Was slavery just sin or a tool of God to work in and through us? 
Because I have a relative (Click here for my blog about Charles Stearns) that was an "abolitionist" (anti-slavery) I often think of him and his contribution to my life and thinking. I may someday post a bit more about him. Meanwhile here are some thoughts:
Slavery gave us Henry "Box" Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown, and The Civil War...and whatever good God could bring out of it. But, it also gave us slave ships with slaves stacked like cord-wood, wholesale separations of families, in Africa first, and later in America. It gave us border wars, the raid on Lawrence, the Civil War and all the bad that came out of it, --horrendous casualties, both before, during, and after the war because of slavery's human torture and killing of innocents. The repercussions are still with us today. And yet, slavery is still going on in the world today! Click here! Slavery and the Church! Certainly there were some benevolent men that provided "free room and board" for their slaves. Some were even "ministers of God." The support of slavery was even the cause for the creation of Southern Baptist and Southern Methodist denominations and offshoots. The African Methodist Epicopal church came out of it as well.
At the time of the "circuit riders" it was an argument that caused a few circuit riders to rebel against their Methodist authorities. Peter Cartwright was one such circuit rider that I model my "Elder Colt" Single Action Shooting Society persona after. The Institution of Slavery I believe the institution of slavery is human, not of God and was a corruption of what God wants us to be....His willing servants! And I know about the scriptures and arguments that some have used in support of it down through history. To me and my grampaw Charles, it was sin run amok. Was the cross an instrument of torture and cruelty (Yes) and was the use of it by unscrupulous men sin? Was the cross used by God for good? Yes, the cross, a human torture device, was used by God for the salvation of mankind. Does God use evil to perform good? 9:22 [What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?" Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right?
Romans 9:22-23 The Message
Slavery? What of it? Does it concern you today? Pray for its abolition! |
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