Reading Time: 4 minutes What kind of white man puts his life on the line to fight slavery? James McBride’s irreverent portrait of James Brown offers an answer.
slavery
Posted inEthics and Morality
The United States has an atonement problem
Reading Time: 6 minutes Throughout our history, but particularly since 2016, when Donald Trump first rode down that ill-fated escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential candidacy, it has grown ever clearer that Americans have a serious problem with atonement. We tend to run hellbent away from public accountability. It’s not just Trump, who is still trying mightily […]
Posted inPolitics
Campaign ad targets Darren Bailey’s insane fundamentalist Christian beliefs
Reading Time: 4 minutes In a remarkable new ad from Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, the incumbent Democrat goes after his challenger, Republican Darren Bailey, for running a fundamentalist Christian school that lies to kids using textbooks from Bob Jones University Press. It’s been a rare treat this election cycle to watch Democrats condemn Republicans for being too extreme […]
Posted inReligion
Christians lie to cover up God’s support for slavery
Reading Time: 4 minutes What’s the key issue about the slavery in the Bible? Is it that there are different kinds of slavery, indentured servitude and chattel slavery, or is it that God supported both?
Posted inReligion
Why authoritarian Christians desperately need literalism
Reading Time: 10 minutes The very worst sorts of Christian leaders and groups desperately need their followers to buy into biblical literalism, which is quite possibly the most childish and poorly-informed hermeneutic possible.
Posted inReligion
The origins of circumcision: Was it a mark of slavery?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Nothing says religious belief better than disfiguring your own genitalia. Or better still, someone else’s. But, seriously, why? From a philosophical point of view, and considering OmniGod (all-powerful, -knowing, and-loving) who designed and created everything, the procedure of circumcision, the removal of the foreskin from the penis, is bizarre. Why would God, who designed human […]
Posted inReligion
Excusing the inexcusable
Reading Time: 11 minutes Some moral questions are difficult. Some are shrouded in uncertainty. Some come into focus only with the passage of time. There are some on which reasonable people can disagree. Then there is slavery. Sadly, the horror of slavery still exists in 2022, both in practice and in its legacy. There are still thought to be […]
Posted inCulture
Biblical slavery: turn that frown upside down!
Reading Time: 4 minutes We’ll conclude our analysis of a Christian defense of God’s barbaric Old Testament rules regulating slavery. Though it’s hard to imagine, it’s time to consider the good side of slavery.
Posted inCulture
Biblical slavery: what does God really want?
Reading Time: 4 minutes We’ll continue our analysis of a Christian defense of God’s barbaric Old Testament rules regulating slavery. What does God really think? And how much leeway must you give a society that has immoral laws?
Posted inReligion
Biblical slavery: does regulation mean approval?
Reading Time: 4 minutes God regulates slavery instead of banning it, so he must approve—or does he? Perhaps Jesus can rescue God’s good name by reinterpreting the Old Testament.