400 Years of African Slavery in America

[RZehr]

Dying, or growing at a slower rate?
Dying, or being surpassed in power and influence?

[HondurasKeiser]

Here is what I mean by that...nothing really fancy: just that the American nation-state will only ever operate using violence and coercion at the point of a gun. That is how worldly kingdoms function. It is the only way they function. The underlying philosophy is do what we want, pay what we require, or suffer. It's the precise opposite of the Kingdom of God. Jesus does not coerce. He suffers rather than coerce with violence. It's an exact opposite model. Rather than a model of government based on fear, it's a model based on love. Machiavelli saw the two differences clearly. Governing through fear and violence or love and a capacity to suffer?

I get what you're saying here and at my more libertarian-leaning moments I might say something quite similar. It's interesting that you mention Machiavelli at the end though; I do not read him quite the way you do. Your paraphrase of his famous maxim: "...it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved." implies two unspoken ideas:

1. It is possible for earthly rulers to govern through love.
2. It is less effective and thus better to rule through fear.

Machiavelli was no fan of Christianity as I understand him. He found its ideals, teleology and ethical framework as too limiting and constraining whereas the martial virtues of the classical Greeks and Romans were far more appealing to him. In the end, in his "ends justify the means" ethic it's all about power; the procurement and wielding of it. In many ways he seems to anticipate Nietzsche and Foucault who, each in their own way, said that everything boils down to power.

I realize you're not a Machiavellian and that you only quoted him to show that even he recognized the difference between the two types of rule but your writing as well as the libertarian inclination seems to be as much a reaction against the Machiavellian system as it is an acceptance of its premises. Thus when you write that government can only use violence and coercion to force us to do what it wills, I read you as writing this with a kind of sigh of resignation - this is the state of world and it's not great. A libertarian response to this state of affairs is to try and reduce the amount of power the government holds relative to the people to such a degree that government involvement in private lives, and thus coercion and violence, amounts to delivering the mail, minting currency and protecting the borders. Jonah Goldberg writes this way and at times I find it compelling. I read you as saying something quite different, something more compelling still and definitely more Anabaptist. I read you and Dan and others as saying we ought to reject the power-for-power's-sake dynamic of the worldly kingdoms as it runs exactly counter to the way of Christ. Instead we should be light and salt in the world in our modeling of the ethic of love as the Church. I agree that this is the role of the Church in the world - I am concerned though that a complete rejection of involvement in the earthly kingdoms renders us unable to speak intelligibly or prophetically to earthly rulers. More fundamentally still, this amounts to a wholesale acceptance of the Machiavellian/Nietzschian conception of government as the arbiter of what's true, moral and good via raw power.

Boot writes a lot about immigration policy, SZD writes about marginalized peoples in society, especially as they are affected economically. You, Joshua have written quite extensively about systemic racism - I don't always agree with your conclusions but my inclinations are to agree with your underlying concerns. What bothers me about the Anabaptist posture of complete rejection of earthly governments is that it makes your writings and deeply held convictions about societal problems impotent and approaching the farcical. Why expend so much energy in writing about the Trump Border policy or systemic 'White Privilege' if the end you believe that there's no ultimate good that the governments can be moving towards other than what they themselves decide is good.

When I read the Old and New Testaments I see God using governments and their power of coercion to perform a function here on earth. Like individuals they can reject their God-given function and exercise their coercive power to do anything they will - they can make up what is true and Good and beautiful. Like individuals they can submit themselves to God's ordaining will and perform their role to punish evildoers and coerce people to avoid severe depravity. Machiavelli says lean into the rejection of its God-ordained telos, whatever the government decides is true in a positivistic sense. Earlier thinkers, like Aquinas and Augustine felt there was a way for Christians and the Church to call the worldly kingdoms to fulfill their higher purposes, to strive towards Truth, without resorting to a theocracy.

I agree with you Joshua, that it is not the Christian's role to take up the coercive power of the state to make Christians of our neighbors or to in some way give a Christian veneer to society. I do think though that there is a role to play for the Church in its interactions with worldly power to call government to fulfill its God-ordained functions beyond being a different example. We don't simply pay taxes or follow the laws out of the goodness of our hearts or because we deign to acknowledge their authority - we do so because to do otherwise would be to defy God. I am not sure exactly what that looks like and I am still working it out.

