The Golden Rule Challenged Slavery
Quaker abolitionist John Woolman in the 1750s emphasized “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) as fundamentally incompatible with owning other humans. Anti-slavery pamphlets questioned how Christians could enslave their “neighbors” while following Jesus. Many slaveholders simply ignored this principle when it threatened their economic interests. The clear contradiction between this teaching and slavery practices fueled growing abolitionist movements throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
