Defending the Bizarre Against the Obvious

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I hardly ever link to Triablogue, because they are usually so obnoxious, but an interesting discussion is taking place on the problem of evil, and David Wood has shown up there. Here's what I just wrote (revised slightly):

David Wood said: I constantly hear atheists say, "But why didn't God give Hitler a heart attack before he started the Holocaust?" What does this claim presuppose? It presupposes that it would be morally permissible for God to kill someone for things he hadn't yet done. Now why would it not be morally permissible for God to allow babies to suffer for sins they hadn't yet committed?

In the first place, David continually seems to be responding to what "atheists say," as if they are the only ones asking these questions. That is NOT true. Christians ask the same type of questions, and he knows it. The difference is that when atheists ask these questions we don't think Christians can answer them satisfactorily, whereas when Christians ask these questions they are seeking to learn the answers. That's the only difference. So please, don't continue with this fortress mentality as if atheists are trying to breach the walls while Christians are all safely tucked inside.

But the bottom line is that these cases are non-analogous. The reason why God should've killed Hitler as a youth is because of the numbers of people he killed. The result of his death would have been good for millions of people. Most people do not cause such intense harms to humanity.

Besides, if God is all-powerful and omniscient, why did he let Hitler slip through his fingers when 40,000 people, mostly children, die every day of hunger? Does anyone really think that the millions of children who die from hunger deserve to die, but that Hitler didn't deserve to die in his youth? If God spared Hitler as a child but instead allows millions of children to die, then maybe these children were going to grow up to be more hideous monsters than Hitler! Such a supposition would be obviously false!

By the way, this, once again, is stating the obvious. How you repeatedly dispute the obvious is indeed bizarre to me. Bizarre. That's what you defend here. Bizarre beliefs. Why can't you admit it? Why are you so sure of your beliefs when they repeatedly dispute what is so obvious?

Maybe God exists, and maybe he doesn't. But where does your sense of certainty come from? That too is bizarre to me. Why not just say, “I think God exists.” Why not admit he might not? Why is there this overwhelming attempt to show that Christianity is the only rational position to take? Do you do that with anything else, in any other area, when there are cases to be made for both sides?

What is so obvious to you that you must deny what is truly obvious, when it comes to the problem of suffering in this world?

Do you really believe that the nebulous arguments for the existence of a creator God, and that your particular historically conditioned interpretation of some ancient documents (which were continually edited until canonized) are so obvious to you, that you must deny what we would all expect if an Omni-God created this world? Sure, you are trying to come to grips with your God in light of the presence of evil, and so you struggle with additional premises and implausible theories. But you simply cannot deny that this is not the kind of world we would expect to find if such an omni-God exists.

Bizarre. If you don't want to deny the existence of God, surely you can accept a deistic kind of God or a process theology kind of God. What's the harm here? Isn't that what we do when investigating something? We revise our notions in light of some intractable problems! Is it because of fear that you don't? The fear of hell? Is that what you fear? It must be. That's all I can figure. For you are repeatedly denying the obvious.

More on the Outsider Test

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Regarding John's Outsider Test, and Exbeliever's reponse to it, here's a clever little video showing the historical and geographical spread of the major world religions. Lucky Christians were born where they were huh? :)

Birds of a Fundy Feather

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There is a scientific principle called Like Aggregation. It states that objects of similar size and weight will aggregate towards one another or join together, this being due to ocean currents and winds, the response of the objects to magnetic fields, and other factors. This effect is something we take for granted, but we see it every time we observe a wad of cat hair or a clump of dirt lying around.

It is very interesting to see a spiritual side to this principle at work in the lives of people, as well as inanimate objects. As human beings, we find that those who think like us, act like us, are comfortable and willing to associate with us, and will side with us in arguments, tend to gravitate toward us. This is why street thugs, choirboys, and presidents aren’t seen hanging out together at shopping malls!

In 1997, during my last year at preaching school, I saw this principle at work like I never had before. On the way home from a lectureship in Denton, Texas, we students were making reference to the powerful preaching we heard while at the lectureship when the subject of abortion came up. This led to the subject of Eric Rudolph, the famous abortion clinic bomber and domestic terrorist. He was first becoming recognized back then, and we soon found ourselves talking about his crimes, when out of the blue, one very vocal preaching student said, “I honestly can’t condemn him for what he did!” It was like someone dropped a pistol! There was the usual stunned moment of silence as the students began to look around at each other and then back at the speaker to clarify the shocking statement just made. “Honestly, murderers need to die. Abortionists are murderers. I can’t condemn this guy at all for what he did.”

I was unprepared to see one of my own brethren defend the likes of this monster. I said to him again, this time with a partial grin on my face as though I knew he was about to cop to pulling my leg. “Seriously…” With not the slightest of hesitation or anything but a serious, almost angry expression on his face because I didn’t believe him, he said, “Does it look like I’m kidding?” I realized then that he wasn’t, and at this point, just waited for some of the other guys to jump in and tell him what a nut he had become. No one did. Looking to see why, I glanced over the bus seats and got a load of the facial expressions of others. To my amazement, I beheld what appeared to be nods of approval, maybe a few disturbed looks, but not one horrified expression in the bunch.

I seemed to be alone. No one else saw this as a terrible sign of a dangerous dogma. I can remember thinking to myself, “I am riding with potential terrorists! These people are not that far removed from Subway-bombing Jihadists!” Of course, I quickly put the thought behind me, assuming perhaps they were speaking out of anger and not serious reflection. This didn’t seem likely though, since even when I described the agony of having to undergo multiple painful skin-graphs and reconstructive surgeries, loss of hearing, loss of sight, chronic pain, missing limbs, and any number of other injuries that come from incendiary devices like explosives, I got no reactions from them. They seemed unphased, able only to think about the heavily influential anti-abortion materials they had been fed. This was probably the first red flag that went up in my head, showing me just how dangerous any religiously motivated ideal can be.

Even being consumed in the very same radical dogma they were, I still found this disturbing. I was apparently the only one who was truly appalled. My brethren would never have had the courage or the desire to do what Rudolph did, but they couldn’t fault him for it either. What was so sad was that they didn’t realize how they had stooped to the level of the desert-roaming radical groups they claimed to oppose. They became Christian terrorist sympathizers who entertained the idea that maybe God was using Rudolph to extend the arm of divine justice on those “ godless baby-murderers” who worked in abortion clinics. “Thus saith the Lord, my servant Eric Rudolph shall bring justice…” Scary indeed to think about! The Bible doesn’t say this, but it might as well have in the minds of these believers. It is the cauterizing lesson of humanity—if no one is around for us to hate and oppose, we eventually become what we once hated and opposed the most!

In my first home church, I was asked to march in several anti-abortion rallies but never did. The whole idea seemed a bit radical to me, but as a young Christian man, I found that the proponents of abortion rallies argued their case well, “Joe, why won’t you march? If we can intimidate just one young girl into staying away from the slaughterhouse so that her child lives, we’ve saved a life. God wants you to do that!” I once thought to respond, “Well, we could handcuff ourselves to the doors and that would stop people too!” They quit trying to convince me to join them after a while, but listening to their boasting from pulpits on how they had such huge turnouts at the rallies was still disgusting. You never saw the eyes of believers light up with hatred as when standing outside a Planned Parenthood facility!

As I look back on these events, I remember how grandma’s old saying went, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Life dictates that you won’t have to wait long for someone to show their true colors. People’s convictions make them act like they do. The things they say, the rash statements they make, those with whom they side in arguments…all signs of their indubitable selves. And the fruits of that nature can be clearly seen; Rudolph’s deeds are right in line with the beliefs of many Christians, one of those being that God wants abortionists to pay for their sins in blood (Genesis 9:6). A lot of believers might disagree on how to go about shedding this blood, but that is a minor detail in comparison to the big picture. Be it government or vigilante justice (whichever happens to come through quickest for the believer’s holy cause), they want action here and now! God hates “hands that shed innocent blood” (Proverbs 6:17), even though, ironically, when all the hype is cleared away, the Bible itself is found to be a pro-abortion book (see Genesis 38:24; Exodus 21:22-23).

The Christian fundamentalist mindset is dangerous. It devalues life and appreciates one that exists only in fantasy. It enslaves the rational mind, empowering an otherwise conscionable individual to do inhumane things with feelings of integral justification, or at the very least, creates support and sympathy for those who so act.
(JH)

I Am Available For Speaking Engagements

I have decided to make myself available for speaking engagements.

Please contact me at johnwloftus@verizon.net to set one up.

If you like what I’ve written on this Blog and/or in my book I'm available to come and give a talk to your freethought organization, or college group.

What subjects am I ready and willing to talk about?

Anything I’ve written substantially about in my book or on this Blog.

Key topics range from the funny to the sublime:

We can have a good laugh as I describe the superstitious nature of the Bible.

Or I can lay out the general lines of my case against Christianity.

I can go through my personal story of how I came to reject Christianity.

Or I can spell out the Outsider Test and defend it from objections.

I could describe what Science has to do with Christianity.

I could debunk Biblical prophecy and authority.

Or I could deal with the problem of evil.

I'm also available for public debates if a church group or campus organization would like to set one up with me, especially on the problem of evil.

Christians Who Struggle With Serious Doubts.

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[Written by John W. Loftus] While we at DC have moved completely away from Christianity, there are many believers who struggle daily with serious doubts. Many Christians go through periods where they seriously question their faith. Some of them, like us, abandon that faith. Let me briefly mention three Christian scholars who have had serious doubts about Christianity: Ruth A. Tucker, James F. Sennett, and Terence Penelhum

Ruth A. Tucker takes a serious look at those who walk away from their Christian faith in her book, Walking Away from Faith: Unraveling the Mystery of Belief and Unbelief (Downers Grove: IVP), 2002. She shares her own doubt and how she overcomes it, hoping to challenge unbelievers to reconsider what they are missing. But in one place in her book, as she was contemplating her own doubt, she candidly confesses what sometimes crosses her mind. As a seminary professor she wrote, “There are moments when I doubt all. It is then that I sometimes ask myself as I’m looking out my office window, What on earth am I doing here? They’d fire me if they only knew.”(p. 133) Her specific challenge to the Christian believer “is that you seek a better understanding of those who do not believe—particularly those who have walked away from the faith—and that you listen carefully to their stories and respond with honesty and sensitivity.” (p. 12) According to Tucker, for those who walk away from their faith “the process is full of sorrow and a sense of loss.” (p. 13).

