Romans 8:19-21 -- "The Renewal of all Things"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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Romans 8:15-17 -- "We are Co-heirs with Christ"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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Romans 7:1-6 -- "Free From Law to Live By the Spirit"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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Romans 6:15-23 -- "Free - and a Slave"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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Romans 6:12-14 "Sin Shall Not Be Your Master"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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Romans 6:5-7 "No Longer Slaves to Sin"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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27,000,000 in Bondage

I will be writing next week on modern slavery as part of The Listening Heart series. In the meantime, Aaron Krager has picked up the topic at Street Prophets with "1 in 250, enslaved around the world "

Please go read it.

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Modern Slavery I: Alienation and Isolation

[Number seven in a series. Resumes discussion of slavery started in number one]

A couple of times I have mentioned A.J. Conyers' contention in The Listening Heart that - in the return of slavery to Europe and its colonies that accompanied the rise of modernity's exploration, trade, and conquest - the chattel slave

is the ultimate autonomous individual. Stripped of every human tie, he belongs to no community but to a stranger. It is no accident, then, that the rise of modern slavery coincided with the Enlightenment itself.

Of course, every time this is mentioned folks freak a bit about the use of the word "autonomous" in the same breath with "slave". As one commenter said it does not mean "free" - it means "alienated or isolated" from family, community, culture, and support.

Indeed, Conyers points out

We have already seen how the modern, increasingly urbanized, technologically sophisticated, society had become organized in a way congenial to the uses of power and material acquisitiveness. The usefulness of human beings in this relationship was made more feasible when they were understood as equals in the modern sense - that is, as interchangeable units in a machine - and fundamentally alienated from natural associations, "belonging" only in the new, modern sense.

This new relationship is only adequately articulated, as we shall see, by the master-slave language, though this language - thanks to the pre-modern influence of Christianity - is highly offensive, causing modern people to reject the system of slavery when it is visibly evident (as in the plantation systems of the early U.S.) and to submerge it in forms that are less visible . . .

Two features of slavery - its transforming of a human being into an instrument for use, a resource for the masters of the larger society, and its destruction or at least neglect of natural relations within natural groups such as the family and clan and leaving in its place the alienated individual - are also features of modernity. Within the history of slavery we shall always find these two features prominent; it is no wonder that early modern leaders of the Enlightenment nearly always defended and promoted slavery. They were above all promoting the instrumentalizing of the individual and the individualizing (that is, the alienating from natural relations) of the human instruments of labor.

The previous parts in this series have looked at the way modern society seeks to break all ties except to the company, the military, and the state.

Conyers traces some pre-modern definitions of the slave:

for most of history, and among most peoples in history, the slave is one who specifically did no longer belong to the family, or to his own people, but belonged to a stranger. It might be said without exaggeration that everyone was thought to "belong" to someone, or to some family or group. But when one belongs to strangers, the misfortune is described by the status of "slave."

Some examples:

• "Early Hebrews were restricted from making slaves of their own people; and if one of them had become so indebted that they sold themselves into slavery to foreigners, their next of kin was obliged to buy them back, to 'redeem' them."



• "in early Saxon law 'the 'autonomous' stranger who had no family or clan to protect him was automatically regarded as a slave.'"



• in most African nations, where the opposite of slavery is not '''freedom' qua autonomy but rather 'belonging.'''

David Brion Davis (as quoted by Conyers):

"the salient characteristic of slavery was its antithetical relation to the normal network of kinship ties of dependency, protection, obligation, and privilege, ties that easily served as a model of nonkinship forms of patronage, clientage, and voluntary servitude." [and] the "'modernity' of the slave lay in his continu¬ing marginality and vulnerability, in his incomplete and ambiguous bonding to a social group:' -- Slavery and Human Progress

Conyers makes the final tie between the relations of large masses of people to modern society and slavery thus:

when some populations are living sumptuously at the expense of others who are barely able to feed their young, is that not also slavery, one might ask? Or when large populations live as "alien residents" - which was a biblical term practically equivalent to "slaves" - then are there not some remaining signs of the institution? When so many people are heavily in debt, and some third world nations as well, can they truly be said to work for their own living? Or do they, just as in any ancient slave system, work for the primary benefit of others-even for others they do not know? This latter-day slave system has the convenience of remaining out of sight, and thus inoffensive to a sensitive bourgeois population.

