not saying,” said Wilson. “[We] must content ourselves with what the letter is saying, which is, ‘I am returning your runaway slave now.’”
In his defense of “biblical slavery,” Wilson then recalled a televised debate between Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell Sr. and a progressive Episcopal bishop. Wilson said that Falwell “was doing good Christian work in rejecting homosexuality” but then was questioned about the fact that “the Bible allows for slavery.”
Wilson argued that Falwell ought to have said, “Yes, it does. What’s your point?” However, what Falwell argued instead was “something like ‘that was then, and this is now.’”
“I hope you can see the problem right off. Why do evangelicals get to play the ‘that-was-then-this-is-now’ game, and the gay boys don’t get to?” said Wilson. “This is a different world now, in which that kind of slavery is unthinkable. Well, yeah, but among the Episcopalians of Newark they believe it to be unthinkable to proscribe two dudes from getting it on.”