Christian philosopher James F. Sennett, is another one who has seriously struggled with his faith, as seen in his unpublished book, This Much I Know: A Postmodern Apologetic. He also confesses to have had a faith crisis and wrote his book as a “first person apologetic” to answer it. In chapter one, called “The Reluctant Disciple: Anatomy of a Faith Crisis,” he wrote, “I am the one who struggles with God. I am the Reluctant Disciple.” “Once I had no doubt that God was there, but I resented him for it; now I desperately want him to be there, and am terrified that he might not be.” His faith wavered as the result of contemplating the mind-brain problem. During this crisis he said, “Sometimes I believed. Sometimes I didn’t. And it seemed to me that the latter condition was definitely on the ascendancy.”

Christian philosopher Terence Penelhum has also expressed his doubts in “A Belated Return,” in Philosophers Who Believe, ed. Kelly James Clark (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993). He says there are “serious inner clashes between the philosophical and religious strands in my psyche. They derive from the fact that I find myself an unrepentantly philosophical being, which puts me at a mental distance from most of my fellow Christians.” “I have become aware of the multiplicity of religious and secular worldviews, each supported by reasons, each felt and experienced, many institutionally developed and expressed, and each having resources for fending off and explaining away the claims of the other. I have found it easy, professionally, to assume the stance of each and all of them for pedagogical purposes. And I think it a mark of human enlightenment to be able to enter imaginatively into these alternative visions, since each of them is a vision that is lived by rational beings.”

Penelhum continues, “As a philosopher, I find that my intense awareness of the multiplicity of rational alternatives makes me feel deep alienation from fellow Christians who appear to be blessed with certainty, and with a correlative perception of the obvious falsity of such alternatives. To be frank, I do not feel their certainty to be a blessing: better, surely, I cannot help telling myself, to be a Socrates tentative than a pig without questions.” (p. 234).

Penelhum has serious problems with “some theological options,” which “seem to me totally closed, and the consideration of them to invite justified ridicule from the most sympathetic enquirers.” Here he mentions the historical Fall of Adam and Eve, and a physical ascension into heaven. He says, “we know too much to continue to encase our Christian teachings in antiquated cosmologies in the way such options require.” (p. 235).

Drs. Tucker, Sennett and Penelhum are not the only Christian believers out there who seriously struggle with their Christian faith. I did myself, just like they do. At some point my faith just came crashing down on me.

The Family Tomb of Jesus?

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Someone alerted me to what is being called the family tomb of Jesus. It's a remarkable find, and one cannot help but wonder about it. If it is the family tomb of the Jesus of Christianity, and that has yet to be shown, two things seem clear to me: 1) Jesus was a real person, and 2) Jesus died. His body was not resurrected from the grave.

Consider the Obvious!

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It’s quite possible that when it comes to worldviews, they are incommensurable, that is, they have no common ground. I say this not because I believe they are incommensurable, since I do my best here to argue against the Christian worldview by seeking ways to express myself that might help Christians see what I do. But maybe they are incommensurable after all. We just live in different intellectual universes. Everything I consider a fact, another may dispute, and everything a theist considers a fact, I might dispute.

What do we all agree about? We agree that there is existence; that something exists. An eastern pantheist claims there is no such thing as the self, and an Idealist claims there is no material universe. So we cannot get much farther than saying that something exists, and that’s not much.

So how can people inhabiting different intellectual universes discuss and debate these things? Let me suggest that we must try as hard as we can to find common ground. But that’s easier said than done. We should resist the temptation to insulate our beliefs from critique by stressing that outsiders cannot critique our beliefs. That’s a first step. Once we insulate our beliefs from an external critique we have cut off the possibility of dialogue and debate in the mutual attempt to come to the truth of it all. In fact, the more we stress that our beliefs cannot be critiqued from the outside, then the more we insulate our beliefs from a critique at all. A healthy measure of skepticism is, after all, a virtue in any other scientific or historical or criminal investigation. That’s why I have argued on behalf of the Outsider Test for Faith here at DC and in my book. An insider to a faith system doesn’t evaluate his own faith with the same kind of skepticism he uses to evaluate other faiths, so he uses a double standard. Why not approach his own faith with the same standard of skepticism he uses to evaluate the others? I claim he should. Even if not, at a very minimum he should not continually be arguing that an external critique of his faith cannot be made. He should consider these arguments anyway.

Is it possible to construct a worldview that is internally consistent but false? I think this is obviously true. Keep in mind that since no human being is a logic machine, what one sees as internally consistent may not actually be so. There are always additional premises which, when taken together with other things he believes, makes a system of belief consistent to the adherent. Here I have in mind Calvinist attempts to exonerate his God from the evil of human deeds and desires, even though the bottom line is that his God sovereignly decrees all of the evil human deeds and desires.

Let's say you are an Idealist disciple of George Berkeley and you don't believe there is a material universe. Kicking a rock and claiming to refute you won't work, will it?

Berkeley probably cannot be refuted any other way. In fact, a professor friend of mine claims Berkeley cannot be refuted. Why? Because he argued for a consistent and coherent system of beliefs.

This same professor friend argues that relativism cannot be refuted, too.

Pantheism probably cannot be refuted, either. To do so one must assume something exterior to what a pantheist believes, so it cannot be refuted from his perspective.

If we grant presuppositionalism to the Christian, then Christianity probably cannot be refuted either. But that's granting him everything!

There are other internally consistent systems of belief too. Barthianism (Neo-Orthodoxy) probably cannot be refuted.

But, these systems of belief cannot all be right. So even though these beliefs probably cannot be refuted, they cannot all be true, though they may all be false.

Unless a claim is made that can ground a belief outside the system, such a view has insulated itself from any all any critiques from the outside.

And herein lies the rub. Knowing that internally irrefutable positions cannot all be correct, the adherent of any of these religious belief systems must consider the obvious, like kicking a stone when it comes to Idealism, and the presence of intense evil when it comes to a good, omnipotent, all-knowing God.

So once again, if God is perfectly good, all knowing, and all powerful, then the issue of why there is so much suffering in the world requires an explanation. The reason is that a perfectly good god would be opposed to it, an all-powerful god would be capable of eliminating it, and an all-knowing God would know what to do about it.

So, the extent of intense suffering in the world means for the theist that: either God is not powerful enough to eliminate it, or God does not care enough to eliminate it, or God is just not smart enough to know what to do about it. The stubborn fact of evil in the world means that something is wrong with God’s ability, or his goodness, or his knowledge.

An adherent to a belief system that cannot be critiqued externally, has an intellectual obligation to consider these external "obvious" arguments. While internal consistency is definitely a test for truth, if it does not "touch ground" somewhere, it may be a castle built in the sky in a delusional world. The only way to evaluate such a delusion is to consider an external critique, and it takes a healthy measure of skepticism to do so. It means stepping outside his system of beliefs for a few minutes to consider them. Many theists won't even attempt this for fear of God's displeasure and/or his wrath.

There are Calvinistic Christians on the web who continually tell me that what I offer is not an internal critique of their beliefs, then they proceed to show me what one looks like, without reference to their own particular belief system. I know what one looks like when it comes to logic itself. But unless these same Christians can show me what an internal critique looks like WHEN APPLIED TO THEIR OWN FAITH, then they still have not acknowledged one is possible. If they want to maintain that only an internal critique of their faith can be made, then it behooves them to offer one up. They cannot continue to argue I must offer an internal critique and not acknowledge one is even possible. That's doing a dance. That's logical gerrymandering. That's peforming magic. At that point their whole belief system is unfalsifiable.

Daylight Atheism on The Blasphemy Challenge

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For which see here.

A rational response to the film, Amazing Grace--releasing this weekend

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Dear Christian Friend, Thank you for your invitation [reproduced at the end of this email] to see the movie releasing this weekend, titled, "Amazing Grace," about the part played by a Christian in the abolition of slavery in Great Britain. Like you I hope such a film will inspire others to become more socially and politically active. (Of course there are many stories round the world of people’s actions that have inspired others to help their fellow human beings, and I endorse pretty much all of them that have value in that respect, regardless of religious or non-religious content.) On the other hand I'm also reminded of how films of all sorts, produced by all kinds of people, also tend to leave a lot out. Speaking of which, I have much to add concerning the "God and slavery" issue, even concerning the abolition of slavery in Britain, Wilberforce, John Newton (the former slave trader who wrote "Amazing Grace"--the song whose title was also used as the name of the upcoming film), and America's "Holy War," the Civil War, which proved that relying on the Bible and Biblical theologians to decide moral questions (such as the question of slavery) was not enough.

FIRSTLY, JOHN NEWTON...

"Editor's Bookshelf: Amazing Myths, How Strange the Sound: An interview with Steve Turner, the author of Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song" by David Neff, Christianity Today, March 31, 2003)

John Newton was a pastor and author of "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken."...

INTERVIEWER: What mythology did you yourself hold that you discovered was wrong when you did your research?

TURNER: I think I just knew the basic skeleton of this story. I knew Newton was a slave trader, I knew that he had been in a storm, and I knew he'd written a song. I didn't really know the sequence in which that happened. Arlo Guthrie tells the story on stage that Newton was transporting slaves and the storm hit the boat, he was converted on the spot, changed his mind about slavery, took the slaves back to Africa, released them, came back to England, and wrote the song. That would be nice. That would be the way we'd like to write the story. But the fact is that he took years and years before he came to the abolition position. And he never captained a slave ship until after he became a Christian. All his life as a slave captain was actually post-conversion.

The majority of Christians were in favor of the slave trade. The ship owner that he worked for had a pew in the church in Liverpool. It was not uncommon at all for prominent Anglicans to also be involved in the slave trade. And it made me wonder, what things are we involved in that we think are fine but in centuries to come people will think, How could they possibly have done that? [...]

Newton's tender ship captain's letters that he sent home to his beloved Mary showed complete lack of concern for the African families he was breaking up. A telling passage from one letter cites "the three greatest blessings of which human nature is capable" as "religion, liberty, and love." But referring to those he had helped to enslave, he wrote, "I believe... that they have no words among them expressive of these engaging ideas: from
whence I infer that the ideas themselves have no place in their minds."