As a last thought and with an eye towards American exceptionality. If we reject the Machiavellian turn and admit that government has a telos and its power ought to be used for higher ends beyond its own propagation then we can say that some governments have done a better job of this than others. Is the United States #1? Perhaps not, though ranking them would be a silly exercise. We can say though that in the main, the U.S. has generally and until very recently done a better job at fulfilling its role than a host of other 'kingdoms'. Yes the U.S. is a murderer, to use your analogy but then China or the U.S.S.R. are mass murderers and North Korea is a serial killer.

[Robert]

I would add to this, philosophically, American was founded on principles of violent aggression and violent oppression. Aggression against the native peoples, true of every colony, possibly save PA and RI, for the first 90 years. Violent oppression of the Africans (and of the religious dissidents by the Puritans). In this case founded means, including the systemic principles of, which contributed to founding construction of society.

I think you are taking some instances as unilateral actions. While these did happen in places, it did not happen everywhere.

One example is the north did not build anything on slavery. This was only done in the southern states. Many northerners lost their lives fighting to free the southern slaves.

[Neto]

I would add to this, philosophically, American was founded on principles of violent aggression and violent oppression. Aggression against the native peoples, true of every colony, possibly save PA and RI, for the first 90 years. Violent oppression of the Africans (and of the religious dissidents by the Puritans). In this case founded means, including the systemic principles of, which contributed to founding construction of society.

I think you are taking some instances as unilateral actions. While these did happen in places, it did not happen everywhere.

One example is the north did not build anything on slavery. This was only done in the southern states. Many northerners lost their lives fighting to free the southern slaves.

I am a Southerner in many respects, so you all can take this comment with a grain of salt, maybe a chunk of salt. Anyway, I would interject here that the industrial North pushed the South to produce more & more raw materials (textiles, such as cotton) - more than what they could produce with the mechanization then available. Then, to stop the sale of these goods to Great Britain at better prices than what the North was willing to pay, they raised the tariffs on these products to push the prices up for the British, driving them to other markets. So even if the South had been disposed toward developing an industrial side of commerce, the necessary funds would have dwindled as the North held the prices down. This, in my thought at least, shows the complicity of the North in the increasing exploitation of slaves in the South. (What I am saying is that in my understanding, the treatment of the slaves worsened as the market demands of the North put more pressure on the plantation owners in the South. The outlawing of bringing new slaves to North America also worked to place a greater burden on the existing ones.) Yes, the South SHOULD have taken industry seriously, but they were largely "prevented" from doing so because of the Southern culture - such work was considered demeaning. It was, in a way, a great clash between the old aristocracy and the industrial revolution. (I also think that IF the South HAD become involved in mechanization, there would have been a gradual transition from slave labor to factory labor, and the former slaves would have been brought along in that transition, being more & more highly trained. Could they have maintained the institution of slavery in such an environment? I don't know, but it's an interesting question.)

[Robert]

Could they have maintained the institution of slavery in such an environment? I don't know, but it's an interesting question.

I would hate to be one of the slaves while this process gradually worked out.

[Neto]

Could they have maintained the institution of slavery in such an environment? I don't know, but it's an interesting question.

I would hate to be one of the slaves while this process gradually worked out.

Just to clarify this single segment of what I said above, I do not think so myself.

But in regards to this possible situation from the slave's perspective, it seems to me that it was in some ways a cruelty to just suddenly put the former slaves out on their own, in many cases w/o any land or a way to support their families. They had been in slavery too long to return to pre-slavery ways of life, and even had they the ability & desire to do so, there were no large tracks of land available, which would have been required to make this a success. (I am assuming that they had come from hunter-gatherer societies, and just as an extreme example, the Banawa, population of around 100, have full hunting, gathering, & planting rights to over 400,000 acres in the Amazon.)

[Robert]

They had been in slavery too long to return to pre-slavery ways of life, and even had they the ability & desire to do so, there were no large tracks of land available, which would have been required to make this a success.

Actually, many did quite well. Not all, but many were on a good track. There were major setbacks during the Wilson presidency and Eugenics era.

[joshuabgood]

HK - thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I get what you're saying here and at my more libertarian-leaning moments I might say something quite similar.

Just for what it's worth, as you noted later, I don't embrace the libertarian label, and don't see what I am advocating for as libertarianism. Rather, I am advocating for a King who carries the government on his shoulders, though his kingdom doesn't operate the way the pagan kingdoms do.

