This is an analysis of an article published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, entitled "Did God Condone the Slave Trade". Of necessity (and partly because of my tendency to ramble) I do go beyond the article itself into a wider exploration of the subject matter in places. The article itself can be found on the WTBTS website, here, and a PDF version can be found here
The full analysis of the article can be found here. The shorter, tl;dr version, though, is that this is an interesting article, not only because it’s a weak attempt to address a much larger and significantly sticker issue, but also because it contains a number of examples of selective use of scripture outside of context. A fragment of Ecclesiastes 8:9, which is frequently used for a number of situations, is used as a condemnation despite the context of the scripture being significantly different. The experience of the Israelites under slavery in Egypt is also used, although scriptural evidence points to it being divinely engineered. Most disturbingly, slavery as practiced by the Israelites and early Christians is not only whitewashed, but presented in virtually a positive light.
Ultimately, both the Mosaic Israelites and early Christians obviously held views towards the practice of slavery that were morally acceptable for the time period – what we would consider barbarous today was not only par for the course at the time, but was more humane than most. While those peoples considered the practice of slavery divinely acceptable, the view today that any form of ownership of another person is one that has come to us by a reasoned understanding of the equality of man to man. This is not something that has come to us through divine mandate and is, in fact, a rejection of several Divine commandments outlined above. The treatment of the subject by the WTBTS, on the other hand, shows not only the expected selective treatment of scripture, but also a repugnant willingness to whitewash the practice of slavery by early Christians. This attitude is a mark of their ideological and theological dishonesty, not only in this article, but throughout their literature and teachings.