Article

Change

Justice

1 February 2023

5 min read

The 4th century social justice warrior

He was the first to condemn slavery, over 1,500 years ago. Gregory of Nyssa critically examined society, looking at the relationships and structures everyone takes for granted.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A mosaic shows a saint with a beard holding a bible and his hand held up in a blessing.

Gregory of Nyssa fresco.

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In January 2023 the Church of England committed £100m to invest in communities affected by historic slavery. Rightly so. Research since 2019 shows that the wealth it accumulated through historic investment in a slave trading company and receiving gifts from slave traders, may still benefit its finances today. This past is, as the Archbishop of Canterbury says, shameful. So, it is only right that these actions are addressed.

This story also highlights the complex relationship between Christianity and enslavement. On one hand, inspired by their faith, Christians led the fight for abolition. But on the other, some Christians supported and benefitted from the enslavement of other humans. And, the further back we look in history, the more Christians seem to accept enslavement as part of the fabric of society.

There is, however, an exception. In the late fourth century AD, Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop and theologian, critically examined this practice of enslavement, which so many others did not even think to question, and explicitly names it as a sin, about a millennium and a half before the abolitionist movements. Gregory is, in this way, a light in the darkness and an inspiration to Christians today.

He is convinced, on a fundamental level, that the domination of one human being over another in slavery is incompatible with Christian belief. In one of his sermons on the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, delivered in Cappadocia (Turkey), he calls slavery a sin.

It is a ‘gross example of arrogance… for a human being to think himself the master of his own kind’: When someone…arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?'

It is wrong to dominate others, because all human beings share the same fundamental nature. That nature is being made in the image of God:

'God said, let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God , who is his buyer, tell me?'

Since we are made in the image of God, we share His freedom to choose our own path, be it good or evil. When you enslave another, you take away this fundamental freedom and treat them as if they are animals, lower than the image of God:

'Why do you go beyond what is subject to you and raise yourself up against the very species which is free, counting your own kind on a level with four-footed things an even footless things?'

Therefore, Gregory says it is a shameful arrogant pride to enslave another human being, because you treat that which is made in the image of God as less than human, denying them the freedom God has given them.

We see this conviction about slavery as domination playing out in his biography of his sister Macrina. As wealthy aristocrats, his family owned enslaved people. Yet, at the heart of his narrative about his sister’s life, he explains how she began to treat her family slaves as equals:

'Weaning her [mother] from all that she had been accustomed to, she led her down to her own standard of humility, showing her how to live in equality with the whole body of virgins (slaves), that is, by sharing with them the one table, the same kind of bed, and all the necessities of life on an equal basis, with every distinction of rank removed from their life.'

Gregory does not explicitly say she freed these enslaved people, but inviting an enslaved person to share one’s table was a way of freeing them called manumissio inter amicos. In these passages, he particularly praises Macrina for undoing destructive relationships of domination, where one human treats another as less than themselves and lower than the image of God.

Gregory isn’t perfect. His condemnation of enslavement centres on the enslaver: he encourages his audience to avoid the moral pitfall, rather than expressing concern for the enslaved people. In another text he says it is good to free slaves, but he does not appear to campaign to end slavery. As we saw in the biography of his sister, he is so concerned to undo the relationships of domination of one person over another, that he is less clear if these people are free to leave. Finally, there is no evidence from his contemporary theologians that Gregory persuaded anyone else that slavery was a sin. In these ways, from our perspective today we would want Gregory to go further to dismantle slavery, or shift his perspective.

But, we don’t need him to be perfect. He offers a light in the darkness, not the rising of the sun. Gregory is an inspirational example of critically examining the fabric of one’s society, looking at the relationships and structures everyone takes for granted, and having the clarity and courage to see and proclaim that they are fundamentally incompatible with what he thinks the Bible says about the worth of human beings.

Many Christians are inspired by this way of thinking today. Even if they don’t know Gregory of Nyssa’s name, they will be drawn to charitable giving, certain professions, or activism, out of a deep desire for all to be treated with equality, because all are made in the image of God. To name one example of many. In the UK, Christians were heavily involved in the real living wage campaign. Society at large told them it was impossible to pay a wage where one did not need to choose between feeding and seeing one’s children. But, they campaigned alongside other community groups so that workers are being paid enough to live on, because they were convinced, like Gregory, that all human beings are due the same dignity and worth.

Enslavement: Voices from the Archives.

Article

Change

Identity

Joy

7 January 2025

5 min read

Embrace those grey areas: they might burst into colour

Resist notions of black-and-white existence.

Lauren Westwood

Lauren writes on faith, community, and anything else that compels her to open the Notes app.

