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More on slavery on 2008-05-20 01:25:58 |
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You still don’t get it. Think. You are using the same argument the proponents of slavery used to try and justify the evils of slavery and their racial bigotry…..but you are trying to use it to support your religious bigotry. They said that slavery was justified because it was in the Bible and that God did not speak against it. You use the same argument but to try and push your viewpoint that the Bible is evil…..and so is God. The fact is the Bible never addresses social reform. It is about meeting man wherever he is, and changing the heart. The changed man…changes the world. It was as these black (and white) Christian abolitionists came to grips with the fact that the slavery of the Bible was in a different culture, a different time, for different purposes….that it was not only NOT the same and that this evil of slavery was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ…..the abolitionist became a true force for change. Christians once again stood on the “moral high ground”. And what was that? The teaching of Christ that Thomas Jefferson admired so much. “Love thy neighbor”, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, God is no respecter of persons”, “Be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted..” Olavdah Equiano in Britain, Frederich Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Samuel Sharpe..and later Booker T. Washington, all understood this and their voices added to those of Charles Finney, Levi Coffin and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Read some of the sermons of Sojourner Truth (1797-1883). She was called the “Lords Colored Preacher”. Rev Martin Luther King used some of her sermons in his early speeches. William Lloyd Garrison (another great abolitionist) published a book entitled: “The Narrative of Sojourner Truth; A Northern Slave”, in 1850. I have it in my collection but I am sure you could find it in the local library.
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| Posted in
More on slavery on 2008-05-12 05:57:58 |
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The people are right on this site. You really don’t get it. I understand racism. Unlike you, I have lived through it all my life. I have felt the pain of bigotry and hate. And yet its funny…you…a little uneducated white boy, are the one pulling the race card just because you are incapable of thinking outside of a one dimensional historical perspective. I also understand history is written by people of that time..through their experiences and cultures. I am not an apologist for slavery whether during the Biblical period or any other time in history, but I am not so ignorant or so have had my reason so blinded by religious hatred and bigotry, like you, that I cannot see the obvious differences in cultures and history. Do you believe having sex with a 12 year old girl is right? Of course not! In our culture we would say it is depravity, but thousands of years ago it was a cultural norm. What do you think of an absolute monarchy? We see it today as intolerable. Total forced subjection to another with no individual rights except as given by the monarch. But if you were to ask one of those subjects…it would all depend on whether he was a good king…or a bad king. The Bible never encouraged slavery…it just was written during a time when various types of servitude was a part of the culture of that society. The Bible does not address changing of cultural norms or social reform. It deals with the changing of the human heart…and then the changed man…makes those social reforms. Mans society becomes a reflection of his spiritual growth. The Bible deals with relationships…between God and man…and between each other. Moses wrote in Exodus 21:16, “He that stealeth a man and selleth him or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death”. Solomon writes in Proverbs 3:31: “Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose thou none of his ways”. Isaiah writes, “Is not this the fast I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.?” It was those who looked at the Bible as just a bunch of facts, stories and history…who had never allowed God to change their hearts…who twisted the scriptures to justify incredible evil. This slavery of the New World was not an act of mercy to bring impoverished into your home or to save you from an enemies death after a war. It was not part of cultural marriage traditions or a payment of debt or honor. It was racial evil. Families torn apart, torture, oppression, rape and death. It was for the financial gain of the elite. Do you have any idea of how incredibly foolish you sound? From your language and your inability to reason, I assume you are not just uneducated your not very bright. Have you ever read any books in Theology so you could begin to understand the message of the scriptures rather than taking little bits and pieces away from the context in which they were written. You hold several pieces of a puzzle and complain that they make no sense…and yet refuse to stand up and put the pieces with the rest to get a whole picture. Would you say that Socrates, Aristotle, Virgil, Cicero…etc..etc.. are all “a bit outdated”, “written for a different time and no longer applicable”? I am not stupid enough to think that. You might be. And lastly…you know nothing of my heritage but what you have picked up on one liners on an internet site. One of the earliest abolitionists was abducted some 1,500 years ago from Britian and enslaved by invading marauders. He eventually escaped and years later would return to this land to share his faith in Christ and to fight the evil of slavery. This young Briton named Patricius died an Irishman named Patrick. I know my heritage whether as a Christian or as a black man. You know neither. Read some Fredrerick Douglass or some of the many black Christian abolishionists and maybe you can learn something.
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| Posted in
More on slavery on 2008-05-11 06:32:27 |
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I guess I mention my credentials, not just because I have some...and you don't, but because I have had to work harder to get them.. And I am thankful to have had the opportunity to achieve what I have for my family. You mention context and yet you refuse to note the time, the culture, the traditions, or to define what you call slavery. I have lived all my life with racial discrimination. I have lived in the effects of racial slavery in this country. You DO take the biblical slavery out of context. By your definition...a person placing himself under servitude to another, where if he leaves he can be placed in prison, where he is under the control of another for a specific period...is slavery. Actually I just described the US Military. (I was Army) History is full of people that have perverted and twisted the scriptures to justify evil. You still have not figured out that the Bible has NOTHING to do with social reform. It has everything to do with a reformation of the heart. Slavery (Servitude…both voluntary or involuntary) was part of the culture of those times…just like marriage rituals where they would sell their daughters….. or a person placing themselves as a slave to another for payment of debt or to repay an act of honor. To compare the racial slavery of the New World to Biblical slavery could not be more out of context. Your perspective is clouded by your obvious religious bigotry. If you had a choice between those that remained after wars or those in poverty of being taken as slaves….or dying. I guess you would prefer death. And that was the way it was. Biblical slavery was often an act of mercy. Bringing them into their own clan or family. It was in biblical slavery that Joseph was raised to a position of authority next to Pharaoh himself and in that position saved his family from famine. It was in slavery that the Hebrew children grew into a great nation in Goshen until delivered by another slave…Moses…who had been an adopted Prince of Egypt. God did not “approve” of the terrible actions of the Egyptians on their Hebrew slaves…but used it to temper them and prepare them for their deliverance. Ruth was a Moabite, who’s Jewish husband had died. All she had was her mother-in-law, Naomi. She placed herself under voluntary servitude to her husbands near kinsman, Boaz to “redeem” her. Her story is one of courage, loyalty and faith. And she became a direct linage to the Messiah.
Don’t try to compare modern racial slavery from that in the Bible…unless you have any idea of what you are talking about.
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