What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Randy Carson]

This is incorrect.

I really don't think a person can read the life of Jesus in its entirety and come out of it having the honest (key word) belief that Jesus condones slavery.

No one could put jesus in context in an era swimming in the worst evils of slavery and honestly say he took a stand against slavery. It would be too bald face of a lie for anything but the most dishonest christian.

You might recall that God had a bit of experience with slavery given the fact that he sent Israel INTO slavery for 400 years in Egypt.

More importantly, the Catechism says this:

548 The signs worked by Jesus attest that the Father has sent him. They invite belief in him.269 To those who turn to him in faith, he grants what they ask.270 So miracles strengthen faith in the One who does his Father's works; they bear witness that he is the Son of God.271 But his miracles can also be occasions for "offense";272 they are not intended to satisfy people's curiosity or desire for magic. Despite his evident miracles some people reject Jesus; he is even accused of acting by the power of demons.273

549 By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death,274 Jesus performed messianic signs. Nevertheless he did not come to abolish all evils here below,275 but to free men from the gravest slavery, sin, which thwarts them in their vocation as God's sons and causes all forms of human bondage.276

550 The coming of God's kingdom means the defeat of Satan's: "If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you."277 Jesus' exorcisms free some individuals from the domination of demons. They anticipate Jesus' great victory over "the ruler of this world".278 The kingdom of God will be definitively established through Christ's cross: "God reigned from the wood."279

Jesus' primary mission was not to cure every ill or injustice but to defeat the power of sin.

Mission accomplished.