When it came to denouncing the slave trade, Newton would not commit himself publicly until the mid-1780s—nearly 30 years after the issue was first broached in Parliament, 20 years after the Countess of Huntingdon began campaigning for equal treatment of the races, and 14 years after John Wesley wrote his Thoughts on Slavery.


~~~~~~~~~


SECONDLY, THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN BRITAIN AND THE U.S.

By the late middle ages, the slave trade was a most lucrative business. Protestant England was just as guilty in condoning and promoting the slave trade as were the Catholic countries. In fact one particularly devout trader, one Captain Hawkins, actually named one of his ships “Jesus” and regularly preached the love of Christianity to his crew and human cargo. When slavery was finally banished from England it was due to the influence of secular law and the decision was opposed by the church hierarchy… It is not a coincidence that the freedom of the slaves across the world occurred at the same time that the church was losing its stranglehold on the state.

Jon Nelson, “Christianity, Racism and Slavery” [online] The Atheist Alliance Web Center
____________________________

It is certainly true that the campaign against slavery and the slave trade was greatly strengthened by [some] Christian [individuals], including the Evangelical layman William Wilberforce in England and the Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing in America. But Christianity, like other great world religions, lived comfortably with slavery for many centuries, and slavery was endorsed in the New Testament. So what was different for antislavery Christians like Wilberforce and Channing? There had been no discovery of new sacred scriptures, and neither Wilberforce nor Channing claimed to have received any supernatural revelations. Rather the eighteenth century has seen a widespread increase in rationality and humanitarianism, which led others--for instance, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan [and Thomas Paine in America]--also to oppose slavery, on grounds having nothing to do with religion. Lord Mansfield, the author of the decision in Somersett’s Case, which ended slavery in England (though not its colonies), was no more than conventionally religious, and his decision did not mention religious arguments. Although Wilberforce was the instigator of
the campaign against the slave trade in the 1790s, this movement had essential support from many in Parliament like Fox and Pitt, who were not known for their piety. As far as I can tell, the moral tone of religion benefited more from the spirit of the times than the spirit of the times benefited from religion.

Where religion did make a difference, it was more in support of slavery than in opposition to it. Arguments from scripture were used in Parliament to defend the slave trade.

Steven Weinberg, “A Designer Universe?” New York Review of Books, Oct. 21, 1999
____________________________

It is impossible for any well-informed Christian to deny that the abolition movement in North America was most steadily and bitterly opposed by the religious bodies in the various States. Henry Wilson, in his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America; Samuel J. May, in his Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict; and J. Greenleaf Whittier, in his poems, alike are witnesses that the Bible and pulpit, the Church and its great influence, were used against abolition and in favor of the slave-owner.

I know that Christians in the present day often declare that Christianity had a large share in bringing about the abolition of slavery, and this because men professing Christianity were abolitionists. I plead that these so-called Christian abolitionists were men and women whose humanity, recognizing freedom for all, was in this in direct conflict with Christianity’s [teachings concerning the subjugation of slaves to their masters].

It is not yet fifty years since the European Christian powers jointly agreed to abolish the slave trade. What of the effect of Christianity on these powers in the centuries that had preceded? The Christian heretic, Condorcet, pleaded powerfully for freedom for slaves whilst Christian France was still slave-holding. For many centuries Christian Spain and Christian Portugal held slaves. Puerto Rico freedom is not of long date: and Cuban emancipation is even yet newer. It was a Christian King, Charles V, and a Christian friar, who founded in Spanish America the slave trade between the Old World and the New. For some 1800 years, almost, Christians kept slaves, bought slaves, sold slaves, bred slaves, stole slaves. Pious Bristol and godly Liverpool less than 100 years ago openly grew rich on the traffic. During the ninth century Greek Christians sold slaves to the Saracens. In the eleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in Rome, and the profit went to the Church.

It is said that William Wilberforce, the famed British abolitionist, was a Christian. But at any rate his Christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief [in the literal words of the Old Testament]. As an abolitionist he did not believe Leviticus 25: 44-6; he must have rejected Exodus 21: 2-6; he could not have accepted the many permissions and injunctions by the Bible deity to his chosen people to capture and hold slaves. In the House of Commons on 18th February, 1796, Wilberforce reminded that Christian assembly that infidel and anarchic France had already given liberty to its African slaves, whilst Christian and monarchic England was “obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice.” Wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the whole influence of the English Court, and the great weight of the Episcopal Bench, against him. George III, a most Christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the
Christian House of Lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave …

When William Lloyd Garrison, the pure-minded and most earnest abolitionist, delivered his first anti-slavery address in Boston, Massachusetts, the only building he could obtain, in which to speak, was the infidel hall owned by Abner Kneeland, the “infidel” editor of the Boston Investigator, who had been sent to jail for blasphemy. Every Christian sect had in turn refused Mr. Lloyd Garrison the use of the buildings they controlled. Lloyd Garrison told me himself how honored deacons of a Christian Church joined in an actual attempt to hang him. [Garrison, like the most radical abolitionist Quakers of his era, was deeply religious yet also deeply distrustful of churches and their ecclesiastical organizations, perhaps because the churchmen of his day thought that it was more important for the government to forbid all mail deliveries on “Sunday” than to forbid slavery. Garrison himself found out later in life that he agreed with much of the reasoning of the “infidel” Thomas Paine, regarding both Paine’s questioning of institutionalized religion and of the Bible. Garrison later embraced the “natural religion” of Paine--one rejecting miracles, mysteries, and ecclesiastical hierarchies, and insisting on total separation of church and state.--Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism]

When abolition was advocated in the United States in 1790 the representative from South Carolina was able to plead that the Southern clergy did not condemn either slavery or the slave trade, and Mr. Jackson, the representative from Georgia, pleaded that “from Genesis to Revelation” the Bible remained favorable to slavery.

Elias Hicks, the brave Abolitionist Quaker, was denounced as an atheist. And, less than twenty years ago a Hicksite Quaker was expelled from one of the Southern American Legislatures, because of the reputed irreligion of abolitionist Quakers.

When the “Fugitive Slave Law” was under discussion in North America [a law that demanded all runaway slaves be returned to their masters who then got to punish them grievously for escaping], large numbers of Northern clergymen of nearly every denomination were found ready to defend this infamous law.

Samuel James May, the famous Northern abolitionist, was driven from the pulpit as irreligious, solely because of his attacks on slave-holding. Northern clergymen tried to induce “silver tongued” Wendell Phillips to abandon his advocacy of abolition. Southern pulpits rang with praises for the murderous attack on Charles Sumner. The slayers of Elijah Lovejoy were highly reputed Christian men.

The Christian historian, Guizot, notwithstanding that he tries to claim that the Church exerted its influence to restrain slavery, says (European Civilization, Vol. 1., p.110)” “It has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modem people is entirely due to Christians. That, I think, is saying too much. Slavery existed for a long period in the heart of Christian society, without its being particularly astonished or irritated. A multitude of causes, and a great development in other ideas and principles of civilization, were necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities.” My contention is that this “great development in other ideas and principles of civilization” was long retarded by governments in which the Christian Church was dominant. The men who advocated liberty were imprisoned, racked, and burned, so long as the Church was strong enough to be merciless.

The Rev. Francis Minton, Rector of Middlewich, in his recent earnest volume [Capital and Wages, p.19] on the struggles of labor, admits that “a few centuries ago slavery was acknowledged throughout Christendom to have the divine sanction... Neither the exact cause, nor the precise time of the decline of the belief in the righteousness of slavery, can be defined. It was doubtless due to a combination of causes, one probably being as indirect as the recognition of the greater economy of free labor. With the decline of the religious belief in the divine sanction and righteousness of slavery, its abolition took place.”

The institution of slavery was actually existent in Christian Scotland in the seventeenth century, where the white coal workers and salt workers of East Lothian were chattels, as were their Negro brethren in the Southern States thirty years since; they “went to those who succeeded to the property of the works, and they could be sold, bartered, or pawned.” [Perversion of Scotland, p.197.] “There is,” says J. M. Robertson, “no trace that the Protestant clergy of Scotland ever raised a voice against the slavery which grew up before their eyes. And it was not until 1799, after republican and irreligious France had set the example, that it was legally abolished.”

Charles Bradlaugh, Humanity’s Gain From Unbelief (1889 & 1929) [online]
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The Second Great Awakening [a Christian revival movement], beginning around
1800 in America, is sometimes cited as an important causative factor in the abolitionist movement that followed… The implication here is that Christianity was at the heart of the movement to free the slaves… If so, why didn’t the abolitionist movement begin after the First Great Awakening? Did that movement’s leaders, George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards, cry out in indignation against human bondage? They did not. [Whitfield even considered slavery a blessing.] Was the anti-slavery banner raised in the colonies as a result of this re-awakening of Christian sentiment? It was not. Slavery was not eliminated in this country [nor in England, nor in France] until after secularism had attained an ideological foothold. Certainly, many of the leaders of the abolitionist movement were religious. But, although they most likely were not aware of it, they were acting on humanistic impulses [rather than on the basis of Biblical teachings].

Jon Nelson, “Christianity, Slavery, and Abolitionism” [online] The Atheist Alliance Web Center
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English North Americans embraced slavery because they were Christians, not in spite of it…In the 1700s, defenders of slavery among men of the cloth were far more numerous than opponents…The involvement of northern denominations and congregations [in the anti-slavery movement] was virtually nonexistent. It is not an exaggeration to assert that the clergyman or church member who marched with the abolitionists did so in spite of his denominational connection, not because of it. The antislavery movement [in both the U.S. and in Britain] owed much of its impetus to the efforts of individuals [who were often considered radicals or fanatics by their own denominations]…Harriet Beecher Stowe’s enormously popular anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) was written in reaction to her denomination’s acquiescence to the practice of slavery.

