As America Struggles With Race Relations and it's Unflattering Past...

Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Well, there ya have it. According to ex Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee we do not need a discussion about race and healing the scars that human bondage and racism created in this nation; a nation founded on the principle that all men possessed the unalienable right(s) of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Rights which presumably flowed from their creator, God.

Let us take a look for a moment at exactly where the southern Christians stood on human bondage {slavery].

Why Christians Should Support Slavery
Key reasons advanced by southern church leaders

Many southern Christians felt that slavery, in one Baptist minister’s words, “stands as an institution of God.” Here’s why.

Biblical Reasons

• Abraham, the “father of faith,” and all the patriarchs held slaves without God’s disapproval (Gen. 21:9–10).

• Canaan, Ham’s son, was made a slave to his brothers (Gen. 9:24–27).

• The Ten Commandments mention slavery twice, showing God’s implicit acceptance of it (Ex. 20:10, 17).

• Slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world, and yet Jesus never spoke against it.

• The apostle Paul specifically commanded slaves to obey their masters (Eph. 6:5–8).

• Paul returned a runaway slave, Philemon, to his master (Philem. 12).

Charitable and Evangelistic Reasons

• Slavery removes people from a culture that “worshipped the devil, practiced witchcraft, and sorcery” and other evils.

• Slavery brings heathens to a Christian land where they can hear the gospel. Christian masters provide religious instruction for their slaves.

• Under slavery, people are treated with kindness, as many northern visitors can attest.

• It is in slaveholders’ own interest to treat their slaves well.

• Slaves are treated more benevolently than are workers in oppressive northern factories.

Social Reasons

• Just as women are called to play a subordinate role (Eph. 5:22; 1 Tim. 2:11–15), so slaves are stationed by God in their place.

• Slavery is God’s means of protecting and providing for an inferior race (suffering the “curse of Ham” in Gen. 9:25 or even the punishment of Cain in Gen. 4:12).

• Abolition would lead to slave uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. Consider the mob’s “rule of terror” during the French Revolution.

Political Reasons

• Christians are to obey civil authorities, and those authorities permit and protect slavery.

• The church should concentrate on spiritual matters, not political ones.

• Those who support abolition are, in James H. Thornwell’s words, “atheists, socialists, communists [and] red republicans.”

Well Governor Mike, given the sordidly racist history of the Christian Religion here in the good old USA I think perhaps that there national discussion just might be more in order than talking about conversions to the very religious ideology that supported human bondage and racism. Maybe it's jut me?

Read the text that accompanies the video BELOW THE FOLD.

Via: Memeorandum