Earlier, Conyers has said that Marxism has made us sensitive to the expansion of the word "slave", but the alienation Marx saw as making us "wage slaves" was alienation and isolation from our own labor; whereas Conyers traces it as alienation and isolation from vocation: from ties to family, church, tribe, etc. that make us part of an organic community. His presentation is that that severing of ties to organic community and reattaching them to modern organizations like the state, the company, and the military leaves us in exactly the same isolated and alienated position - working for the benefit of another with whom we have no real ties.

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Text: Obama on Race in America

Senator Barack Obama is probably not going to get my vote - although he may. If he does get my vote, the speech he just made on race in America is going to be one of the reasons. I am not saying it is perfect - but it is nearly perfect.

How do we talk about the divisions by race in America - and yet transcend that division to look for unity and a vision for the United States? How do we understand that race has been used to oppress people, without making every white person an oppressor? Well, other than look to Christ as a transcendent focus to overcome our divisions - this speech is the best thing I have ever read from a political candidate.

I give you Senator Barack Obama:

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

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The Listening Heart: The Decline of Vocation II

[Number six in a series]

The last post looked at organic society as represented by one which embraces vocation; and the organized society created by modern western culture:

• Organic societies were not based on the independence of individuals; but the interdependence of members; and


• Organic societies were not based on the equality of their members, but their differences

This wasn't just an outgrowth of the rise of modernity - it was a requirement. Therefore, the theme of this post:

that modern western culture requires the severing of folks from vocation - and its attachment to family, tradition, religion, etc. - in order to build a culture rooted in production and conquest.

Indeed, as A. J. Conyers points out in The Listening Heart, the "reason" taught by the enlightenment wasn't reason in general [other than items in brackets by me - this completely follows Conyers]:

It is often noted that Enlightenment thinkers emphasized reason. Yet the real effect of their emphasis is almost always lost. This certainly could not mean that they emphasized reason while earlier ages neglected it, or preferred superstition and unreason: who indeed were more devoted to the arts of reason than the disciples of Aristotle in antiquity, or those who, in medieval times, submitted everything to reason in the most rigorous fashion, the schoolmen from Anselm to Aquinas and beyond? The specific way in which the Enlightenment used reason was as a replacement for the idea of vocation. One could then make reasoned choices. The true locus of personal decisions was to be found in the individual who "thinks for himself:' as Kant would put it, and who declines to depend upon the "guidance of another."

and

It is not without significance that Kant, like others following the same pattern, appeals to a virtue of the will, courage. For in many ways the movement of modernity has been a shift from the intellect and the affections as guiding faculties for human beings, to the will. Kant does not say, develop the skill to think for yourself. Nor does he say learn what best to love so that you may guide yourself toward what is good. Nor does he suggest that you have the courage to follow what you know is good and true. The will is placed ahead of the intellect and the love of good. He says instead, ''All that is required for enlightenment is freedom. . . ." and "Men raise themselves by and by out of backwardness if one does not purposely invent artifices to keep them down."

[An interesting contrast in this will vs. good discussion might be Matthew Yglesias' "Thinking about Prostitution"; and Joe Carter's "Prostitution and the Pollution of Moral Ecology" or PastorDan's "Eliot Spitzer Self-Immolates". None of the three mention the "elephant in the room" in regards to prostitution (and pornography) - the international trafficking in sexual slaves. I am getting to slavery in this series.]

So, what does Conyers see as the process in the modern decline of vocation:

The stages of this recession are not surprising, though the extremity in which it has manifested itself (and the real name of that extremity) is something modern people would generally reject, although they, more than any other peoples of any other age are most acquainted with it. . . .

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought impressive advances in technology, or-to use plainer language-in the use of implements or tools to accomplish practical tasks. This advance was so impressive and made such a remarkable impact upon society that a number of direct or indirect consequences made themselves felt.

1. Progress in technology suggested that progress was a general rule in human experience and that it was a force that operated throughout social, moral, and artistic life; that what was the rule for technology was also the rule for civilization and culture, bringing all things under the power of an unseen evolutionary hand.

2. The increased use of technology drew larger numbers of people to centers of production and commerce, giving rise to the phenomenal growth of urban living and the ready availability of manpower for industry and army, for production and conquest.

