Thoughts of Another Traveler…

So, this morning I was scrolling through Twitter and saw and interesting tweet.  The context stemmed from a Reddit discussion where a religious leader had recently posted a general defense of slavery as it relates to the Bible.  Particularly a defense of Jonathan Edwards as an American Slave owner during the time of legal slavery in America.  Here is the question posed by the tweet.  “I’m wondering how a Christian can not know that American Slavery was moral evil in 2021?  How is that even possible?”  As I read this, I had some interesting thoughts this morning, so I thought I would write them down.

First, my thoughts have nothing to do with the opinion or Theology of the poster in the Reddit discussion.  That is a topic of so much heated debate and misunderstanding that even discussing it is akin to “throwing your pearls to the swine.”  Second, I am not going to disagree with the tweet author at all.  Regardless of your Biblical understanding of history, culture, and societal norms in a given era—trying to formulate an argument that doesn’t identify Slavery as a true “Moral Evil” is quite ignorant and does show that we still have work to do to bring ourselves out of the shadows of the justification of slavery in the past (whether that be in America, or any other civilization—past or present). 

No, my answer to the author of the tweet would simply be this (re-read the original question now).  “The same way that we have a modern culture that cannot identify a multitude of easily identifiable ‘moral evils’ that are becoming accepted and justified across society in 2021!”  I often wonder if 100 years from now (if we make it that long) if there will be a generation of theologians, educators, pastors, and activists who will be saying, “I wonder how in the world a Christian could not have known that _____________ was a moral evil in 2121?  How is that even possible?”  Here is my real answer.  A proven fact of every civilization and era of history, human beings (even Christians) are prone to a justification cycle that desensitizes sin and moral evil.  It is the enemy of our soul’s greatest weapon against us.  “Come on man, God did not really mean it when He said that you should not ____________ or that ____________ was sin.  That is just God trying to hold you back and keep you from becoming enlightened!”  (My edited summary of the slow fade justification speech that Satan made to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3) 

I always use this analogy, and it is amazing how many people have never heard it.  It is just like “Boiling a Frog.”  I know is sounds gross and childish, but the lesson is piercing.  If you place a Frog in a boiling pot of water, that frog will immediately leap out of the boiling water because it senses danger and death.  But if you put a Frog in a nice, cool pot of water he will just swim around joyfully.  All you must do then is just slowly increase the heat over time.  Get the frog use to the heat increase, make him comfortable.  Allow the Frog to reason and justify why he might like the warmer water.  Over time the water comes to a boil, but the Frog now has no adverse reaction or fear.  The frog has no “fight or flight” reaction.  The Frog loses the will and strength to get out of the pot—and boils to death.  And poof!  The Frog justified and made comfortable something evil and harmful right up to his very demise.

Silly?  Maybe so.  But history shows that the great “moral evil” of slavery was somehow justified and accepted across multiple civilizations and cultures in much the same way.  And despite knowing history and understanding the evil implications of slavery the cycle somehow continued with new civilizations and new generation of people.  (It is still an existing ‘moral evil’ around the world today in case you didn’t know).  It is much easier for our society today to ‘Monday morning Quarterback’ and declare universally (or at least anyone who has a dime of common sense) that Slavery was and is an absolute ‘moral evil’.  However, across every civilization and era of history where slavery was prevalent, we find that taking that stand might not have been most popular, educated, or even culturally accepted stance at the time.  And if you are not up to speed on history (especially church history), it is a fact that this acceptance crossed belief systems, religion, education, race, and ethnicity.  In other words, (Unless you were actually a slave in a given historical context) you might want to pretend to do a time travel and put yourself in that point in history.  I would surmise that had social media existed during many of these eras, tweeting out that slavery was a ‘moral evil’ might have had you labeled in the ranks of the non-woke, uneducated, extremist crowd.  Would you have been one that fell to the culturally accepted norm and believed the promoted points of justification that existed at that time?  Or would you have been the rogue agent boldly taking a stand and fighting on the side of the minority?  Against governments?  Against philosophers and educators of the time?  Against apostacy in the church? 

Well, if you answered yes to that, then I applaud you.  I truly hope I could answer yes because I absolutely despise and hate true racism and slavery.  Yet I must continually remind myself of one reality.  This concept is absolutely no different than the slow boil of acceptance America and American Christians have placed on so many ‘moral evils’ in this generation.  If you can’t see today that our culture is in a slow boil of accepting many ‘moral evils’ then you are truly blind.  And you might just be one of the majorities of history (through evil misdirection and lies formulated from the same spiritual enemy in Genesis chapter 3) who found a way to justify slavery. 

We have become numb.  The Church is becoming irrelevant.  And in this age of ‘Moral Relativism’ justifying the acceptance of just about anything is not only a possibility, but a reality.   Thankful to God that today, the majority has decided that slavery is and was an actual ‘moral evil’.  At least in America.  However, it might just be time to put that war behind us.  Maybe we need some courageous folks who are more than just ‘Monday Morning Quarterbacks’ on the topic of slavery.  I mean really, isn’t that a much easier stand to take today now that it is actually illegal in this country?  Do we really need to continue this fight with some small minority of idiots who have pea sized brains? 

I ask this question of all men and women of every race, creed, and ethnicity.  “What slow boil of acceptance of ‘moral evil’ are we justifying today?”  And how can we find universal ground to fight together to prevent the downfall and destruction of the generation or society in front of us.  I mean really, look around people.  We are living in a world where a great percentage of people are actually fighting to normalize and unhinge a multitude of ‘moral evils’ that have been accepted and identified as such since the beginning of time.  Many of which have proven historically to be the downfall of societies and civilizations.  Even more frightening, we live in a world where an even greater percentage are too scared or comfortable to be a rogue agent and stand against it—even knowing deep inside that the label of ‘moral evil’ should be stamped. 

Easier to justify it in some way I suppose.   Easier to wait for another generation to finally look back and stamp it the way it always should have been. Easier in the future to ask the question, ““I wonder how in the world a Christian could not have known that _____________ was a moral evil in 2121?”