Sudsy wrote:So, would you say then that in the book of Acts and in the Epistles, the apostles were wrong for not taking a stand against slavery ? Did they have a bad attitude ?
I don't see any record of them participating in the slave trade, doing anything like being the captain of a slave ship, selling women into sexual slavery, sleeping with their slaves, etc.
But it may be worthwhile to look at ALL the Bible says about slavery in another thread.
Sudsy wrote:So, would you say then that in the book of Acts and in the Epistles, the apostles were wrong for not taking a stand against slavery ? Did they have a bad attitude ?
I don't see any record of them participating in the slave trade, doing anything like being the captain of a slave ship, selling women into sexual slavery, sleeping with their slaves, etc.
But it may be worthwhile to look at ALL the Bible says about slavery in another thread.
They did take a stand against slavery. 1 Tim. 1:10 ..for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine...
There is one set of instruction for slaves and this other on slave ownership.
And it’s completely compatible with the doctrine of returning good for evil and willing to suffer for righteousness sake. Not incompatible thinking for nonresident Mennonites, but quite a problem for rights loving patriots who hold personal rights and fairness higher than Jesus taught.
Andrew Sullivan has a very interesting and balanced take on the NYT’s “1619 Project” in New York Magazine. His uneasiness with their “white supremacy and slavery explain everything” approach to history sums up well what I think I’ve been haphazardly saying to some here in these conversations. This quote from the article was particularly to the point:
But the NYT chose a neo-Marxist rather than liberal path to make a very specific claim: that slavery is not one of many things that describe America’s founding and culture, it is the definitive one. Arguing that the “true founding” was the arrival of African slaves on the continent, period, is a bitter rebuke to the actual founders and Lincoln. America is not a messy, evolving, multicultural, religiously infused, Enlightenment-based, racist, liberating, wealth-generating kaleidoscope of a society. It’s white supremacy, which started in 1619, and that’s the key to understand all of it. America’s only virtue, in this telling, belongs to those who have attempted and still attempt to end this malign manifestation of white supremacy...it is extremely telling that this is not merely aired in the paper of record (as it should be), but that it is aggressively presented as objective reality. That’s propaganda, directed, as we now know, from the very top — and now being marched through the entire educational system to achieve a specific end. To present a truth as the truth is, in fact, a deception. And it is hard to trust a paper engaged in trying to deceive its readers in order for its radical reporters and weak editors to transform the world.
HondurasKeiser wrote:Andrew Sullivan has a very interesting and balanced take on the NYT’s “1619 Project” in New York Magazine. His uneasiness with their “white supremacy and slavery explain everything” approach to history sums up well what I think I’ve been haphazardly saying to some here in these conversations. This quote from the article was particularly to the point:
But the NYT chose a neo-Marxist rather than liberal path to make a very specific claim: that slavery is not one of many things that describe America’s founding and culture, it is the definitive one. Arguing that the “true founding” was the arrival of African slaves on the continent, period, is a bitter rebuke to the actual founders and Lincoln. America is not a messy, evolving, multicultural, religiously infused, Enlightenment-based, racist, liberating, wealth-generating kaleidoscope of a society. It’s white supremacy, which started in 1619, and that’s the key to understand all of it. America’s only virtue, in this telling, belongs to those who have attempted and still attempt to end this malign manifestation of white supremacy...it is extremely telling that this is not merely aired in the paper of record (as it should be), but that it is aggressively presented as objective reality. That’s propaganda, directed, as we now know, from the very top — and now being marched through the entire educational system to achieve a specific end. To present a truth as the truth is, in fact, a deception. And it is hard to trust a paper engaged in trying to deceive its readers in order for its radical reporters and weak editors to transform the world.
This seems a fair critique, who would argue the american experiment is not a " ...messy, evolving, multicultural, religiously infused, Enlightenment-based, racist, liberating, wealth-generating kaleidoscope..." But it seems like a difference without distinction. How does this narrow minded historical interpretation of american history change anything going forward?
barnhart wrote:This seems a fair critique, who would argue the american experiment is not a " ...messy, evolving, multicultural, religiously infused, Enlightenment-based, racist, liberating, wealth-generating kaleidoscope..." But it seems like a difference without distinction. How does this narrow minded historical interpretation of american history change anything going forward?