3. The labor force, the government, and the army developed along lines analogous to the machine.

4. Governments were organized for the efficient administration of large territories and the gradual yet effective opposition to barriers (including and sometimes especially the moral and religious ones) that hampered profitable enterprises. One can see this especially in the effort (beginning with Locke) to distinguish between a public and private realm, in which matters of moral and religious concern were relegated to the private, where the influence of church and family could not discourage free rein in the public realm of commercial enterprise.

[This can be seen in the battle over homeschooling. In Germany, a law passed in 1939 during the Third Reich and still in effect today makes it illegal to homeschool your children: parents are arrested and children moved under control of the state. The need of the modern state to control education in order to make us more equal and interchangeable parts for conquest and production is clear. Homeschooling in the United States, particularly in California right now, is also a "battleground issue" between those who wish to maintain the connection of their children to family, community, church, and tradition - and those that believe that the state has an interest in creating more "equal" and homogenous students.]

5. Social organization increasingly imitated the rational use of implements - of machines.

6. The social consciousness of large territories began to be formed . . . toward those urban centers of manufacture, trade, and government (growth industries all!) where the power of technology and bureaucratic organization could be felt in its full force.

This led to people no longer seeing themselves as belonging to the land

that something more or less permanent no longer undergirded, nourished, and protected them: the land to which they belonged, and that was the common environment of all-rich and poor, old and young, from birth to death-was in smaller and smaller measure the environment that determined the shape of their lives.

but to the company, the standing army, or the state:

to belong to a "company:' let us say, means that one is subject to the will of another and in some ways is sustained only by the arbitrary good will of others. It implies that one belongs in a way that is not true of a family or a church, for this "belonging" is made possible by the activity and initiative of those who are in positions of power.

In the next post, we will see what Conyers calls these folks alienated from family, place, community, church, and tradition; and now organized, like parts of a machine, for production and conquest.

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The Listening Heart: "The Era of Bloodshed"

[Number three in a series]

I have been intending to more extensively about The Listening Heart: Vocation And the Crisis of Modern Culture by A.J. Conyers; and have been waiting for a "handle" on how to approach the topics in the book - that handle never came (or maybe I have too many). I did do two posts on slavery - "The Bible and Slavery" and "Christianity and Slavery" - based on the book intending to segway into the books position on slavery and modernity:

In a stunning insight, Conyers shows that the quintessential institution of modernity is slavery, for the slave is the ultimate autonomous individual. Stripped of every human tie, he belongs to no community but to a stranger. It is no accident, then, that the rise of modern slavery coincided with the Enlightenment itself.

Actually, not so much the Enlightenment but a little earlier in the Renaissance - however that doesn't actually damage his main point either about slavery, or overall.

What is that overall point? As this blurb from the publisher says:

A culture built upon the ideology of individual choice will be a culture of alienation, loneliness, and violence . . . Conyers shows that Western culture was once informed by a sense of vocation, that men understood life as a response to a call from outside and above themselves. Beginning in the sixteenth century, however, the sense of vocation began to fade, to be replaced by the modern celebration of the unfettered human will. In such a society, Conyers argues, where relations among men are based on force, true community is impossible.
. . .
This wide-ranging study, refreshingly free of sentimentality, makes the barbarism and unparalleled violence of the twentieth century explicable. For a society that casts off the burden of vocation abandons that which makes it human.

Pastor Dan at Street Prophets stated at one point that theologically conservative Christians were pre-modern. There is some accuracy to that statement, but it is a bit off. Conyers isn't so much pre-modern as he is a believer that modernity, or at least a major premise of it, has failed and failed violently. Actually, I would say he is contending for the pre-modern understanding of vocation as the something that needs to be recovered in a post-modern age. [BTW: I did not say he was a post-modernist.] . His question, now that the critique of modernity is clear and the post-modern agenda is before us, is

"Shall we heal a broken society through love, or through power?"

His indictment of modernity is scathing on many levels (too many to even sort out and list here) but he centers in on one main indictment, and one main question, to focus the book on:

"Why in this modern world have humane communities - communities that for brief moments in history rise above strife and in fact nourish the human spirit, enrich the mind, provide for the safety and education of the young - proven so hard to come by, so difficult to maintain, and known it seems only to our most nostalgic moments? Why have the 'wars and fightings' of this past century taken more lives, destroyed more communities, exiled more people, decimated more ethnic groups than ever before in any comparable time? Why have more people been killed by their own governments in this past century than in all other times together? How is it that this new century has gotten off to such an unpromising start? James had an answer that tapped into the root of human nature, and into the human lunacy: 'Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war'

This book might be considered a commentary on that one question and its answer, and on the hope which frames this question."