Forrest G. Wood, The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth
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By the mid-1800s not one of the major Christian denominations [in America] other than the Quakers held a strong anti-slavery position.

Donald B. Gibson, “Faith, Doubt and Apostasy,” Frederick Douglass: New Literary and Historical Essays, ed. Eric J. Sundquist Gibson
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Now that the blight of slavery has been removed, or at least ameliorated from human society, the church predictably steps in and takes the credit. In the righteous tones of the morally duplicitous, they claim that their faith was the motivating factor, that the slave owners weren’t “real” Christians, that the entire history of slavery only proves their contention that humans are inherently evil. Their unquestioning flocks, already convinced of Christianity’s merits, nod their heads in obsequious agreement… Americans today view slavery as a most grievous wrong. Unfortunately, few of them recognize that the Bible they revere is at best ambiguous and at worst openly supportive of the institution.

Jon Nelson, “Christianity, Slavery, and Abolitionism” [online] The Atheist Alliance Web Center
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QUAKERS AND UNITARIANS (TWO SECTS THAT OTHER CHRISTIANS DESPISED) AS WELL AS DIESTS (CONSIDERED “INFIDELS”), WERE THE EARLIEST AMERICANS OPPOSED TO SLAVERY

1688--The Quakers in Pennsylvania sign an anti-slavery resolution, making them the first and only Christian denomination in the entire Western Hemisphere to make a formal protest against slavery.

1730s-1770s--Benjamin Franklin (Deist) first lets his anti-slavery views be known.

1775 (March 8)--Thomas Paine (a Deist) writes, “African Slavery in America,” published in Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser, Philadelphia, denouncing slavery and calling for its end (ones of Paine’s earliest published writings).

1775 (Six weeks later)--The “Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery” is formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Quakers and Deists. Thomas Paine (Deist) was a founding member, and Benjamin Franklin (Deist) became its president.

1775--John Adams (Unitarian), proposes a “Declaration of Independence.” He also suggests that congress appoint Thomas Jefferson (Deist) to write the draft. Adams serves as one of the editors. A lifelong opponent of slavery, Adams did not protest when congress cut Jefferson’s condemnation of slavery from the Declaration. Both believed the cause of independence was more important. Adams later wrote in a letter to Timothy Pickering: “I was delighted with it’s [the Declaration’s] high tone and the flights of oratory with which it abounded, especially that concerning negro slavery, which, though I knew his [Jefferson’s] Southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly never would oppose.”

1776 (January)--Thomas Paine (Deist) publishes Common Sense after which sentiment begins to build in the Continental Congress for a complete break with England.

1776 (Sept. 28)--Pennsylvania adopts a constitution. While it appears that Benjamin Franklin (Deist), as well as George Bryan and James Cannon were the principal authors of the new constitution, others such as George Clymer, Timothy Matlack and even Thomas Paine (Deist) might have been involved in its creation.

1777--Vermont’s Constitution is composed, modeled after that of Pennsylvania’s that was written by Benjamin Franklin (Deist). One of the most notable features of Vermont’s bill of rights was the conditional abolition of slavery (the conditions were that men could be held to be a “servant, slave or apprentice” until age 21, and women until age 18).

1780 (March)--Thomas Paine (Deist) drafts and the Pennsylvania Assembly passes “The Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery”: “Every Negro and Mulatto child born within the State after the passing of the Act would be free upon reaching age twenty-eight. When released from slavery, they were to receive the same freedom, dues and other privileges such as tools of their trade,” as servants bound by indenture for four years.

1780--Massachusetts Constitution declares that all men are free and equal at birth, but it took a judicial decision in 1783 to interpret this as “abolishing slavery.”

1784 Rhode Island and Connecticut enact gradual emancipation.

1799 New York adopts gradual emancipation.

1804 New Jersey adopts gradual emancipation.

Information assembled by E.T.B. See also, “Slavery in Early America: What the Founders Wrote, Said, and Did” [online] http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/1770s/pexpandfound.html


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THIRDLY, THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY

Throughout the Bible slavery is as cheerfully and leniently assumed as are royalty, poverty, and female submission to males. In the English Bible there is frequent mention, especially in the parables of Jesus, to “servants.” The Greek word is generally “slaves.” Jesus talks about them as coolly as we talk about our housemaids or nurses. Naturally, he would say that we must love them; we must love all men (unless they reject our religious beliefs). But there is not a syllable of condemnation of the institution of slavery.

According to Jesus “fornication” is a shuddering thing; but the slavery of fifty or sixty million human beings is not a matter for strong language. Paul approves the institution of slavery in just the same way.--He is in fact worse than Jesus. He saw slaves all over the Greco-Roman world and never said a word of protest.

Joseph McCabe, “Christianity and Slavery,” The Story of Religious Controversy, Chapter XIX
ww.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_19.html
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The Bible says that all the patriarchs had slaves. Abraham, “the friend of God,” and “the father of the faithful,” bought slaves from Haran (Gen. 12:50), included them in his property list (Gen. 12:16, 24:35-36), and willed them to his son Isaac (Gen. 26:13-14). What is more, Scripture says God blessed Abraham by multiplying his slaves (Gen. 24:355). In Abraham’s household Sarah was set over the slave, Hagar. After Hagar ran away the angel told her, “return to your mistress and submit to her.” (Gen. 16:9)

The Bible even depicts the “Lord” making his own ministers slaveholders. Numbers, chapter 31, says that the Hebrews slew all the Midianites with the exception of Midianite female virgins whom the Hebrews “kept for themselves...,” and, “the booty that remained from the spoil, which the [Hebrew] men of war had plundered included...16,000 human beings [i.e., the female virgins] from whom the Lord’s tribute was 32 persons. And Moses gave the tribute which was the Lord’s offering to Eleazar the priest, just as the
Lord had commanded Moses... And from the sons of Israel’s half, Moses took one out of every fifty, both of man [i.e., the female virgins] and animals, and gave them to the Levites [the priestly tribe]... just as the Lord had commanded Moses.”

At God’s command Joshua took slaves (Josh 9:23), as did David (1 Kings 8:2,6) and Solomon (1 Kings 9:20-21). Likewise, Job whom the Bible calls “blameless and upright,” was “a great slaveholder” (Job 1:15-17; 3:19; 4:18; 7:2; 31:13; 42:8)...Slavery is twice mentioned in the Ten Commandments (the 4th and 10th), but not as a sin. [“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave.” Exodus 20:17]

How long must a person remain enslaved? Genesis, chapter nine, says that Noah laid a curse on one of his sons’ sons making him [and his children’s children] “a slave of slaves… forever.” And Leviticus 25:44-46, says, “You may acquire male and female slaves from the nations that are around you. Then too, out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you... they also may become your possession. You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever [i.e., the slave’s children would be born into slavery along with their children’s children, forever].” So, slaves acquired from “foreign” nations could be treated as “possessions...forever;” also, enemies taken in war. Moreover, the second Psalm in the Bible (which scholars believe was sung at the coronation of Hebrew kings) proclaims, “Ask of me [the Lord], and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance [as slaves], and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

There were a few exceptions to “everlasting slavery.” If the slave was a Hebrew owned by a fellow Hebrew the master allegedly had to offer him his freedom after “seven years.” Though there is not a single penalty mentioned in the Bible should the master detain his slave longer than that period or refuse to offer him his freedom. Neither does such an offer appear to apply to female slaves. Furthermore, if a Hebrew slave chose to remain with his master after being offered his freedom, then the “Lord” told his people to “bore holes in the ears” of that slave to mark him as his master’s possession “forever.” So you had better speak up clearly and without hesitation the first time your master offered you your freedom because there was no Biblical provision for changing your mind at a later date. Complicating such decisions was the fact that masters often gave their slaves wives so they could produce children, yet the wife and children remained the master’s “possessions.” (Exodus 21:4-6)

The Bible also apparently allowed for a creditor to enslave his debtor or his debtor’s children for the redemption of the debt (2 Kings 4:1); and children could be sold into slavery by their parents (Exodus 21:7; Isaiah 50:1). So sayeth “the word of the Lord.”

How much punishment could a master employ to discipline their slaves and ensure their obedience? The Bible tells us that a master may beat his slave within an inch of the slave’s life or within “a day or two” of their life: “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives a day or two (before dying), no vengeance shall be taken; for the slave is his master’s money.” (Ex. 21:20-21) In line with such pearls of wisdom an early Christian Council, The Council of Elvira (c. 305), prescribed that any Christian mistress who beat her slave to death without premeditation was merely to be punished with five years of penance. 1 Peter 2:18-20 teaches that the Christian who is a slave should “patiently endure” even harsh unjust punishments in order to “find favor with God.”

Let’s sum up. According to the Bible, anyone who has enough money to buy another human being is “worthy of all honor” (1 Tim. 6:1) in the eyes of the one who has been purchased. Secondly, slaves should seek to fulfill the “will of God” by obediently serving their masters (Eph. 6:5-6). Thirdly, slaves who endured “suffering” (including unjust suffering”) were “acceptable of God” (1 Peter 2:18-20). So if slaves do not find their masters “worthy of all honor,” but “disobey” their masters, and refuse to “endure sufferings” imposed by their masters, such behavior displeases not only man, but God as well. Even Jesus, in his parables, took for granted that a master had the right to discipline his disobedient slaves: “The slave who knew his master’s will, but did not do it, was beaten with many stripes.” (Luke 12:47)

Every book in the Bible takes the existence of slavery for granted from Genesis to Revelation. Revelation 6:15; 13:16 & 19:18 take for granted the existence of “free men” and “slaves” (verse 18:13 even takes for granted the existence of both “slaves” and “chariots,” which is odd for a book some believe to be a “vision of the future”). At any rate, it is far from clear that the Bible is “against slavery.” And that’s putting it mildly.

E.T.B.


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FOURTHLY, THE CIVIL WAR (AMERICA’S “HOLY WAR”)


In the United States disputes over slavery brought Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists to schism by 1845, and encouraged the fratricidal Civil War that finally resolved that crisis. One of the chief ironies of the conflict over slavery was the confrontation of America’s largest Protestant denominations with the hitherto unthinkable idea that the Bible could be divided against itself. But divided it had been by intractable theological, political, and economic forces. Never again would the Bible completely recover its traditional authority in American culture.

Stephen A. Marini, “Slavery and the Bible,” The Oxford Guide to Ideas & Issues of the Bible, ed. by Bruce Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (Oxford University Press, 2001)
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JEFFERSON DAVIS AND THE SOUTH’S VIEW OF SLAVERY AS ESTABLISHED AND SANCTIONED BY GOD
