James Jacobs wrote:
Sarenrae herself, and her church, does not tolerate slavery, but nor do they preach "Kill the slavers!" They would certainly look for non-violent ways to seek a slave's freedom—purchasing the slave and setting the slave free is probably the preferred method.
Now that said, there's a wide range of individual variations among the specific worshipers of Sarenrae—as with ANY religion. There are some worshipers of Sarenrae who would, perhaps, seek to simply comfort slaves if possible, espcially if they see the alternative (living on your own with no support structure in a dangerous city) is more painfula nd dangerous than slavery itself. There's ABSOLUTELY some worshipers of Sarenrae who crusade against slavery and slavers themselves and DO use violence against the slavers.
Now, as for Qadira? It's important to keep two things in mind about Sarenrae's faith being the most widespread faith in Qadira:
1) It's not in charge. The government of Qadira is richer and more powerful than the church of Sarenrae in Qadira, and as a result, the government is the one that gets to say if slaves are legal or not. The church has to either go along with that or rebel, and in Qadira's case, the church has opted to go along with it.
2) The church of Sarenrae in Qadira is NOT the most faithful of all of Sarenrae's churches. In fact, it's one of the most corrupt of her churches, because they've more or less lost sight of the "redeem your enemies" and "peace is better than war." Over the course of many generations, the church of Sarenrae in Qadira has become militarized, basically, and they're a lot more pro-war than they should be—but not SO pro-war that the chruch is in immediate danger of losing all their clerical powers. This church's tolerance of slaves in Qadira is but one of many examples of how the church is straying from Sarenrae's path. It's also why there's a schism building among the church, as a growing number of worshipers are coming to realize that things have somehow gone sour in the faith here. But an...
Except the gods in Golarion are active individuals who involve themselves in the material world.
So while the CHURCH of Sarenrae may or may not have the authority to speak out against slavery in Qadira and Katapesh, the goddess herself does.
Yet she doesn't. She has a presence and a herald and at no time does she go through with the effort to send down her herald or her messenger to state, in no uncertain terms, that slavery is wrong.
As Elie Wiesel said, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
Or Ginetta Sagan: "Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor."
Or Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
By not making it explicit that slavery is forbidden, she is actively participating in its continuance.
And the authorities in Qadira and Katapesh would certainly have a harder time ignoring Sarenrae or her herald than they would the mortals of her church.