His critique of the modern quest for power and wealth is unambiguous. One of his indictments is "the army of 'homeless' in the cities and along the highways in a land of unimagined wealth". However, he believes we are a nation of homeless people split off from the concepts of family, community, and over-riding principle in order to make us fair game in the "rivalry of competitive desires" which is modern Western culture.

One of the interesting things about Conyers' premise is that it is not going to make political conservatives very happy (see above) nor is it going to make political liberals/"progressives" very happy either:

Sooner or later violence overtakes a society that functions chiefly on the basis of the rivalry of competitive desires, on the basis of choice, or on the basis of "freedom" defined as the unhindered will. Modern secular society is the longest experiment in history attempting to elevate "choice" or this kind of freedom to the level of a basic social principle. It should not be surprising, though I think to many the awareness of this has not surfaced, that modern life is also the most violent period in the history of mankind.

He takes the critique straight to the core of Enlightenment philosophy upon which modern Western culture is founded - and the bloody ground from which many political liberals will make their stand.

Conyers briefly examines three theories on "the sources of violent behavior on a wide scale in society":

• "First, Hannah Arendt suggested that where power, in the sense of effective action within a community is missing, violence takes its place. Moreover, once the institutions of government have outgrown the individual and the neighborhood, so that the very scale of governance no longer permits effective action for most people, then those people are more likely to take to the streets and address their grievances in destructive ways.



• Second, Rene Girard claims that violence gives focus and directs our competing desires in such a way that community is strengthened by a mutual turning against a scapegoat or an enemy. Thus the collective shape of society, its very possibility for community, feeds off a fundamental injustice and attachments to common hatreds. Moreover, in Girard's view, modern society, long tutored by the Christian gospel in the awareness of injustice and the innocence of its victims, finds itself in a crisis of contradiction precisely over the issue of violence and peace.



• Third, Eric Voegelin taught that once society becomes closed to those experiences by which it is shaped, namely its reach for transcendent meaning, and the human quest focuses instead on worldly goods, the competing demands are satisfied by nothing short of bloodshed and revolution

All three of these views overlap at a critical point: human beings naturally reach for meaningful action, and not finding it, resort to irrational and destructive action. All of these theories begin, as we can easily see, with what James has called "the passions . . . at war in your members." All of these theories, I believe, are important for understanding the kinds of conditions that give rise to violence and the uses to which violence is traditionally given over."

However, as Conyers states, The Listening Heart heads in a different direction . . .

Next: Vocation

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Another View on Evangelicals Cracking Up

Certainly, nothing in reading David Kirkpatricks "The Evangelical Crackup" struck me as wrong - it just struck me as somehow "off the point" - yet again. [read David Domke's take on the article here.]

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost hit the point for me:

The article itself is mostly a rehash of the dominant media perspective on evangelicals and politics, though it is noteworthy for Kirkpatrick's style of "journalism by name-dropping." The 7900 word article manages to cram in the names of 23 evangelicals leaders: Terry Fox, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, D. James Kennedy, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Marvin Olasky, David Welsh, Ralph Reed, Frank Page, Rick Scarborough, David Wells, Scott McKnight, Jim Wallis, Tony Perkins, Gene Carlson, Todd Carter, Joe Wright, Paul Hill, Harry Jackson, and Donald Wildmon.

But while Kirkpatrick focuses on the cult of personality, the true crux of the conservative Christian political movement is based on a culture of principles. Rather than focusing on a "Who's Who" of Christian leaders, an adequate understanding of the "evangelical Right" requires the recognition and prioritization of six core principles. (Note: Many of these themes were outlined in the National Association of Evangelical's paper on civic engagement [a very good read for those who really want to understand Evangelicals]):

Joe goes on to list those 6 core principles:

Principle 1: Protecting the sanctity of human life

Because all humans are created in God's image, evangelicals believe that all people have an inherent and inalienable dignity. We believe that it is at the times when life is most vulnerable, particularly in the early stages of development and at the period near death, that life is most in need of protection. Evangelicals believe in promoting policies that recognize the dignity of all humans without regard to such relativistic criteria as mental capacities or "quality of life."