Jefferson Davis, the leader of the South during the American Civil War, boasted, “It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God... it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation... it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts... Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God--let him go to the
Bible... I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation...Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come [Rev. 6:15; 13:16; 19:18]. You find it in the Old and New Testaments--in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.”
- Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Vol. 1

Davis’s defenses of slavery are legion, as in his speech to Congress in 1848, “If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.” After 1856, Davis reiterated in most of his public speeches that he was “tired” of apologies for “our institution.” “African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.”
- William E. Dodd, Jefferson Davis

After being elected President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis said, “My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God’s Book and God’s Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him--our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.”
- Kenneth C. Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War: Everything You Need
to Know About America’s Greatest Conflict But Never Learned]

The Bible is a book in comparison with which all others in my eyes are of minor importance; and which in all my perplexities and distresses has never failed to give me light and strength.
- Robert E. Lee, Leader of the Confederate Army of the South

When the Confederate states drew up their constitution, they added something that the colonial founders had voted to leave out, namely, an invocation of the Deity. The South’s proud new constitution began: “We, the people...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God…”
- E.T.B. [See, Charles Robert Lee, Jr., The Confederate Constitutions]

Southern clergymen and politicians argued that the South was more “Christian” than the North, it was the “Redeemer Nation.”
- Charles Wilson, Baptized in Blood, 1980

With secession and the outbreak of the Civil War, Southern clergymen boldly proclaimed that the Confederacy had replaced the United States as God’s chosen nation.
- Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South]

Our [Christian] denominations [in the South] are few, harmonious, pretty much united among themselves [especially on the issue of slavery--E.T.B.], and pursue their avocations in humble peace...Few of the remarkable ‘isms’ of the present day have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such [religious] commotions farther North; and modern prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Dunkers, Socialists, and the like, keep themselves afar off. You may attribute this to our domestic Slavery if you choose [the slaves being taught what to believe only by members of the ‘few, harmonious’ Southern churches--E.T.B.]. I believe you would do so justly. There is no material here [in the South] for such characters [from the North] to operate upon... A people [like we Southerners] whose men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our system of Slavery contributes largely to the development and culture of these high and noble qualities.
- James Henry Hammond, South Carolinian politician, cited by Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), Chapter IV, “James Henry Hammond: Letter to an English Abolitionist,” pp.180, 181, 183, 184]
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A SLAVE’S VIEW OF SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH
We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals of the slave trade go hand in hand.

Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to the enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.

It was my unhappy lot to belong to a religious slaveholder. He always managed to have one or more of his slaves to whip every Monday morning.

In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting and there experienced religion. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was made a class leader and exhorter.

I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin whip upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote the passage of Scripture, “He who knoweth the master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” (Luke 12:47)

I prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave
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FREDERICK DOUGLASS WAS NOT THE ONLY WITNESS TO TESTIFY THAT CHRISTIANS WERE THE CRUELEST SLAVEHOLDERS
Henry Bibb... lists six “professors of religion” who sold him to other “professors of religion.” (One of Bibb’s owners was a deacon in the Baptist church, who employed whips, chains, stocks, and thumbscrews to “discipline” his slaves.) Harriet Jacobs, in her narrative, informs us that her tormenting owner was the worse for being converted. Mrs. Joseph Smith, testifying before the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission in 1863 tells why Christian slaveholders were the worst owners: “Well, it is something like this--the Christians will oppress you more.”

Donald B. Gibson, “Faith, Doubt and Apostasy,” Frederick Douglass: New Literary and Historical Essays, ed. Eric J. Sundquist Gibson

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LETTER WRITTEN BY A SLAVE TO A MINISTER WHO HAD PREACHED AT THAT SLAVE’S PLANTATION
I want you to tell me the reason you always preach to the white folks and keep your back to us. If God sent you to preach to sinners did He direct you to keep your face to the white folks constantly? Or is it because they give you money? If this is the cause we are the very persons who labor for this money but it is handed to you by our masters. Did God tell you to make your meeting houses just large enough to hold the white folks and let the Black people stand in the sun and rain as the brooks in the field? We are charged with inattention. It is impossible for us to pay good attention with this chance. In fact, some of us scarcely think we are preached to at all. Money appears to be the object. We are carried to market and sold to the highest bidder never once inquiring whether sold to a heathen or Christian. If the question was put, “Did you sell to a Christian?” what would be the answer, “I can’t tell what he was, he gave me my price, that’s all I was interested in?” Is that the way to heaven? If it is, there will be a good many who go there. If not, their chance of getting there will be bad for there can be many witnesses against them.

Blacks in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves, ed., Robert S. Starobin
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It is not uncharacteristic in the study of race relations that the catechisms, as instruments of control, revealed more about the thinking of the slaveholding society and its clerical leaders than they did about the slaves.
- Forrest G. Wood, The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth

Wood’s book explodes the myth that most slaves became Christians: figures were closer to 10%, roughly the same percentage of the free population that attended church regularly. Another false legend exposed here is that northern churches aided and encouraged efforts to free the slaves: many abolitionists broke away from the mainstream churches because they would not provide assistance to escaped slaves. Northern churches considered slavery a political issue rather than a moral one so as not to offend their southern affiliates. “Spiritual” music was anything but: Allowed to sing only religious music, slaves often composed songs that were outwardly biblical, but that were actually coded messages for the underground railroad. Subjugation of all “inferior” races was an integral part of Manifest Destiny. The author contends that since the few freethinkers were not organized, they had no say in the slavery issue. His research is incomplete: Thomas Paine almost single-handedly abolished slavery in Pennsylvania, the first state where it was outlawed, in 1780. In fact, when did the other northern churches abolish slavery? You won’t find that answer in this book. Most of the material deals with slavery in the United States during the antebellum period, which is probably the author’s special field of study. He spends only a few pages on the genocide of the Native Americans, and almost totally ignores slavery in the Spanish settlements.
- John Rush (Austin, Texas) reviewer of Wood’s book at amazon.com
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African slaves were allowed to organize churches as a surrogate for earthly freedom. White churches were organized in order to make certain that the rights of property [including the master’s right to own his slave] were respected and that the numerous religious taboos in the New and Old Testaments would be enforced, if necessary, by civil law.

Gore Vidal, “(The Great Unmentionable) Monotheism and its Discontents,” essay
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Before the South seceded politically from the North, she seceded religiously. The three largest Christian denominations in the South, the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, seceded from their northern brethren to form separate “Southern” denominations, each founded on the Biblical right (of laymen and ministers) to own slaves.

E.T.B.
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The Old School (Presbyterian) General Assembly report of 1845 concluded that slavery was based on “some of the plainest declarations of the Word of God.” Those who took this position were conservative evangelicals. Among their number were the best conservative theologians and exegetes of their day, including, Robert Dabney, James Thornwell and the great Charles Hodge of Princeton--fathers of twentieth century evangelicalism and of the modern expression of the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. No one can really appreciate how certain these evangelicals were that the Bible endorsed slavery, or of the vehemence of their argumentation unless something from their writings is read.

Kevin Giles, “The Biblical Argument for Slavery,” The Evangelical Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 1, 1994
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THE CLERGY PLAYED A PIVOTAL ROLE IN PROMOTING SECESSION
Southern clergymen spoke openly and enthusiastically on behalf of disunion... Denominational groups across the South officially endorsed secession and conferred blessings on the new Southern nation. Influential denominational papers from the Mississippi Baptist to the Southern Episcopalian, the Southern Presbyterian and the South Western Baptist, agreed that secession “must be effected at any cost, regardless of consequences,” and “secession was the only consistent position that Southern freemen or Christians could occupy.” (One amusing anecdote tells how a prominent member of a Southern Presbyterian church told his pastor that he would quit the church if the pastor did not pray for the Union. Unmoved by this threat, the pastor replied that “our church does not believe in praying for the dead!”)

Meanwhile, Northern clergymen blamed their Southern counterparts for “inflaming passions,” “adding a feeling of religious fanaticism” to the secessionist controversy, and also blamed them for being “the strongest obstacle in the way of preserving the Union.” In this way, the Northern clergy contributed to the belief in an irrepressible conflict, and aroused the same kind of political passions they were condemning in their Southern brethren.

One Southern sermon that had “a powerful influence in converting Southern sentiments to secession,” and which was republished in several Southern newspapers and distributed in tens of thousands of individual copies, was Reverend Benjamin B. Palmer’s sermon, “Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate It,” delivered soon after Lincoln’s election in 1860. According to Palmer that election had brought “one issue before us” which had created a crisis that called forth the guidance of the clergy. That issue was “slavery.” Palmer insisted that “the South defended the cause of all religion and truth...We defend the cause of God and religion,” while abolitionism was “undeniably atheistic.” Palmer was incensed at the platform of Lincoln’s political party that promised to constrain the practice of slavery within certain geographical limits instead of allowing it to expand into America’s Western territories. Therefore, the
South had to secede in order to protect its providential trust of slavery.

