Rings of Sin

The BBC reports that police have closed a ‘slavery ring’, in which a group of Polish nationals residing in the United Kingdom exploited and enslaved 400 of their fellow Poles. Luring them to our shores with promises of good jobs, they were instead kept in rat-infested bedsits, performing menial work or hard labour, while their controllers syphoned off wages and benefit payments. One bought a new Bentley with his share of the profits.

I do not believe the institution of slavery in automatically evil- it is tolerated and even regulated by the Old Testament. Just as Moses gave Israel the possibility of divorce because of their hearts' hardness, so God tolerated a form of slavery among His Hebrew nation. Yet there is something intrinsically corrupt and corrupting about it. That one person can live off the labour of another, offering little in return, must be at odds with a God of Justice. That modern Poles would enslave their own countrymen in order to enjoy lavish lifestyles while their fellows stewed in hovels only demonstrates the constancy of human sin. We might have survived world wars and be enjoying the benefits of good education, but deep down, we’re as selfish and exploitative as any Pharaonic oppressor or Roman tyrant. Whereas idolatry is the elevation of inferior objects/beings to the superior status of deity, so slavery relegates and demotes the God-given nobility of human life to the lowly status of animals/faunae.

Image by Klaus Hausmann from Pixabay