Issues: Abortion, euthanasia, embryo destruction, capital punishment, cloning, and unethical human experimentation.

Principle 2: The nurturing of family life and the protection of children

While the institutions of marriage and church bear the primary responsibility for fulfilling this duty, evangelicals believe that the government should promote laws and policies that strengthen the well being of families.

Issues: Promotion of policies on marriage and divorce law, education, tuition vouchers, drug policies, abstinence promotion, fair labor practices, anti-discrimination legislation, protections against spouse and child abuse, affordable health care, reducing crime

Principle 3: Seeking justice and compassion for the poor and vulnerable

Evangelicals believe in the promotion of both a fair legal system that does not favor either the rich or poor and in a fair economic system that does not tolerate perpetual poverty. This principle also includes the protection of the vulnerable members of society, including the poor, children, the elderly, the disabled, refugees, minorities, the persecuted, and the imprisoned.

Issues: Poverty reduction both in America and abroad, torture, anti-pornography legislation, immigration reform, stemming the AIDS pandemic, ending slavery and sexual trafficking, stopping prison rape.

Principle 4: The protection of religious freedom

Evangelicals believe that the joint freedoms of religion and conscience constitute the First Liberty and are deserving of protection both in our own country and abroad.

Issues: Defense of First Amendment protections, expansion of religious freedoms abroad

Principle 5: Seeking peace and restraining violence

Although evangelicals prefer that governments pursue nonviolent paths to restoring peace, most of us recognize that military force can be a legitimate means of restraining evil. While there is no consensus on how this principle should be implemented, we are in general agreement that the principles of just war must guide our government's policies.

Issues: Defending against terrorism, ending genocide, weapons proliferation, defending human rights against tyrannical regimes

Principle 6: The protection of God's creation

Evangelicals believe that stewardship of the earth is a responsibility delegated to us by our Creator. Because the earth is a shared resource, the government has a particularly important role in implementing policies that protect the environment.

Issues: Promoting recycling, reduction of pollution, protecting animals from cruelty, conservation of resources, proper care for wildlife and their habitats

He rightly points out that you understand currents within the Evangelical movement not by treating them like "cults of personality" but by understanding how they prioritize and view those core issues.

This gives folks a principled way to determine which groups are likely to be approachable and open to common work - and on what issues. It also avoids some of the following foolishness:

For example, Christians have always been concerned about protecting God's creation. Yet it is only when an evangelical leader or organizations takes a stand that is outside the dominant conservative narrative (i.e., Richard Cizik saying that global warming is anthropocentric) do they take notice.

The media also tends to conflate the priorities of all evangelicals with the primary concerns of specific groups. Because of the influence of Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family, the media tends to portray all evangelicals as putting the primary emphasis on principles 1 and 2, to the exclusion of all others. So when Rick Warren talks about AIDS or poverty in Africa (Principle 3 issues), he is portrayed as breaking away from Dobson and the "religious right--even though they are in agreement on the importance of Principles 1 and 2.

Joe points out that Evangelicals do not have a generally accepted political theology (with the exception of neocalvanists) - and while they agree on the principles in general they do not have a unifed, developed view of their application to specific issues. Therefore

What Kirkpatrick is noticing is not a "crackup" among evangelicals but the continual re-prioritization of principles and disagreements over how they correlate with specific issues. At the level of the level of the church and community this is an ongoing, never-completed process.

Now, this touches the heart of my major problem with how political and theological liberals view the theological, and most political, conservatives I hang with. The constant reference to this leader or that leader - and the manipulation through demagoguery and distortion of the Gospel - is not what I see going on in the Evangelical movement I am part of. These folks strain and strive to understand Biblical principle on which to base their life - and they study, pray, and generally work hard to achieve that. Joe's view that there is

continual re-prioritization of principles and disagreements over how they correlate with specific issues. At the level of the level of the church and community this is an ongoing, never-completed process.

speaks to the world I live in better than almost any other comment I have seen.

This may gives a bit of a deeper insight than what normally comes around.

