All,
   I understand where the early Christians were coming from. They did not
advocate a violent overthrow of the existing order, or insurrection of
slaves. The fact that many of the early Christians were indeed slaves
themselves is evident from the scriptures. But it is incorrect to read into
the early Christians' pacifism an approval of the institution. It is
difficult to see how slave owners could resolve mistreatment of slaves, or
the institution itself, based on scriptural verses such as the following
from Philemon:

I appeal to you for my child, Ones'imus, whose father I have become in my
imprisonment.
(Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to
me.)
I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.
I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me
on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel;
but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your
goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will.
Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have
him back for ever,
no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially
to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.
If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my
account.

   The Catholic Church has an altogether better history where the matter of
slavery is concerned:

The Catholic Church unhesitatingly condemned racial slavery as soon as it
began. In 1435, six decades before Columbus sailed, Pope Eugene IV condemned
the enslavement of the black natives of the Canary Islands, and ordered
their European masters to manumit the enslaved within 15 days, under pain of
excommunication. In 1537, Pope Paul III condemned the enslavement of West
Indian and South American natives, and explicitly attributed that evil,
"unheard of before now," to "the
enemy of the human race," Satan.

Papal condemnations of slavery were repeated by Popes Gregory XIV (1591),
Urban VIII (1639), Innocent XI (1686), Benedict XIV (1741), and Piux VII
(1815). In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI wrote,

           We, by apostolic authority, warn and strongly exhort...
that no one in the future dare to bother unjustly, despoil of
   their possessions, or reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other
such peoples.

Pax,
Ron

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