Early Christians thought that women and individuals of other races were not nearly as morally important as the males in their culture
Any source on the "other races" bit? That doesn't match what I've read of early Christian history, where unlike Judaism, Christianity was universal. I agree that later on, there was more "religiously sanctioned" racism (I don't know to what extent), but I don't think it was there in the early days.
Don't disturb popular confusions of some variants of American Christianity with Early Christianity. It ruins important narratives.
I just had a long conversation with my brother, a devout Christian. With my help he has outlined the following argument why it might be good for me to follow Christian deontology:
What do you think?