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The Listening Heart: Christianity and Slavery

[Number two in a series]

The Bible didn't approve slavery - not the Hebrew Scriptures, not Jesus, not Paul, not at all. However, perhaps the ante-Nicean fathers or later leaders of the church from 100 AD to around 1600 AD just did their own thing and justified it with the warping of scripture.A.J. Conyers (back to The Listening Heart) describes the general view (really urban legend) that this is post is structured around:

It is difficult to describe the modern emergence of slavery without first correcting the popular notion that slavery was gradually overcome by the forces of Enlightenment, having survived antiquity and the Middle Ages due to the ignorance in which the world was held bondage. The true picture is much more complicated than can be presented here, but fundamentally the Christian lands first yielded to the pressure of the Church in its prohibition of slavery. Slave trade and slave holding went into eclipse for more than half of a millennium. The invective of the Church against slavery was severe. Early adherents of Christianity (a "slave religion:' as it was called by the Romans) convincingly preached that Christian anthropology did not permit slavery or any such traffic in human flesh.

There are some distinct periods here (following the division of Philip Schaff - links in the titles are to his articles on Christianity and slavery in his multi-volume History of the Christian Church:

1. The Apostolic church (1-100 AD)
2. The ante-Nicene church (100-325)
3. The Nicene and post-Nicene church (311-600)
4. The mediaeval church (590-1073)

Schaff stops looking at slavery and the church at this stage - because slavery is basically gone in Christian dominated countries by this stage - other forms of servitude and bondage now exist. Slavery was indeed gone from Christian lands for over 500 years (but never gone from the rest of the world) - and the philosophical underpinnings about our equality as imago dei was the philosophical dagger in its heart.

Schaff doesn't really follow Conyers in the idea that the

The invective of the Church against slavery was severe

and says, for instance, that no Pope ever condemned slavery. He misses Gregory of Nyssa's [BTW: not a Pope] commentary, In Ecclesiastes Homiliae on Ecclesiastes 2:7 (mid 300's):

Does any of the things listed here, a sumptuous house, vineyards galore, beautiful gardens, a system of pools supplying orchards with water, suggest as much arrogance as the man's idea that he as a man can be master over his fellows? "For I acquired:' he says, "slaves and slave girls, and slaves were born in my house." Do you see the vast extent of his boastfulness? Such a voice as his is raised in open defiance against God. . . .

"I have acquired slaves and slave girls." What is that you say? You condemn a person to slavery whose nature is free and independent, and in doing so you lay down a law in opposition to God, overturning the natural law established by him. For you subject to the yoke of slavery one who was created precisely to be a master of the earth, and who was ordained to rule by the creator, as if you were deliberately attacking and fighting against the divine command. . . .

"I acquired slaves and slave girls." Tell me, what price did you pay for them? What did you find among your possessions that you could trade for human beings? What price did you put on reason? How many obols did you pay as a fair price for the image of God? For how many staters have you sold the nature specially formed by God? "God said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness.'" Tell me this: who can buy a man, who can sell him, when he is made in the likeness of God, when he is ruler over the whole earth, when he has been given as his inheritance by God authority over all that is on the earth? Such power belongs to God alone, or rather it does not even belong to God himself. For, as Scripture says, "the gifts of God are irrevocable." Of his own free will God called us into freedom when we were slaves to sin. In that case he would hardly reduce human beings to slavery. But if God does not enslave what is free, who dares put his own authority higher than God's? . . .

When a man is put up for sale, nothing less than the lord of the earth is led onto the auction block. . .

and, as we roll into the period of modern slavery, Pope Leo X (1513-22) [pretty much an idiot every other way] said (in a papal bull)

not only the Christian religion, but nature herself, cried out against the system of slavery.

While Schaff seems right in saying that the church had always been a conservative organization in the sense of fomenting rebellion and uprising - its positions since the Apostles had been the equality of people in Christ regardless of their status corporally; and this position served to fatally undermine slavery until it died. As Conyers notes, Christianity preached hard against slavery (and the necessary degradation of humanity which is needed to support slavery); but did not preach against the institution of slavery or encourage slaves to rebel. The church also continued the teaching in scripture that we are all to serve, even slaves, as if we are serving Christ. Next, it taught that our freedom came in Christ and not in our secular relationships or position in the culture. Finally, it can really be said I think that the church thought slavery was the "will of God" but only in the same sense that it believed that everything was the will of God; and that slavery was a result of sin and the fall of man. There is no sense that the church believed some peoples, or groups of people, to be created to be slaves - or that slaves were beyond redemption, etc. Indeed, there are numerous examples of ex-slaves, and current slaves, becoming Bishops of the church and taking on vocation within the church.

