Slavery: A request

Dave, in the comments, requested a posting on slavery. This is a bit of an inside joke, since he and I have crossed paths at Jesus Politics. I was against slavery, and relatively sure that God was too. Dave took a different tack. One that includes Confederate "heritage." Instead of linking to his blog, let me instead send you here.

So here goes. I remain against slavery. One of my biggest disappointments with my faith is the number of people calling themselves Christians who needed an explicit scripture verse to tell them that treating people of color differently was wrong. Same applies now. Do you really need a verse to tell you that women are equal--that destroying nature is bad--that dropping bombs on children is wrong?

To be clear, my beef is with humans. I don't assume that God just somehow meant to imply that slavery was ok. I don't blame God, I blame the humans who wrote the Bible--as well-intentioned as they might be. If God had written the Bible directly, it seems to me that noting that slavery was wrong would have been easy. Sure, there are verses about gay men, but nothing saying that buying and selling human beings was wrong? Again, that just suggests to me that flawed humans wrote these down--not God. This is not a rejection of the Bible, just a clarification. Take it for what you will.

But no. Dave and his crowd have been clinging to the "God didn't ban Slavery we were just fighting for state's rights" mantra for too long. Never mind that slavery was a huge part of the Civil War. Southerners read the writing on the wall when new territory in the West was closed to slavery. Filibuster efforts (not that kind) to extend slave territory had failed. The threat of a national ban of slavery was possible.

There are lots of cute justifications for the Confederacy. Some are legit--at least those about legal options for getting out of the union. But the underlying truth of the Civil War is that if you take slavery off the table, the war doesn't happen. Southerners don't take up arms against the North over Internal Improvements or tariffs. They just don't.

The post war period is an interesting one. Caleb had a great post on this subject for Memorial Day. Americans of both sides jumped to overcome the rancor of the war--and in so doing so had to find a way to excuse the South. Instead of slavery, honor and chivalry triumphed. The post war period sees a rush of romantic literature that paints southern slaves as subservient and grateful. Southern gentlemen are honorable. Absent is the raping of slave women, or the killing of slave men, or the destruction of slave families. Or the basic enslaving of other human beings.

So, here is the post. Take it for what you will. One more link, and this one is not for those who take offense at the f-word.