Recently, I have been involved in working on some of my family’s genealogy.  As I have done this research, I am amazed at how people in the South were involved in the terrible institution of slavery.  If your family is from the South and you go back far enough you will find that some of them may have been slave-owners.  Today, most of us, both whites and even blacks, have no comprehension of the evils of slavery.  In my study, I have read many wills and slaves are passed by will just as a horse, a cow or a saddle.  This treatment of people is chilling.

One of the questions which I asked myself is whether you could be a slave-owner and still be a Christian.  Apparently, the answer is yes.  However, I think it must be difficult to die and stand before God at the judgment and justify yourself before God and 25 of your slaves on how you treated them.

The Jews knew what it was like to be in slavery and served Pharaoh as slaves until God brought them out into freedom under the hand of Moses.  Also at various times, Jews were sold as slaves and many were redeemed by other Jews.  So the Jews knew about slavery.  Nonetheless, they still practiced slavery.

In the New Testament, Paul instructed slaves to serve their masters as unto the Lord.  He also reminded slave-owners that they should treat their slaves fairly and that the slave-owner had a master in heaven.  There is even one book of the Bible written by Paul to a slave-owner, which is the book of Philemon.  In the church, there were both slaves and slave-owners.  All were expected to remember that there was no difference to God as to whether you were a slave or a slave-owner.  Amazingly, Christianity was a big enough tent that both slaves and slave-owners were both welcomed under the tent. 

To me, it is amazing that we as individuals have the ability to justify whatever we want to and then use Scripture to buttress our prejudices.   My studies show that the issue of slavery split many denominations.  Many Christians in the early years of our country became abolitionists and felt that slavery should be eradicated.  Unfortunately there were also many evangelicals who felt that the Bible not only permitted slavery but that it encouraged it.  Some Southern pastors taught that Blacks either had the Mark of Cain or the Curse of Ham (the son of Noah who looked on his father’s nakedness) and therefore they deserved to be enslaved.  Their theology supported the social norms and even encouraged the growth of slavery. 

I have recently been reading a couple of books showing how Southern Baptists have been captured by Southern social attitudes.  Both books are pretty good.  One is Churches in Cultural Captivity-A History of the Social Attitudes of Southern Baptist by John Lee Eighmy.  The other is At Ease in Zion-A Social History of Southern Baptist, 1865-1900 by Rufus B. Spain.  I was particularly interested in Spain’s book because I had taken a course by him on Religion in America back in the 60’s (the Dark Ages) when I was at Baylor.  Both make a good historical case about how evangelicals (especially the Baptists) had reflected the cultural norms of the time rather than adhering to Biblical mandates.

Although I certainly was not an activist, my understanding of the Bible was clear that God was racially blind so to speak.  To me I believed that Jesus actually loved all the children of the world regardless of color.  As I worked with kids in mission programs I worked in New Orleans with kids of all races.  In the course of doing this I ended up taking kids of all races into City Park in New Orleans and ended up with New Orleans police protecting us so to speak because I had evidently taken black kids to an area where they were not supposed to go.  Back in those days long ago, blacks generally sat in the back of buses and schools in New Orleans had not yet been integrated.  I know it is hard to believe.

As a ministerial student at Baylor I would sometimes preach at churches and openly support integration.  On occasion, this might offend some of the congregations.  Also I worked at Friday Night Missions with many of my friends,  including Janene, we dealt with people, especially children, of all races.  Later, Janene and I totally by accident ended up helping to integrate a large Baptist Church in Dallas.  It all happened again by accident.  As we were leaving church from the early service, a Black couple asked if they could attend this large church.  The church was all white.  Janene and I said “Why, not?”  So we turned around and took them into church and sat with them.  We later became friends with this couple.  The church later integrated.  Later for a long season, I left the Baptist church because of the attitudes (at least in Dallas (which admittedly was very conservative at the time) due to their intolerance of other races.

Pardon me for rambling, but frankly due to my age, as an elderly white male, I am presumed by a younger generation to be a bigot.  Honestly, I find this treatment to be offensive.  It is difficult for young people to understand what it is like to live in a completely different society and a different time.

God is no respecter of persons.  God looks on the heart.  People don’t have good hearts because they are white and bad hearts because they are of any other race.  The opposite is also true.  God looks on the heart. You are not somehow good because you are white or because you are black.   I suspect God is more sympathetic to those who are poor in this life and rich spiritually. 

The fact of the matter is that our calling is to become “slaves of God.”  Jesus Christ is our master.  I suspect that there is no absolute freedom.  If we choose not to be a slave to God, then we will be a slave to something else.  It may be to Satan, alcohol, drugs or sex.  The issue is whether you want to be a slave to someone who knows you, loves you and gave himself to you or do you want to be a slave to someone who doesn’t love you and wants to have power over you.  The other issue is whether you choose to be a slave (we are Christians freely choose to serve Christ) or alternatively is slavery imposed upon us.  Those of us who have friends or children enslaved by drugs know that this slavery is often imposed and those who are enslaved had no early idea that they were giving up everything to become a slave.  Satan likes to impose slavery upon his victims.

As you look at your life, ask what you have been a slave to.  Has it been to your family, to work, to success, to the approval of others or to something other than Jesus Christ.  Part of coming to Christ is to lay down your will.  That is what a slave does.  Only by becoming a slave to Christ can we become truly free.

In our next edition of Locusts and Honey we will discuss more about freedom and how we can become free in our lives and transition from living lives which are unproductive to lives which are productive and full of fruit.