Varying reasons other than the church's opposition are seen for the end of the first period of slavery in the Christian lands. Compton's was a little inconsistent internally: first, it said slavery died when the whole world was Roman - and no new slaves were forthcoming from conquest and war. However, then they say it died when Roman wealth disappeared in the barbarian invasions. Finally, that it gradually died out between the 4th century and the end of the 10th century. Those three statements were essentially in the same paragraph. There is probably some way to tie that together as the end of growth, mortal death wound, and the time it took to bleed out - but it is still ugly writing.

The progression in this earliest form was from restricting and moderating the slavery of Christians by Christians (and of course others); the sale of Christians into slavery by others; and then the overall abandonment of slavery as it relaxed into feudalism and serfdom.

According to my old Compton's, slavery was revived as Europeans came "into close and continued contact with" Africans as exploration, and then colonization, grew. The Portuguese were the first to introduce the African slave into Europe in the 15th century - and descendants of these slaves were taken to Haiti to work the mines after the discovery of the Americas in the early 1500's. The slave trade increased up until 1792 when the first western nation abolished the slave trade - Denmark. Denmark was followed by England in 1807 and the United States in 1808. This timeline traces the progress in the abolition of slavery from 1761 to the present. The rise of modern slavery along with the rise of modern society will be looked at deeper in the next post.

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The Listening Heart: The Series

A number of posts have, and will, come out of The Listening Heart by A. J. Conyers:

• "The Bible and Slavery" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• "Christianity and Slavery" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• " 'The Era of Bloodshed' " (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• "Vocation" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• " 'The Decline of Vocation' I" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• " 'The Decline of Vocation' II" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• "Modern Slavery I: Alienation and Isolation" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)

Related Posts:

• "War and Religion" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)


• "'The Problem Isn't God'" (Brain Cramps, Street Prophets)

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The Listening Heart: The Bible and Slavery

[Number one in a series]

I received a free book to review because I am a blogger, and after reading the book it has been hard to deal with what I have wanted to say about it. Then, a conversation started here - in a comments section over at Evangelical Outpost - on slavery, and Christianity's (and the Bible's) supposed 1800 year love affair with it. I can certainly understand why a blogger with the handle "ex-preacher" would be an ex-preacher if he believed this

The Old Testament, Jesus, Paul, the church fathers, and almost all church leaders for the first 1800 years of Christianity thought that slavery was part of God's will. It was only after the Enlightenment and its emphasis on human rights that a number of Christian non-slaveholders decided that God was against slavery.

I believe this statement stands reality on its head in almost every point.

Before I look at this, the book that I am going to be weaving in and out of is The Listening Heart: Vocation and the Crisis of Modern Culture by A.J. Conyers. These are excerpts from the blurb at Spence Publishing:

A culture built upon the ideology of individual choice will be a culture of alienation, loneliness, and violence. In this provocative book, A. J. Conyers shows that Western culture was once informed by a sense of vocation, that men understood life as a response to a call from outside and above themselves. Beginning in the sixteenth century, however, the sense of vocation began to fade, to be replaced by the modern celebration of the unfettered human will. In such a society, Conyers argues, where relations among men are based on force, true community is impossible.
. . .
In a stunning insight, Conyers shows that the quintessential institution of modernity is slavery, for the slave is the ultimate autonomous individual. Stripped of every human tie, he belongs to no community but to a stranger. It is no accident, then, that the rise of modern slavery coincided with the Enlightenment itself.

This wide-ranging study, refreshingly free of sentimentality, makes the barbarism and unparalleled violence of the twentieth century explicable. For a society that casts off the burden of vocation abandons that which makes it human.

To get the review part out of the way, that is a pretty good overview of the book; and I highly recommend it.

Economic systems have gradually changed over the centuries, and a mixture of the major forms still remains.

• The earliest form, that still remains in primitive tribes, is what Engels (yes, Marx's Engels) called primitive communism. There was no surplus gained by any member of the tribe because it took all the effort, of all its members, working all the time - for any and all of them to survive.