When Union armies reached Reverend Palmer’s home state, a Union general placed a price on his head, because as some said, the Reverend had done more than “any other non-combatant in the South to promote rebellion.” Thomas R. R. Cobb, an official of the Confederate government, summed up religion’s contribution to the fervor and ferment of those times with these words, “This revolution (the secessionist cause) has been accomplished mainly by the Churches.”

Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion (See also Edward R. Crowther’s Southern Evangelists and the Coming of the Civil War)
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The Southern Presbyterian Church resolved in 1864 (while the Civil War was still being fought): “We hesitate not to affirm that it is the peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve the institution of slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master and slave.” The Church also insisted that it was “unscriptural and fanatical” and “one of the most pernicious heresies of modern times” to accept the dogma that slavery was inherently sinful. At least one slave responded to such theological resolutions with one of his own: “If slavery ain’t a sin, then nothing is.”

E.T.B.
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To judge by the hundreds of sermons and specially composed church prayers that have survived on both sides, ministers were among the most fanatical of the combatants from beginning to end. The churches played a major role in dividing the nation, and it may be that the splits in the churches made a final split in the nation possible. In the North, such a charge was often willingly accepted. Granville Moddy, a Northern Methodist, boasted in 1861, “We are charged with having brought about the present contest. I believe it is true we did bring it about, and I glory in it, for it is a wreath of glory round our brow.”

Southern clergymen did not make the same boast but of all the various elements in the South they did the most to make a secessionist state of mind possible. Southern clergymen were particularly responsible for prolonging the increasingly futile struggle. Both sides claimed vast numbers of “conversions” among their troops and a tremendous increase in churchgoing and “prayerfulness” as a result of the fighting.
- Paul Johnson, A History of the American People

Other “results of the fighting” that clergymen were not nearly as boastful about included tremendous outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea among both northern and southern troops who took time out from their fighting and prayers to visit women who attended to the troops’ less than holy concerns.
- E.T.B.
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The Crusades aside, Civil War armies were perhaps the most religious in history. Troops who were not especially religious prior to the war often found comfort in religion when faced with the horrific reality of combat. Those who had held strong religious beliefs before they went into battle usually found their faith strengthened. One southerner reflected that “we are feeble instruments in the hands of the Supreme Power,” while his northern counterpart believed that he was “under the same protecting aegis of the Almighty here as elsewhere…It matters not, then,” he concluded, “where I may be the God of nature extends his protecting wing over me.”

Religion, specifically the Protestant religion, went to the very heart of the American experience in the nineteenth century. Both northerners and southerners were used to expressing themselves via religious metaphors and Scriptural allusions. Once war broke out, both sides saw themselves as Christian armies, and the war itself served to reinforce this.

The Confederate soldier, in particular, was encouraged to equate the cause of the Confederacy with the cause of Christ, by the efforts of religious journals such as The Army and Navy Messenger and The Soldier’s Friend, many of which began publication after 1863. The Messenger advised southern troops as late as 1864 that the Confederacy was “fighting not only for our country but our God. This identity inspires our hope and establishes our confidence. It has become for us a holy war, and each fearful and bloody battle an act of awful and solemn worship.” In the same year, The Soldier’s Paper reminded its readership, “The blood of martyrs was the seed of the Church, the blood
of our heroes is the seed of liberty.” According to the Mississippi Messenger, the Civil War was no more nor less than “…the ordering of God’s Providence, which forbids the permanent union of heterogeneous nations.” The southern soldier responded to such arguments, and took them to heart. Even after the fall of Atlanta, an artillery lieutenant from Alabama could not “believe that our Father in Heaven intends that we shall be subjugated by such a race of people as the Yankees.”

Northern soldiers too, were encouraged to find Scriptural justification for the Union cause, particularly over the matter of slavery. After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Julia Ward Howe composed the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was set to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.” Union troops needed little encouragement to sing “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” nor to reassure themselves that as Christ, “died to make men holy, let us die to make men free / While God is marching on.”

Susan-Mary Grant, “For God and Country: Why Men Joined Up For the US Civil War,” History Today, Vol. 50, No. 7, July 2000, p.24-25
____________________________

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the Civil War, more than the combined number of all the American soldiers who died in every other war from the Revolutionary War through two World Wars, right up to the Gulf War against Iraq. (Admittedly, diarrhea killed more Civil War soldiers than were killed in battle. But then, influenza killed more World War I soldiers than were killed in battle.) Neither is there any doubt among historians that religion played a more pervasive and intimate role in heightening disagreements and animosities during the Civil War than in those others.

E.T.B.

____________________________

The Civil War as a Religious War:
It can be argued that the Civil War was as much theological as it was political. The split between northern and southern churches may have precipitated political secession--once religious leaders stopped trying to work together, political leaders didn’t bother. Ministers signed up for war in larger numbers, especially in the South. All the officers in one Texas regiment were, apparently, Methodist preachers. Religious propaganda drove war fever and inspired confidence in ultimate victory.

Ham and the Christian Defense of Slavery:
The primary focus of those using Christianity to defend slavery and segregation was the story of Noah, specifically the part where his son Ham is cursed to serve his brothers. This story long functioned as a model for Christians to insist that God meant Africans to be marked as the servants of others because they are descended from Ham. Secondary was the story of the Tower of Babel as a model for God’s desire to separate people generally rather than have them united in common cause and purpose.

Slavery, Christian Honor, and Social Order:
The concepts of honor and social order have been integral to Southern Christianity and Southern defenses of slavery. Honor meant protecting one’s personal image. It didn’t matter, for example, if one was honest or dishonest, but it did matter that no one said you were dishonest. Black Africans, as descendants of Ham, were seen as lacking honor and therefore deserving of slavery. Maintaining social order meant preserving traditional structures of authority: men over women, whites over blacks.

Southern Christianity and Liberty:
Southern slave owners had little interest in general liberty or maintaining a democratic republic. Their ideals were founded upon patriarchy, timocracy, and authoritarianism — not liberty, democracy, or other values people tend to take for granted today. In effect, Christianity constituted an important basis for anti-democratic movements in the South designed to deny liberty to large numbers of people, primarily (though not solely) slaves.

Christianity as a Source of Weakness in the South:
Early on, Christianity was a powerful force for inspiration and national cohesion in the Confederacy. Over time, however, the quick and expected victory failed to materialize. This was a problem for both sides, but the North had a stronger nationalistic sense of self which helped see them through; the South lacked this and thus the failures on the battlefield translated into religious despair. This, in turn, sapped the South’s morale and prevented them from persevering.

Religious Reconstruction after the Civil War:
Southerners decided that they lost because they were impure of heart rather than because slavery was an unmitigated evil — to admit that they lost because they had been wrong all along would have bee too large a blow to their sense of self and their self-identification as Southerners. They had to have been right; therefore, their loss must be attributed to other reasons. Many argued that God was chastising them in order to prepare them for some higher and more glorious purpose in the future.

States’ Rights, Guilt, and Manufactured Victory:
Southern secession was based upon a defense of slavery as a religious necessity and as a basic way of life. Guilt over slavery always lurked in the background, though, and losing the war made it even more difficult to face. Instead of facing it, however, Southerners claimed that they only fought for states’ rights and personal honor, both of which “survived.” This allowed Southern Christians to claim victory without having to deal with the moral implications of going to war over slavery.

White Supremacy and Christian Supremacy:
For Southerners, maintaining separate churches was necessary to hold on to who they really were. Churches were a primary vehicle for transmitting cultural as well as religious identity. Through the churches Southerners transmitted to their children ideals about slavery, the inequality of the races, the righteousness of secession, the evil and tainted gospel preached by Northerners, and so forth. Except for the overt racism and defense of
slavery, the situation today remains strikingly similar.

Christianity and the Civil Rights Movement:
Although the South lost the Civil War, White Supremacy remained an important component of Christian teaching for the next century. White Christian churches taught that slavery was a just institution, as were Jim Crow laws and segregation; that white Christianity remained the last, best hope for western civilization; and that white Christians had a mandate to exercise dominion over the world — and especially the darker races who were little more than children.

Southern Christianity and Christian Nationalism in Modern America:
There has been discussion of the “southernization of American society,” an argument that many basic premises and principles from Southern culture have become integrated into the rest of American culture. Included with this are appeals to racism and ethnic demagoguery, militaristic patriotism, and extreme political localism.

A parallel development, or perhaps the primary underlying development, has been the “southernization” of American Christianity. Although mainline Protestant Christianity has grown more liberal, tolerant, and open in recent decades, they have also been declining in influence. During this same time conservative evangelical and fundamentalist churches have been growing in size and power.

Christian Nationalism in America is largely a consequence of the spread of Southern Christianity. Southern Christianity has long been more conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist, militaristic, and nationalistic than churches elsewhere in the nation. As these attitudes have spread, they have transformed Christian churches that were once more liberal, especially where issues like feminism, the ordination of female clergy, and homosexuality have been concerned.

Southern Christianity holds firm to a male-dominated church situated in a male-dominated society, hyper-patriotism which is inextricably linked to traditional Christianity, hostility towards homosexuality and any divergence from traditional gender roles, opposition to sexual license and liberty, and the defense of traditional privileges for males, Christians, and at times even whites. All of this is gradually being incorporated into American Christianity generally, transforming not just American churches but also American culture and politics as well.

Austin Cline, “Christianity in the Confederate South: Southern Nationalism and Christianity” http://atheism.about.com/od/christianismnationalism/p/ConfederateSout.htm?nl=1