It's interesting that you mention Machiavelli at the end though; I do not read him quite the way you do. Your paraphrase of his famous maxim: "...it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved." implies two unspoken ideas:

What I am trying to note is that the two concepts, ruling by fear or love, are acknowledged. Jesus, invites us into a kingdom where the law is love and the gospel is peace. And coercion/violence are not tools of his kingdom, they are unworthy in that they are insufficient for redemption or reconciliation. The pagan kingdoms use tools of terror and oppression.

1. It is possible for earthly rulers to govern through love.

This is where I disagree I think...I do not think the pagan kingdoms can operate in love. They are based fundamentally on coercion and violent force. And the need to exercise dominion/power in an oppressive manner. That is the only way they can exist. If they embrace, love, and the way of Jesus, they will of course be subsumed politically by other pagan kingdoms. The real war is between the pagan kingdoms and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, though our kingdom doesn't use the weapons of coercion. It nevertheless presents an existential threat to the political/pagan kingdoms. That's why Herod, a pagan King, was afraid of the Messiah. He rightly recognized the threat to his kingdom, presented by Jesus. So also with Caesar. If the Kingdom of God represents no threat to the pagan ones (besides being a shame), they, the pagan kingdoms, would never persecute the church. In the end, citizens of God's kingdom never make "good" citizens of a pagan kingdom because they have no allegiance to the pagan kingdom and they won't defend said kingdom.

I realize you're not a Machiavellian and that you only quoted him to show that even he recognized the difference between the two types of rule but your writing as well as the libertarian inclination seems to be as much a reaction against the Machiavellian system as it is an acceptance of its premises. Thus when you write that government can only use violence and coercion to force us to do what it wills, I read you as writing this with a kind of sigh of resignation - this is the state of world and it's not great.

I would go a step further, and say these worldly kingdoms operate using the power of the prince of this world, that being coercion and oppression. So not only is it not great...it is the opposite model of the Kingdom of God.

A libertarian response to this state of affairs is to try and reduce the amount of power the government holds relative to the people to such a degree that government involvement in private lives, and thus coercion and violence, amounts to delivering the mail, minting currency and protecting the borders. Jonah Goldberg writes this way and at times I find it compelling. I read you as saying something quite different, something more compelling still and definitely more Anabaptist. I read you and Dan and others as saying we ought to reject the power-for-power's-sake dynamic of the worldly kingdoms as it runs exactly counter to the way of Christ. Instead we should be light and salt in the world in our modeling of the ethic of love as the Church. I agree that this is the role of the Church in the world - I am concerned though that a complete rejection of involvement in the earthly kingdoms renders us unable to speak intelligibly or prophetically to earthly rulers. More fundamentally still, this amounts to a wholesale acceptance of the Machiavellian/Nietzschian conception of government as the arbiter of what's true, moral and good via raw power.

I see us as able to confront the pagan kingdoms with the Kingdom of Jesus (which is in competition with the pagan kingdoms). We challenge the pagan kingdom citizens to migrate to the Kingdom of Jesus...where the systems are not oppressive and violence is not used by the Prince of Peace. So I am not sure that I quite follow the last part. I accept government, the government that is on his shoulders.

Boot writes a lot about immigration policy, SZD writes about marginalized peoples in society, especially as they are affected economically. You, Joshua have written quite extensively about systemic racism - I don't always agree with your conclusions but my inclinations are to agree with your underlying concerns. What bothers me about the Anabaptist posture of complete rejection of earthly governments is that it makes your writings and deeply held convictions about societal problems impotent and approaching the farcical. Why expend so much energy in writing about the Trump Border policy or systemic 'White Privilege' if the end you believe that there's no ultimate good that the governments can be moving towards other than what they themselves decide is good.

The point is to get the masses to see the nation-state is an oppressive system. And the USA society is of course inherently broken. I don't really advocate much (sometimes I slip) for political solutions in a positive legislative sense, as I don't embrace the kingdom from which they originate. However, I think one can prophetically critique immoral legislation/action of the pagan kingdoms and challenge those enacting individuals to join a better kingdom/method and reject the old systems (harsh immigration rules for instance).

When I read the Old and New Testaments I see God using governments and their power of coercion to perform a function here on earth. Like individuals they can reject their God-given function and exercise their coercive power to do anything they will - they can make up what is true and Good and beautiful. Like individuals they can submit themselves to God's ordaining will and perform their role to punish evildoers and coerce people to avoid severe depravity. Machiavelli says lean into the rejection of its God-ordained telos, whatever the government decides is true in a positivistic sense. Earlier thinkers, like Aquinas and Augustine felt there was a way for Christians and the Church to call the worldly kingdoms to fulfill their higher purposes, to strive towards Truth, without resorting to a theocracy.

