"The sense that God was decisively at work in the crisis of the Union also profoundly altered the way in which church leaders dealt with the problem of slavery. At the war's outset, Northern churches were far from unanimous in their attitude toward human bondage. A few denounced the practice as a sin and called for immediate emancipation or abolition. At the other extreme, some argued that the Bible treated slavery as a morally legitimate institution. For example, parts of the Old Testament law recognized and regulated slavery. Jesus lived in a world where slavery existed, and he apparently uttered not a single word of censure against it. The letters of the apostle Paul contained explicit commands that slaves be obedient to their masters. Therefore, ran this argument, contemporary Christians had no business condemning as sinful a social arrangement that the Bible itself sanctioned. Most church leaders appear to have fallen somewhere between these extremes."
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James Howell Moorhead, “Religion in the Civil War: The Northern Perspective”, National Humanities Center
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery
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Christian views on slavery
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