~~~~~~~~


ED: BELOW IS A COPY OF THE INVITATION I REC’D THAT PROMPTED MY RESPONSE ABOVE (NOTE: THE INVITATION WAS SENT TO ME ON REQUEST SINCE I ASKED TO BE SENT UPDATES FROM THIS GROUP, BUT I SUSPECT MANY PEOPLE OTHER THAN MYSELF HAVE RECEIVED INVITATIONS THIS WEEK TO GO SEE THIS FILM)

>This weekend an extremely important film is opening, Amazing Grace. (If you're not >already familiar with it, don't let the title throw you.)
>
>With an excellent cast, a top-notch veteran director, and produced bt the
>same folks who brought us The Chronicles of Narnia, this is a film that
>needs to be seen. It especially needs to be seen by young people, as will
>become clear as the story progresses. A friend who is involved with the
>project told me that this is not a "feel good' movie; it is a movie that
>makes you want to go out and do something that makes a difference.
>
>One Man's Courage and Perseverance
>by Johnny Price of the Caleb Group
>
>Two-hundred years ago this month a milestone event, in the course of a
>momentous campaign, took place in England. The Abolition Act of 1807 passed
>both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The slave trade was
>abolished in Britain. However, slavery was not abolished; only the slave
>trade. It would be another twenty-six years before the abolition of
>slavery. It had taken twenty years to get rid of this nationally
>sanctioned, highly lucrative business enterprise.
>
>Forty-six years. A professional lifetime. For forty-six years one man,
>William Wilberforce, led the fight against the trafficking of human flesh.
>
>Since the 1600s, schooners would return from Africa with hundreds of black
>men and women lying on their sides in the holds of the ships, their chests
>pressed against the backs of those in front of them; their feet on the
>heads of those in the next row.
>
>Not all who were taken from their villages would make it to the large
>ships; the old and sick and disabled were shot or clubbed to death. Not all
>who made it to the ships were immediately sent below; first the crew got
>their pick of the women. Then each day thereafter the lower decks were
>opened and the dead or nearly dead were thrown overboard. In 1783 England's
>high court had maintained that slaves were only "goods and chattels", the
>chief justice observing that it was "exactly as if horses had been thrown
>overboard".
>
>Wilberforce, from Hull, England, elected to the House of Commons a month
>after turning twenty-one, had served for seven years when a combination of
>increasing social awareness and spiritual maturity led him to write down
>this realization: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the
>suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners." These "two
>great objects" were inseparable, symbiotic. "The reformation of manners"
>(having nothing to do with how one folded one's napkin) had everything to
>do with the moral character of the nation: a nation whose morality
>permitted slavery needed reformation. The existence of the slave trade was,
>in return, moral poison seeping continually into the hearts of the
>citizens.
>
>For forty-six years, Wilberforce recruited like-minded men and women to
>work with him. He needed them. The opposition was fierce and came from
>various fronts. Some were worried about the economy; Lord Penryhn, fretted
>that this was a trade on which "two thirds of the commerce of this country
>depended". Other members of Parliament were shocked that Christian
>politicians had the audacity to press for religiously based reforms in the
>political realm. "Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is
>allowed to invade private life" said Lord Melbourne.
>
>James Boswell made his contempt known through a rather snide verse:
>
>Go, W- with narrow skull,
>Go home and preach away at Hull.
>No longer in the Senate cackle
>In strains that suit the tabernacle;
>I hate your little wittling sneer,
>Your pert and self sufficient leer.
>Mischief to trade sits on your lip,
>Insects will knaw the noblest ship.
>Go, W-, begone for shame,
>Thou dwarf with big resounding name.
>
>Forty-six years of investigations, speeches, debates, proposals, hopeful
>signs, deep disappointments, partial successes, setbacks, boycotts,
>prayers, ridicule. Forty-six years of perseverance.
>
>Of course people of character are multi-faceted. Their passions move them
>in a variety of directions, usually simultaneously. (It is those with
>little or no character who are shallow, one dimensional, and boring. It was
>Simone Weil who pointed out that only in literature are evil people really
>interesting.)
>
>Wilberforce also worked for the reform of the brutal and inequitable penal
>system. (Crimes such as stealing rabbits and cutting down trees, whether
>committed by men, women or children, were punishable by hanging.) A great
>lover of animals he helped establish the Royal Society for the Prevention
>of Cruelty to Animals. Until his marriage in 1797, he regularly gave away a
>quarter of his income to the poor. He paid the bills for people who were in
>prison as a result of the harsh debt laws, securing their releases. When,
>in 1801, the war with France and poor crops resulted in widespread hunger,
>Wilberforce gave away 3000 pounds more than his income.
>
>But always at the forefront was his commitment to the abolition of slavery.
>For forty-six years.
>
>On July 26, 1833, the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery passed its third
>reading in the House of Commons. Emancipation was finally secured. William
>Wilberforce was on his deathbed. When told the news he sank back on his
>pillow, smiled and said, "Thank God that I should live to witness a day in
>which England is willing to give up twenty millions sterling for the
>abolition of slavery!"
>
>Three days later he died.

Why Wasn't There any Veneration of Jesus' Empty Tomb?

9 comments
Jesus’ empty tomb was not venerated by early Christians until the 4th century, according to Eusebius [Via Constantini 3.25-32]. James D.G. Dunn: “there is no evidence whatsoever for Christians regarding the place where Jesus had been buried as having any special significance,” with pilgrimages and veneration. Dunn claims this was “because the tomb was empty.” Peter Kirby argues that Dunn’s conclusion is faulty. “It is plain to see that the site of the tomb of Jesus would become a site of veneration and pilgrimage among early Christians regardless of whether it was occupied or empty.” According to Peter Kirby, “The fact that there was no tomb veneration indicates that the early Christians did not know the location of the tomb of Jesus, neither of an empty tomb nor of an occupied tomb. The best way to avoid this conclusion is, I think, to assert that there was tomb veneration despite the silence of any first-, second-, or third-century writers on such an interest.” And how likely is that? Even James D.G. Dunn admits “that it was quite customary at the time of Jesus for devotees to meet at the tomb of the dead prophet for worship (Matt. 23:29). And it continues today in the veneration accorded the tombs of Abraham in Hebron and of David’s tomb in Jerusalem." Just the very fact that Christians since the 4th century have “venerated” what they thought was the empty tomb of Jesus is evidence for this. I myself worshipped at Gordon’s Calvary while in Jerusalem.


One possible suggestion for why the tomb of Jesus wasn’t venerated for the first few centuries is made by Bryon McCane. He argued that Jesus was given a shameful burial, based upon Jewish customs of that day, along with hints in the gospel texts themselves. He then concludes by saying, “The shame of Jesus' burial is not only consistent with the best evidence, but can also help to account for an historical fact which has long been puzzling to historians of early Christianity: why did the primitive church not venerate the tomb of Jesus? It is a striking fact--and not at all unthinkable--that the tomb of Jesus was not venerated until it was no longer remembered as a place of shame.”

Why Christians wouldn’t have venerated the empty tomb of Jesus, if there was such a site, is puzzling to me, no matter whether Jesus had an honorable or dishonorable burial. McCane’s suggestion fails to account for the fact that if there was an empty tomb of a resurrected Jesus, it would change everything for the early Christians. For this would’ve been a completely new situation, unlike any other shameful burial these Jews had previously known. The early church would’ve believed that the empty tomb signifies hope in a resurrection, like Jesus had experienced. To stand near the opening would've been to stand on the very ground the resurrected body of Jesus stood, if that's what they believed. According to their own beliefs it was the resurrection of Jesus from that empty tomb which provided their victory over sin and death. And remember here, we’re talking about people who would later die for their faith. If that’s true of these followers, why would they care what others thought about the tomb of Jesus? His crucifixion at the hands of the authorities would not cause them to change their minds about Jesus, either. And there is no evidence of any laws prohibiting visiting the gravesite of someone thought to be a “criminal.” Surely mothers were always permitted to visit the sites of their criminal sons...what law would ever prevent that?

McCane also says there are “two other historical phenomena which argue strongly against likelihood that early Christians would have venerated the tomb of Jesus.” The first is that the earliest Christian communities (from ca. 30 CE to the Jewish War of 66-72) “were powerfully influenced by apocalyptic eschatology and by charismatic religious experiences. The coming of the Holy Spirit into their midst convinced them that the Age to Come was dawning, and that Jesus would return to earth in glory very soon. The focus of their attention was on the present (the Spirit) and the immediate future (Jesus’ glorious return), not on the past (his death and burial). As a result, even if they had not regarded the tomb as a place of shame, they would still not have been likely to venerate it.” Secondly, “during the Jewish War of 66-72 the city of Jerusalem was almost totally destroyed by the Roman army. Christians left the city and did not come back in significant numbers. Knowledge of the tomb among Christians – including its location – would have disappeared.”

What can be said about McCane’s first phenomena? He’s certainly correct about the eschatological mentality of the earliest Christian communities. But I still fail to see how anything would change for them. When I venerated what I considered to be the empty tomb of Jesus in Israel in 1989, in our midst were charismatic Christians, who thought Jesus was returning soon. During those years there was a great deal of expectation that Jesus would return to earth soon. There was even a book out called “88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988.” He didn’t. But the year 2000 wasn’t that far off. Among many Christians there was a higher than usual expectation of his return (the parousia). Even with this mentality, here we were worshipping at the tomb. So I see little reason here to think eschatological hope would cause the early Christians to neglect the empty tomb, if there really was one.

McCane’s second phenomenon has some more force to it. He’s correct that with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD Christians left the city and did not come back in significant numbers. But is he correct that knowledge of the location of the tomb among Christians “would have disappeared?” All it would take is for one Christian to remain in Jerusalem to remember it. He would tell others and they would surely hold worship services there, even by night if they had to. To claim the location of the tomb would have disappeared is quite a large claim to make, something that seems improbable to me. However, McCane has given several good reasons for the lack of tomb veneration that do indeed mitigate the force of Kirby’s objection.

Letters From Leavers

12 comments
In a recent email from a Christian student at Fuller Seminary named Tim Bowers he tells me that a classmate and him are doing a project called Letters from Leavers and that "it is essentially a webspace for people who have left the Church to write a “Dear John” letter to the Church."

Tim continues, "It may sound weird coming from a Christian (I hope it doesn’t) but I am very interested in hearing your story and would love you to check out the site. If the site interests you we would love it if you could help us out by sending any folks that you know that might want to connect with a site like this to the page. Thanks so much for your time and consideration."

Then he adds, "I assure you this is no ploy to try to re-evangelize you. We are genuinely interested in hearing your story and that’s it. You can post anonymously to the site so no one will be able to contact you if you don’t want them to."

I have already posted my deconversion story here, but others may want to do so. If so, have at it.

Sandalstraps and Postmodern Thought

1 comments
Chris Baker critiques a chapter from my book here.

David Wood's Blog

0 comments
Lately I've been hanging out over at David Wood's Blog.

What’s Trump?

19 comments

If you play cards, you are probably familiar with the concept of “trump.” It is a certain suit or color that has more power than the others. Even if another color is higher in number, if a “trump” is played, it will beat it. Obviously, before playing a round, a key question is: What is Trump? It controls the outcome of each hand, and defines the strategy of the game.

In discussing the Bible, and certain passages, occasionally the phrase, “you must interpret Scripture with Scripture” is brought out. Typically when the claim is made that a skeptic is not reading a verse correctly, or that the verse means something entirely different than what it appears to say on its face.

When the phrase appears, the question that crosses my mind: “Which verse is controlling? What method do we put in place to determine which passage must bend to the other in our interpretation?”

In other words, which verse is Trump?


In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul gives some very explicit direction regarding divorce. He emphasizes that it is not from him, but directly from God Himself. The direction? Don’t.

A wife is not to leave her husband. The husband is not to divorce his wife. If the wife leaves, she cannot re-marry. (1 Cor. 7:10-11) Paul goes on to emphasize that even if the spouse is not a believer, divorce is not an option. (vs. 12-14) However, Paul does give an exception to the rule of never re-marrying. If the unbelieving spouse leaves, then the believer is no longer bound. They can re-marry. (vs. 15)

A straightforward position. Never initiate a divorce. If you are divorced, you cannot re-marry, unless your ex-spouse was an unbeliever. Paul stays consistent with this position in Romans 7:2-3 where he uses marriage as an example, and notes that a person is bound to their spouse for as long as the spouse is alive.