I see God using pagan governments, yes, including the Assyrians, Philistines, etc, for his purposes. God can use anything, including inanimate forces such as tornadoes and earthquakes to work his good. However, this is not because he endorses these things by divine right. Rather, it is in spite of the wickedness of the Romans, that he used their actions to accomplish, what they meant for evil, something wonderful. So also with Joseph and his oppressive brothers. So I don't advocate for insurrection. Rather, like Jesus taught we are to submit to earthly/pagan rulers, just like we submit to the thief who steals our cloak, or the abuser who hits our cheek...none of this though is an endorsement of these powers. For the same reason we pay taxes...not because there is no such thing as an injust tax, of course there is, nor because of divine right of kings (which is clearly a flawed concept), but out of servitude and laying down our lives has he laid down his. Our method of warring with them and overcoming evil with good.

As a last thought and with an eye towards American exceptionality. If we reject the Machiavellian turn and admit that government has a telos and its power ought to be used for higher ends beyond its own propagation then we can say that some governments have done a better job of this than others. Is the United States #1? Perhaps not, though ranking them would be a silly exercise. We can say though that in the main, the U.S. has generally and until very recently done a better job at fulfilling its role than a host of other 'kingdoms'. Yes the U.S. is a murderer, to use your analogy but then China or the U.S.S.R. are mass murderers and North Korea is a serial killer.

I see it differently, unsurprisingly, for reasons already mentioned in part. I don't think "in the main," the USA is any better than any other country morally, and further, from my perspective, perhaps they have wielded their economic power in a way that enables them to commit a greater evil. If one takes the perspective of the white male, then you are right I guess, but if one stands in the way of the American Indian, the African-American, or the unborn, one might come to a vastly different conclusion, not to mention the millions killed horribly in near constant war culture that has been embraced by the USA. (Rev War, War of 1812, Mexican American War, Indian Wars, Civil War, more Indian Wars, various colonial wars, Spanish American War, the Great War, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf, War on Terror (and too many other little bombings/killings to count).

[Ms. Izzie]

I have been watching this conversation with interest. I would like to believe that stark two kingdoms theology is the answer to the world’s problems. But what has given me my skepticism about whether this is the correct way to view the world are the churches who have two kingdoms theology.

Two kingdoms theology is a hard sell when it is espoused by those who draw a bright line between the kingdom of the world and God’s kingdom on earth, yet they, themselves, use political wrangling in God’s kingdom on earth (the church). It is not that a person cannot differentiate between the use of a gun to enforce laws and the termination of church membership. Of course, there is a difference—more than one, actually.

The problem is that those who place things of a political nature in two distinct boxes in which those of “God’s kingdom” cannot participate in the other kingdom without tainting themselves; must then act in a completely different manner and under a completely different power than the world does.

Hierarchy, coerced submission, rules and uniforms (which show allegiance) are used every day in the world’s systems. In fact, the systems would collapse without these things. If I read Jesus correctly, love is the foundation of His teachings—love for God and others. Even in church discipline, it is about love for the one being disciplined. And there you have a huge difference, if not the difference between the two kingdoms.

A church can have two kingdom theology which won’t allow it to engage in political systems. A church can use the things listed above to run their church. But I don’t think they can mix the two. If they use hierarchy, coerced submission, rules and uniforms in church governance, they should not create imaginary boxes which divide themselves from the world’s kingdom. They operate under the same methods as the world. In fact, without this mode of operating, their church would cease to function.

In my opinion, it is questionable when a church refuses to engage in a political system while claiming that it holds the higher moral ground, which won’t allow it to engage. But at the same time uses methods just like the world in governing; except for holding a gun to somebody’s head, as if that proves they are vastly different from the world. It just isn’t convincing.

(I could maybe still be convinced, maybe would still like to be convinced, but, well..... anyway; carry on.)

[Josh]

The New Testament makes it clear excommunication and avoidance are supposed to happen and it also mandates “rules” including modesty, head covering, avoiding wealthy lifestyles, and so on. That doesn’t mean we have to use worldly means to get there.

The fact many conservative Anabaptists don’t resemble Christ’s kingdom doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I, for one, am not interested in the chaos of a “no rules” church such as I find in the CMC, where one member is strongly pro Trump voter, another carries a gun, another wears skimpy outfits and yoga pants, another is pushing for pro LGBT inclusion, and yet another is solidly into left wing identity politics. It makes the New Testament almost meaningless and the other kingdoms end up taking priority.