Christians often insist that without God’s revelation, humanity would have no moral compass, no way to distinguish right from wrong. This episode challenges that claim head-on, using slavery as the clearest test case. Scripture regulated human bondage, defended it, and sanctified it for centuries, while humanity eventually recognized, often against the church and its texts, that owning another person is morally indefensible. The abolition of slavery was not a triumph of revelation but of conscience: proof that moral progress does not descend from heaven but emerges from human empathy, reason, and courage. If that’s true, then the most sacred act in history may not have been obedience to God, but the moment we chose to be better than our scriptures.

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