Some of the best conversations I’ve had in my life have been with people who did not share my faith. But we respected each other and wanted to learn from each other. I learned, from time to time, that there were nuances to their thought that I had been unaware of and might just learn something from. They often told me they had missed something about faith that they should have noticed. That’s called dialogue. More people these days should try it. Apparently this guy has never wondered if maybe the Original Sin hypothesis has an awful lot of evidence in support thereof.
HI Frank,
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you did not like the Blaze Media article that took issue with the LA Times one, or the latter. But how can we argue that plantations of the South were slave camps, for instance? The Blaze article seems way too overly sensitive to the phrases used in the LA Times piece.
We all mostly love cotton clothes, but how were they made back then? The word “plantation” refers to the plants and the farms. “Slavery” refers to those who were forced to live on the plantations, the people who were forced to do the farming. They were indeed enslaved for life, beaten, raped, separated from families, many murdered at will, and their children too were so enslaved for life. This immoral and inexcusably anti-Christian labor force was fortified by the kidnapping of yet more good people from Africa. Plantations may bring fond family heritage to some owner’s progeny, but they were despicably inhumane for anyone who did not live in the big house. Evil.
We all mostly love chocolate too, and are finding out that it can after all be good for you. But it is often farmed using child slave labor. The idea becomes to buy good chocolate that is grown morally and ethically, not despicably, like was done on the cotton plantations in this country. Ends such as cotton and chocolate do not justify means such as enslavement, or any mistreatment or evil for that matter.
There are good farms and evil farms. Same with factories. Some are better called sweat shops. Some cars are gas guzzlers, some are death traps. You cannot say, “Hey, no fairzie, call it what it is, a plantation!” It’s the language, even when a raw nerve’s been struck.
Let us Christians get some perspective. We are on the so-called left, in the so-called middle, and on the so-called right. Leftist Christians don't think much of rightist Christian politics, and vice versa. And they both can politically attack the middle (vis a vis Biden). But we have other religions and atheisms and agnosticisms. Beliefs and unbeliefs abound in this country.
Rebukes can and should come from all directions. And we Christians are charged with listening to rebukes – but also to seriously consider how such rebukes could possibly come about, when all we should be living through, or want to live through, is the love of Jesus.
How is it that Christians participated in the capture and enslavement of people, and all the degradation, whippings, killings, and such that went along with this? How could that be possible? Where were the Christians who would take a stand, acting through the Gospel and love of Jesus? They were too much in the minority. This history we have is a warning that we Christians can follow the wrong path, the despicably wrong path. And that our preachers and priests will support this path.
If we go back to Genesis, the serpent tempted Eve by sounding as if with the authority of a God, “[3:4] And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. [5] For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” Tempting, even for a Christian, especially for a Christian, to be so worldly and know-it-all.
Essentially, Adam and Eve were the church, and they listened to the wrong “authority”. The church still does this. We can apply such thinking nowadays to some Christian churches preaching that abortion is murder. Who said? If the Bible says anything, it is otherwise. Rebuke to churches: Stick with the program and don’t be a serpent.
DeletePaul said to the Corinthian congregation, “[1:20] Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” The question becomes, “Where was the love of the Gospel?” On these grounds, the Pope’s church can and should be rebuked when, like Adam and Eve, it is out of line. And I’ve been around enough Catholics to know that they are the biggest rebukers of the Catholic church.
Which leads to 2 Samuel 16. Verse 7: “Thus Shimei said when he cursed [King David], ‘Get out, get out, you man of bloodshed, and worthless fellow!’”
Here’s verse 9 through 13 in full:
[I][9] Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over now and cut off his head.” [10] But the king said, “What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah? If he curses, and if the Lord has told him, ‘Curse David,’ then who shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’” [11] Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my son who came out from me seeks my life; how much more now this Benjamite? Let him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him. [12] “Perhaps the Lord will look on my affliction and return good to me instead of his cursing this day.” [13] So David and his men went on the way; and Shimei went along on the hillside parallel with him and as he went he cursed and cast stones and threw dust at him.[/I]
Our rebukers walk along the hillside parallel with us.
Looking again at LZ Granderson’s ( Column: Republicans use ‘God’ to turn tragedies into talking points), we do not get a “left wing” view. We get a rebuke, a parallel, and it is a fairly common one. He also names names and links to his sources. If you really want a left wing column to disagree with on these matters, read this one: Mass Shootings, Empire, and Racist, Copaganda Dog Whistles. They rake Republicans but mostly Democrats alike over the coals. The left does not want to be confused with the Democrats, lest their leftist voice be conflated. That’s a problem nowadays, calling moderate DEmocrats “left wing” because they disagree with (moderate) Republicans who like to think of themselves as conservatives.