Timothy Paul Jones, in his blog post “Culture, Scripture, and the Long Suffering of American Slavery,” paint’s a callus one sided picture of slavery in America, that he terms “America’s national birth defect.” This article doesn’t go into any real story about American slavery as much as it demonizes Angelo Americans or “white privilege,” in America today. This article was also published by permission on the ERLC’s website, in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention & the MLK50 Convention.
Jones’s, article states that “slavery” happen in more recent times than we think and to prove his point he cites a Huffington post article from September 24th, 2016. From the HP article we see a 99 year old woman Ruth Bonner, whose father was born a slave, ring the bell announcing the opening of the first black history museum along with President Obama and his wife the First lady, Michael.
I have no problem with this portion of his article. As a matter of fact, I wish the HP article was longer and gave more detail about her dad and his struggles. The facts about this, is Bonner was 99 years old. Her dad may have been born a slave, but at the latest he would have had to be born somewhere between 1855 to 1865, just before slavery was ratified. He could have been older but he was at least 50 years old when his daughter Ruth was born. Anyway, her dad didn’t live under the harsh conditions that his father and grandfather had to endure. The HP article goes on to say the her dad went on to be educated and was a medical doctor.
The above portion was written in 2017 after I had read Jones’ article. I put it away for some unknown reason at the time. Now I have found this on my cloud drive a few years later, I will add not only more light to this post.
Dirty Deeds Of The SBC
The Southern Baptist Convention, and the ERLC, which is an acronym for Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is the smallest entity arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The ERLC mission is to assist churches to help them understand Christian principles, moral, and social demands of the Gospel. They are also to promote religious liberty in cooperation with churches within the Convention.
https://capstonereport.com/2020/11/12/documents-link-democrat-billionaires-to-southern-baptist-erlc-russell-moore/35181/
What’s wrong with History as told by Jone’s?
Jones’ is reciting an exaggerated history, as most Social Justice Warriors would and do. The deception lay’s in the context.
The Slavery Issue
In the times of the Apostles (NT,) the people were under Roman rule. Under this leadership a roman citizen the father could sell their own children into slavery. Many slaves, according to the link above were skilled workers such as accountants and medical doctors. The unlearned would work farms and mines. Many slaves were raised up for military service. Slaves were also prostituted out by their owners. Slavery has been a common practice for thousands of years. Many conquered nations became slaves to the conqueror.
Look at Israel under four hundred years of slavery through Egyptian rule before the Exodus (Genesis 15: 13-14.) Is where God told Abraham what would happen.When the Pilgrims first landed at Cape Cod Virginia in 1619. This was eight years after the Authorized version also known as the King James Version was first printed. America, was under the kingship of King James the first.
Notice from this document the Mayflower Compact of 1620, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. These pilgrims also known as saints, wanted religious freedom from a state church. They wanted to worship God of the bible. They did not come to America, to raise a slave nation. It was the King of England that brought slavery to America.
Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 10:7, is preaching about about how many people during the Exodus, were idolaters and how over 23,000 of them died in one day by snake bites. Here Paul is using Jewish history in order to teach the people mistakes of the past. He wasn’t shaming them because they were Jews and not gentiles as social justice demands.
When we look into history, no matter how dark that history maybe, We need to remember one thing…
History is our guide for our present and our future.
By looking into history, we can see the mistakes and past sins that were committed and learn from our ancestors not to repeat them. When you destroy or even slightly pervert history, we are bound to repeat or even exceed past sins against humanity.
The great thing about studying history, we can also improve our lives by repeating the good things from our past.