Any singularly focused worldview will change things going forward. I certainly believe that the Theistic worldview of a personal creator God changes everything for me. If Sullivan is right and the Times has indeed embraced this as their exclusive worldview then it seems more than a difference without distinction to me.
I think that view deserves to be heard. The idea that the core truth of human society is that it is composed of invisible systems of oppression based on race (sex, gender, etc.), and that liberal democracy is merely a mask to conceal this core truth, and that a liberal society must therefore be dismantled in order to secure racial/social justice is a legitimate worldview. (That view that “systems” determine human history and that the individual is a mere cog in those systems is what makes it neo-Marxist and anti-liberal.)
My personal objection against the "1619 -foundation" thesis is: As a legal status slavery was not a given, but developed only slowly over nearly two centuries. That is: judges and lawyers made things worse and worse. And that is the disinquieting part, because these were rather "progressive", "modern", "enlightened" and "rational" people. Which means that all this can easily happen again.
As for the real impact of historical slavery on now-living Blacks, we seem to lack detailed explanations. It is often maintained but rarely specified.
PetrChelcicky wrote:My personal objection against the "1619 -foundation" thesis is: As a legal status slavery was not a given, but developed only slowly over nearly two centuries. That is: judges and lawyers made things worse and worse. And that is the disinquieting part, because these were rather "progressive", "modern", "enlightened" and "rational" people. Which means that all this can easily happen again.
So far, you seem to be agreeing with what they write, not disagreeing with it.
We need legal protection for people's basic rights. That's not a given.
HondurasKeiser wrote:Andrew Sullivan has a very interesting and balanced take on the NYT’s “1619 Project” in New York Magazine. His uneasiness with their “white supremacy and slavery explain everything” approach to history sums up well what I think I’ve been haphazardly saying to some here in these conversations.
I agree that it explains only one part of the story, but I also think that the part of the story it tells is one we have often been in denial about. For instance, I think some of the history discussed in this thread is not well known by many Americans.
I completely agree with this paragraph of Andrew Sullivan's essay:
Take a simple claim: no aspect of our society is unaffected by the legacy of slavery. Sure. Absolutely. Of course. But, when you consider this statement a little more, you realize this is either banal or meaningless. The complexity of history in a country of such size and diversity means that everything we do now has roots in many, many things that came before us. You could say the same thing about the English common law, for example, or the use of the English language: no aspect of American life is untouched by it. You could say that about the Enlightenment. Or the climate. You could say that America’s unique existence as a frontier country bordered by lawlessness is felt even today in every mass shooting. You could cite the death of countless millions of Native Americans — by violence and disease — as something that defines all of us in America today. And in a way it does. But that would be to engage in a liberal inquiry into our past, teasing out the nuances, and the balance of various forces throughout history, weighing each against each other along with the thoughts and actions of remarkable individuals — in the manner of, say, the excellent new history of the U.S., These Truths by Jill Lepore.
I have heard Jill Lepore in several interviews, and I think she has a very useful overview of American History from a secular standpoint. I am also interested in a history recently written by Thomas Kidd from a Christian standpoint.
PetrChelcicky wrote:My personal objection against the "1619 -foundation" thesis is: As a legal status slavery was not a given, but developed only slowly over nearly two centuries. ....
So far, you seem to be agreeing with what they write, not disagreeing with it....
Yes and no. The idea that the U.S. were "founded" on slavery is, in my eyes, definitely wrong. They were "founded" on the concept of "indentured servitude" which the settlers brought with them from England and which concerned at first white people. Slavery as in Africa or Arabia did no more exist in Christian countries, and the Americans came, in 1619, only accidentally in contact with it. They at first tried to use the well known concept of indentured servitude and then the legal professions gradually worsened the legal conditions in direction to "cattle slavery".