Now let’s see what Jesus says about divorce. Mark 10: 2-11. In the typical polemic format, the Pharisees challenge Jesus with the question of whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Jesus concedes that under Mosaic Law, it was allowed, because of the hardness of their hearts. However, Jesus then goes on to say that the more ancient law, the law of the Garden of Eden, was the intent that there would be no divorce.

Sadly, he leaves it a bit gray as to whether Mosaic Law would remain in effect, or whether he was supplanting Mosaic Law with a new law of no divorce. (Jesus would be eventually overturning the food laws.) In my opinion, the latter is the better reading, and I will utilize it to stay as consistent as we can under “scripture interprets scripture.”

The disciples question Jesus further, and Jesus indicated that whoever divorces their spouse and marries another, they have committed adultery. Curiously, according to Mark, Jesus talked about a woman divorcing her husband. Something that not technically allowed under Mosaic Law in the First Century Palestine. It is possible, although rare, that a woman could convince her husband to write out a writ of divorce, but it would not be the same as a woman divorcing her husband. Something allowed under Roman Law. Luke, recognizing the faux pas of Mark’s unfamiliarity with Jewish custom removes it. Matthew does as well. How is it that the first author of the Gospels did not know that a woman could not directly obtain a divorce?

Progressing forward on our current quest, however, Mark’s Jesus has a straightforward position. Never initiate divorce. If you do, you can never remarry. In line with what Paul has said.

(An astute reader may notice that nothing has been stated as to what happens if your spouse divorces you. That question has not been answered, as of yet.)

Luke records Jesus’ statement in a somewhat curious manner. Immediately before the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke records a two clause statement of Jesus. (Luke 16:18) First, he follows Mark in stating that whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. Fine so far. (We could quibble about whether it is the remarriage that is the problem, and why it is limited to the male only, but giving the benefit of the doubt, we can still align these passages.) Secondly, he adds a new sentiment that whoever marries the woman so divorced ALSO commits adultery.

The answer as to what happens to the person who does not initiate the divorce begins to come into focus. While it is not exactly explicit as to whether she commits adultery, it certainly is clear that the second husband does! It is still a marriage that results in sin.

According to Luke, a man divorces his wife. If he remarries, adultery happens. If she remarries, adultery happens. It would seem that remarriage is barred, regardless of who instigates the divorce.

We begin to wonder what method to use to have scripture interpret scripture. What is trump? Using the situation presented in Luke, assume an unbeliever divorces his believing wife. Sure, if he remarries, he is committing adultery, but he is an unbeliever. We expect unbelievers to sin. He is damned for much more than one more sin on top of many others.

But what about the believing wife? Can she remarry? According to Luke, her remarrying would cause another (the new husband) to sin. This would qualify as making a person stumble. (Rom 14:21) A sin for both. According to Paul, the unbelieving wife is not bound, she is free to re-marry.

Does Paul “trump” Luke, or does Luke “trump” Paul? Which one do we use as the measuring rod to claim the other must fall in line?

It won’t get better…

Next we look at Matthew. (Anyone who has ever researched divorce in the Bible is saying, “About time!”) Matthew discusses Jesus position on divorce in two spots; I will look at the longer portion first—Matthew 19.

Matthew follows Mark in presenting the story of the Pharisees approaching Jesus and questioning him about divorce. And, in following Mark, Matthew records Jesus as indicating God did not intend divorce from the time of the Garden of Eden, but allowed it under Mosaic Law because of the hardness of their hearts. (Matt. 19:3-8)

And at this point Matthew’s Jesus is prepared to give His discourse regarding divorce. First he copies Mark, “Whoever divorces his wife…and marries another commits adultery.” He ends with the same additional command as Luke records, “whoever marries the divorced wife commits adultery.”

But Matthew adds an additional clause, not found in Mark or Luke or 1 Corinthians. Matthew indicates Jesus said, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery.”

The term “sexual immorality” is vague. We know it is not the same as adultery, because the word for adultery is not used here, but is in the next clause. The author obviously knew the word for adultery, but choose to not use it. Unfortunately, this leaves it up to very broad interpretation.

Certainly it would include adultery. But what about masturbation? Viewing pornography? Looking too long at a gorgeous hunk, or bikini-clad babe on the beach? At what level could a person proclaim, “THAT is sexual immorality, and therefore grounds for divorce”? Does any lusting qualify? Matt. 5:27-30.

Whatever it is, Matthew introduces an “out” clause. Now, there may be some argument as to whether this “out” clause is applicable for divorce OR whether divorce is still prohibited, but remarriage is now an option. (That’s the fun of the opaque nature of these verses. They can be read a multitude of ways.)

Was Matthew saying Divorce was allowed for sexual immorality, or was Matthew saying Divorce is never allowed, but in the event it unhappily occurs, the person is barred from re-marrying unless there was sexual immorality.

A wife divorcing her husband. Sin. Because he beat her. Remarriage is sin.
A wife divorcing her husband. Sin. Because he beat off. Remarriage is O.K.

And, does the “out” clause apply to both, or just the innocent party? If the husband cheats on his wife, while that was a sin, is he free to divorce her and it would not be? Hmmm…divorce equals one sin…a wild affair and then divorce equals one sin…what to do?

Matt 5:32 makes this even more confusing. Take the first part, “Whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality—“ Stop! Most people would think that the divorce is caused by the wife’s sexually immorality at this point. But it continues”—causes her to commit adultery—“ Huh? If my wife has an affair, I can divorce her because of sexual immorality. How did I “cause” her to commit adultery by divorcing her? She already did!

The verse continues, “—and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.” Is that an innocent woman? Or a woman who was sexually immoral, which allowed the man to divorce? But his divorcing causes her to commit adultery.

If divorce causes someone to sin, i.e. causes the woman to commit adultery, it is the same stumbling problem as before. Therefore the man cannot divorce. Meaning the rest of the verse is superfluous.

At this point we have Paul who says you can never divorce. And never remarry. The sole exception on the remarriage part is if an unbeliever divorces a believer. Sexual immorality (unusually) is not mentioned as any part of the equation.

Mark and Luke say you can never divorce. And never remarry. There is no exception. Not unbelievers; not sexual deviants.

Matthew says either 1) you can divorce for sexual immorality and remarry or 2) you can never divorce and never remarry, the sole exception on the remarriage part is if there was sexual immorality.

Most people’s initial reaction is to declare divorce and remarriage as generally prohibited, but in applying “scripture interprets scripture” state that a few exceptions are carved out by Jesus and Paul to this general rule.

Wait a minute. Why do the exceptions “trump” the rule? What prevents the rule from “trumping” the exceptions?

For example, we could state that at the time of Paul’s writing 1 Corinthians, was a unique period in history, in which people were already alive prior to the opportunity of becoming believers. After Pentecost, every person was born, and from the instant of their birth had such a chance.

Because of the state of flux, this was the one time in which a person could become a believer, when their spouse never had an opportunity to become such prior to the marriage. Therefore during this time, and during this limited time only, a person was not bound if the unbeliever left. But from then on, Mark and Luke “trump” Paul.

See the difference, if we say Mark is trump, and not 1 Corinthians? Or we could say that Matthew only applied for the time of Mosaic law, and once Mosaic law was repealed (whenever that was) we revert back to Mark and Luke—no divorce; no remarriage.

It depends on which scripture must bend it its interruption to other scripture.

Further, by simply applying the exceptions of Paul and Matthew to the stated rule in Mark and Luke, we do a disservice to Mark and Luke. Are there other instances in which a flat rule is recorded, but “exceptions” exist that the authors didn’t bother to record? And we don’t know?

What other exceptions exist that Mark and Luke knew of, yet failed to mention? This would seem to introduce a dangerous methodology indeed, OR reduce some of the credibility of Mark and Luke.

And how does Paul not know of Jesus’ sexual immorality exception, and Jesus not know of Paul’s unbeliever exception? Again, if they knew and deliberately failed to chronicle it, this would indicate an intention to modify a stated rule. If they didn’t know—how much does that support the claim of a cohesive, inspired Scripture?

The author of Ephesians throws another wrench into the mix. S/he states that wives must submit to their husbands in the same way that the church submits to God. (Eph. 5:22-24.) And husbands must love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the church. (Eph. 5:25). Can a husband divorce his wife, even for sexual immorality, and still claim he loves her in the same way the Christ loved the church? If Christ could stop loving the church for something as broad as sexual immorality, He would have stopped loving it long, long ago!

If we are going to interpret scripture with scripture, how can a husband or wife be following the precepts of Eph. 5 and EVER divorce? Even if the other party commits adultery? OR, does Matthew 5 and 19 trump Eph. 5?

‘Course, Matthew 5 and 19 would also have to trump Colossians 3:18-19 and 1 Peter 3:1-7.

At some point, in the marriage/divorce discussion, a person will make the pragmatic choice (even unconsciously) to trump one part of scripture over the other. And what do we see? Most times they use the scripture that they desire for their situation to “trump” the one they do not.

Sell all you have for the poor and not worry about where your necessities of life will come from? (Matt. 19:21 & 6:25-34, Mark 12:42-43) Or do we start to hear tales of how we must interpret scripture with scripture, and one should be a good “steward.” (1 Cor. 4:2, 1 Pet. 4:10) Not surprisingly, it is the one with the SUV, and stock portfolio that finds “stewardship” trumps giving all one has to the poor.

Do you love your enemies (Matt. 5:43-48 ; Luke 6:27-36) or do you justify deceiving them and calling them names because they are apostates? (2 Cor. 11:13, 2 Peter 2:1) Again, not surprisingly, those that desire to call names and use deceit justify it with scripture interpreting scripture.

To me, the most plausible answer is that these were various books, written by various authors, with various positions on various topics. And, just like we see in the million or so blogs in internetsphere, they come up with different and contradictory doctrine. To attempt to align them with scripture interprets scripture, is like trying to align 10 different blogs written by 10 different people. We expect contradiction in that endeavor, and the Bible is no different.

So… the next time someone says they are using “scripture interprets scripture” to justify ignoring certain verses that seem to preclude what they want to do, my question is this—What method are you using to determine which verses are trump?