A pile of folded knitted jumpers sit on a grey back ground, one is also grey, the others are red and brown.

Anna Evans on Unsplash.

All too often, the world demands us to be one thing, or to be another. In our responses, our ideologies, our beliefs, we are expected to be this, or to be that. In or out. Yes or no. Red or blue. Black or white. The world likes when we label ourselves with a certainty that makes us easier to market to, to capture in a strategic plan, or to reach in an algorithm.

On a social level, these self-categorising definitions – what I believe, who I vote for, what I consume – can become a filtering system for who gets access to us, and who does not. In a combination of association and assumption, we decide who ‘our people’ are, and who they are not. And it seems straightforward.

That is until you realise two things: most of life occurs not in the confines of black or white certainty, but in the grey, in-between area. And none of us are straightforward.

After living through what was dubbed ‘the largest election year in history’ in a multi-national community, I can appreciate that a person is unlikely to experience uncomplicated commiseration or celebration. In the days following several of these major elections, I witnessed friends express disappointment, relief, uncertainty and acceptance in an exceptionally short span.

We may like to believe that we are clear-cut individuals who hold easily defined, nicely organised ideas and beliefs, but the reality is far messier. Our attitudes, views and feelings are lightly tethered to a spectrum and, almost always, we find ourselves somewhere in the middle.

Think about it. Can you remember the last time you felt sustained unadulterated happiness, without concern for something or someone lingering at the back of your mind? The reverse is true, too. I’ve known people in the trenches of grief to laugh out loud at their favourite Instagram reels. Typically, it doesn’t take much to drag us away from the highs and the lows of life. We are geared to live in the in-between spaces.

Make space for all that occurs within the confines of what the world expects and accepts. To embrace the mess of the in-between.

This pull we feel to the middle is not surprising. One of the early church leaders, Paul, said that ‘if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.’ We are new creation beings, surrounded by new creation ideas, in an old creation world. Our social constructs, systems and very lives are built on the premise of being somewhere in between the old and the new, a grey area of partly present and partly future.

Paula Gooder, the New Testament theologian, says of Paul’s writing: ‘With Jesus’s death and resurrection, the new creation lies with the old creation. From time to time, you will see moments of perfection, moments of resurrection, and those are the moments that keep us going in the difficult time … Although you’ve got new creation lying on top, you’ve still got old creation lying underneath. If you want to ask the question of why the world is as awful as it is, it’s because we’re living in old creation.’

In embracing the Kingdom of God in being both now and not yet, we are engaging in an act of resistance against notions of black-and-white existence by living in a grey area that is fit to burst into bright, celestial colour.

On the surface, the story that shapes our origins of existence, the creation narrative of Genesis suggests a God who works in binaries – night and day, land and sea. But we know that there is also the less easily defined twilight, dusk and dawn, marsh and mist. Creation itself indicates that living solely in duality is an impossible feat. After all, we weren’t made for separation, but for unity and reconciliation. All around us, the natural world witnesses to a God who created the things in-between and, like the setting and rising of the sun, he made them to be spectacular and captivating.

In his criticism of Richard Dawkins and the new atheist movement, Terry Eagleton echoes the excitement that dwells in the in-between, writing that Dawkins ‘would seem to divide neatly down the middle between things you can prove beyond all doubt, and blind faith. He fails to see that all the most interesting stuff goes on in neither of these places.’

While certainty has its moment and its merits, I don’t think living in a grey area is a bad thing. In fact, I think we’d all be better off if we could get used to it. If, in compassion, we could assume that our neighbour, too, is occupying space in the grey area, floating somewhere between joy and sorrow, clarity and confusion, relief and pain. If, in humility, we could accept that we don’t always have the answers and grow comfortable with saying ‘I don’t know.’ If, in fairness to ourselves and to others, we could allow for the myriad of feelings between delight and distraught.

In a world that not only expects polarisation but increasingly feeds it for profit of votes or views, this is a counter-cultural way of living. It is radical to acknowledge that our feelings, opinions and even our beliefs can rarely be defined as immovable. We are evolving beings and, as such, the stuff we hold in our minds and hearts today will morph and grow and potentially come to change tomorrow.

Our lives are more than a sum of wins and losses, comedy and tragedy, old and new, black and white. So, as we stand at the beginning of this year, I implore you to make space for all that occurs within the confines of what the world expects and accepts. To embrace the mess of the in-between. To press on in the grey areas of life, only to discover it full, vibrant and glorious in new creation colour.

Join with us - Behind the Seen

Seen & Unseen is free for everyone and is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief

Find out more and sign up