How Christianity was the origin of many modern ideas about racism and white nationalism, to say nothing of providing justification for the practice of slavery

We need look no further than the Bible to find out how and why white Europeans managed to persuade themselves that people of African heritage were not fully human

     Slavery was a common feature of almost every culture, from the first written records up to the time of the Roman Empire. The earliest mention of slavery dates back almost to the very first use of writing. In the nineteenth century a small, sun-baked clay tablet was unearthed in what is now Iraq. It dates from the reign of the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu, who ruled between 2112 and 2095 BC and is a code of laws, dealing in part with slaves. The context makes it plain that they are regarded as chattels or belongings, in precisely the same way as cattle or sheep. Across the Middle East, the practice was common, and the Bible accepts it without condemnation. It was around in India at the beginning of the Common Era and probably centuries before that, at the time of the Buddha in the sixth century BC. There is also good reason to suppose that slavery was widespread during China’s Shang Dynasty, which flourished from the seventeenth century BC onwards.