• The first form of accumulated surplus was slaves - almost always those captured in conflicts on other tribes or groups. Tribes didn’t enslave their own; and slavery almost always included the ability of the slave to gradually integrate into the tribe, marry, have children - and stop being a slave. This, incidentally, was the state of the whole world nearly for the whole of the Bible period - Old and New Testament. The slave is owned by the master (with some variations), works for the master, all they produce goes to the master, and the slave's needs are met by the master. Developed slave cultures like Rome had free artisans and land holders, but there was really little wage labor except the hiring of artisans: for instance Jesus and his father as carpenters. If you worked for someone else you were typically a slave.



• Slaves were freed from being owned, and instead bonded to the land itself. It was an improvement for the serfs, who paid land rent (and for protection from) powerful lords, yet produced for their own use. In exchange, as mentioned, the feudal lord was responsible for the protection and well-being of their serfs: the famous nobles oblige



• Capitalism freed the serfs from bondage to the land, and simplified the relationship: the worker hires himself to the owner of the land, the machine, the service business in exchange for money - and there, in its "purest" form - the owner and worker have no other responsibilities to each other.

There was no reason for anyone in Biblical times to complain about slavery - it was the way of life. That said, let's look at the ex-preacher's points:

The Old Testament
Old Testament references to slave and slavery in the NASB

In the Old Testament there are 49 references to those two words, and only 14 of those are outside the Pentateuch. All of the uses of the word "slavery" are Moses and other prophets of God reminding Israel that God had freed them from slavery. Now we are down to 37, 11 of which are after the first five books. Of course, the first 8 are references to slavery in Egypt again. Down to 29/11. In that final 11, there is nothing that can be said to celebrate or even promote slavery - slavery is just a given; and it is never said to be "part of God's will". It is just a fact of economic life.

In the 29 that are left only 13 are talking about the how slaves are to be treated by Israel. On the linked list, that is from Exodus 12:44 to Leviticus 25:42. Now all of these laws assume the reality that Israel will have slaves - it was the dominant economic system and feudalism and capitalism were no where in sight. Israel making rules for the treatment of slaves is not celebration of slavery - indeed the frequent references to Israel's need to obey God because they were once slaves, and now are free, is a clear indication that freedom is better than slavery, even if slavery is a reality. The other split here mentioned in the discussion linked above is that the rules were different on Israel enslaving their own, and Israel enslaving foreigners. Someone called this race based slavery but this is nonsense. The tribes and groups bordering Israel were of the same Semitic race - it was tribal based slavery: which most slavery was for most of human history.

The restrictions on treatment of any slaves were impressive for the day, and showed you could not abuse a slave: if you struck your slave and knocked out a tooth or an eye they were free - it is nonsense to talk about the Enlightenment bringing the first thoughts of human rights to slaves. If they were Hebrew, after 6 years they were free - unless the slave chose to stay. Also, they could not be treated as a slave, but had to be treated as a hired man - and not sold into slavery at a slave auction.

Jesus

Again, the 49 Gospel references to slave (there are no uses of the word slavery) talk about slaves as a fact of economic life, but never presents slavery as "God's will" even for the slaves being discussed. Slaves simply were an economic reality - with any other central economic system hundreds of years away. It is anachronistic to project that Jesus should have preached that slaves needed to rise up and become serfs, or further on yet, wage workers in capitalist enterprises.

Paul

All 5 uses of the word slave for saying slavery is God's will is welcome to try. While, again, treating slavery as an economic fact of life, he consistently, in every instance, uplifts slaves as being equal to free men in Christ; and that belief in Christ erases the distinctions between slave and free.

The greatest "crime" Paul committed vis a vis slavery was sending escaped slave Onesimus back to his master Philemon. I was really going to go through this to point out how very anti-slavery it is, but in reading it over again - that is so self-evident that I will let someone else try to do a pro-slavery exegesis from the book. They really can only end up looking silly to those who read what they write. Only one section is really needed here:

8 Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper, 9 yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you --since I am such a person as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus-- 10 I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, 11 who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. 12 I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, 13 whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; 14 but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.

Endorsement of slavery? Give me a break.

There is the word study: if someone really wants to make a case from these verses that the Bible says that slavery is God's will - put it in the comments or link your blog in the comments. The rule for it not to be deleted from me: no proof-texting - you have to make your case from the whole sweep of scripture on this issue adequately dealing with the counter-examples to your position. If not, I will whack it like a bad weed.

The next post will go on to the early church Fathers and Christianity up until the 16th century.

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