Is the USA the only country whose largest indigenous religious sect was founded to defend slavery?

[BolivarianHero]

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest religious sect indigenous to the United States and was founded for the sole purpose of defending African-American slavery.

Is there any country elsewhere in the world that must bare this shame?

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that all SBCs are bad people (there are open-and-affirming Congregations, and Chelsea Clinton just married a Jew) or that Americans are evil because of this...I'm just curious as to whether it's the only country with this distinction.

[Nye Bevan]

1. How in the world did these people reconcile "Love your neighbor as yourself",

and "do unto others as you would have done unto you" with the horror of the institution of slavery? It never occurred to them that Jesus might not have fully approved of hunting down an escaped slave and thrashing him to within an inch of his life?

[laconicsax]

5. By reading the pro-slavery parts of the Bible.

There are plenty of passages in both Old and New Testaments that endorse slavery.

[Nye Bevan]

6. There's a lot of crap in the Old Testament

When my parents used to drag me to church as a kid I pretty much ignored the priest as he droned through the O.T. readings. The only stuff that ever seemed to make sense to me (sometimes) was the Gospels. I don't think Jesus himself endorsed slavery.

[laconicsax]

8. So what?

It's all part of the same holy book. Everyone picks and chooses the parts they agree with and tosses out the rest. The Southern Baptists are no different.

[PassingFair]

10. He didn't say anything AGAINST it, either, although it was common in his time.

There is approval of slavery in the New Testament, for sure:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl2.htm

[trotsky]

11. Did Jesus endorse slavery?

Well, he didn't speak out against it, and in fact gave instructions on when it was appropriate to beat one's slaves, as well as reminding slaves themselves to remain obedient to their masters.

[olegramps]

12. Please cite the passages supporting your claims. Paul, yes, Jesus, no.

[Mariana]

7. Very easily.

Many of them simply redefined "thy neighbor" and "others" (meaning other human beings) so as to exclude the slaves. The laws strongly reinforced this idea.

I also expect that many slaveowners honestly convinced themselves, with lots of help from their preachers, families, and friends, that they WERE following those tenets. If they fed and housed their slaves adequately, provided medical care, and didn't work them to death or rape them or abuse them for fun, then they were behaving as good Christians, in their minds. Slaves who were punished for disobeying them "deserved it" and/or it was done "for their own good".

[Keystonecops]

2. Alright, I'll take the bait

The baptists apologized for their role in supporting slavery, didn't they?

And, oh yea, there are plenty of other examples of religious orders which have the primary goal of subjugating local populations.

The Dutch Reformed Church and Orange Order used Christianity as the codpiece for centuries of slavery in South Africa leading up to the institution of apartheid in 1949 (?).

Therevada Buddhism as practiced in Burma. The Buddhism majority even changed the name of the country to Myanmar, which means land of the Burmans in Burmese, to screw over 135 ethnic groups comprising Christina, Muslim, Hindu, and Anamist religions.

The Muslims of Mauritania, where slavery is still a common practice, and especially Sudan use Islam as one excuse to enslave and subjugate Christians and animists.

And of course there is the good old Catholic church in many central and south American countries such as Bolvia, to subjugate and exterminate numerous local cultures, if you Quechua my drift...

Your turn. :)

[xfundy]

4. Well, eventually they did

The Southern Baptists (the group that is the subject of this thread) apologized for supporting slavery IN 1995, during the time they were being absorbed by the Republican party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention

[Kurovski]

3. As I recall, The Bible contains guides to proper behavior for slaves

and slave owners.

While the Bible serves to control everyone, I don't think it's entire purpose was to defend enslaving the human race.

It's also a who's who of ancient well-to-dos and celebritiess.

[frogmarch]

9. I didn't know that.

Wow.

Some puritans owned slaves too. Several of my ancestral families in Massachusetts Bay Colony owned slaves. One of my distant great-grandfathers owned a company whose sole business was slave trade with Barbados. He and his fellow puritans considered themselves to be God's Chosen. I wish I could go back in time and slap the shit out of them.