“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Though it is often attributed to
him, there is no solid evidence Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels ever said the
quote above. Often called the “big lie,” the statement comes from Mein
Kampf¸ Hitler’s manifesto in which he applied it to Jewish behavior rather
than a tactic he advocated.[i]
Nevertheless, Joseph Goebbels and the Nazis used big lie propaganda to turn
European anti-Semitism into mass murder.[ii]
Once again, a “big lie” is being
used to distort and destroy. Crits[iii]
currently employ it to tell Americans their country is evil and deserves
cancellation. Nikole Hannah-Jones employed it when writing the “1619 Project”
which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of
slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the
United States’ national narrative.”[iv]
Other historians, some in our own movement, adopt this narrative too, as
indicated in the first sentence in an article published in the July 2020
newsletter of the Association of College Ministries. The author writes, “The
last few months have forced America to face the original sin of racism.
Both Hannah-Jones and article’s author believe the United States began in a
hotbed of racism. Such racism is systemic[v] and
can only be dealt with through substantial political and cultural changes. As one
writer put it, “We will not eliminate racism without major policy and
structural changes in the U.S.”
When I asked what policy and
structural changes were advocated, all I got back in return were efforts to
shame me and question my intelligence. Most Crits are honest in admitting the
only solution to systemic racism is the elimination of capitalism and Western
culture. Critical Theory, specifically Critical Race Theory, is an attack on
Western civilization, Christianity, and rational thought.
Let’s consider one aspect of the
“big lie,” that of America’s “original sin of racism.” Crits claim white
settlers established slavery as early as 1619 and continued it, with the full
complicity of the church.[vi] Several historical facts play in direct
opposition to this thesis.
First, slavery was not unique to
the Western Hemisphere. As sociologist Rodney Stark puts it, “Excesses of
political correctness have all but erased awareness that slavery was nearly
universal to all societies able to afford it, and that only in the West did
significant moral opposition ever arise and lead to abolition.”[vii]
Regardless of how far into the
past one goes, slavery existed among peoples, tribes, and civilizations. None
are exempt. It was once thought slavery was contingent on civilization, but it
was also prevalent among aboriginal societies as well. Even North American
Indian tribes practiced slavery, and, in some northwest Indian villages, slaves
comprised a third of the population. Slaves could be found in the ancient
civilizations of Persia, Greece, and Rome. Stark says that “all early
civilizations—including Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, China, and India—involved
extensive use of slave labor.”[viii]
Of greater emphasis is the fact African slavery predates colonial slavery.
History shows us slavery declined in the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe only
because of the rise of Christianity.
Through the centuries, history
reveals two types of slavery. There was consumption slavery, which
applied to house servants and slaves permitted to labor in a skill, occupation,
public official, or teachers. There was also industrial slavery, which
applied to slaves involved in field work, construction, or other manual labor.
Except for the description of Israelite slavery in Egypt, most biblical slavery
is of the consumption variety. It is a captured servant girl, for example, who
tells Naaman there is a prophet in Israel who can heal his leprosy. At this
juncture, it is helpful to realize human beings became slaves “by birth, by
capture, by being sold by parents or relatives, or by judicial proceeding.”[ix]
Second, the first slaves did not
enter America in 1619. The first slaves in colonial North America were white
indentured servants who came several years before the first blacks. Objections
arise immediately because indentured servitude is not considered slavery. But
let’s get real for a moment! In real terms, indentured servants sold their
labor for a set time. They sold themselves! An interesting study
by English scholars Don Jordan and Michael Walsh states indentured servants
“discovered that they were placed under the power of masters who had more or
less total control over their destiny.”[x]
Well, it is argued, indentured servitude was for a specified time, not a
lifetime. For all intents and purposes, the first indentured servants were
enslaved for a lifetime. Life expectancy in the New World was so short that
most indentured servants died before the end of their term. Furthermore, as
Jordan and Walsh state:
Slavery is not defined by time but by the
experience of the subject. To be the chattel of another, to be required by law
to give absolute obedience in everything and to be subject to whippings,
brandings and chaining for any show of defiance, to be these things, as were
many whites, was to be enslaved.[xi]
(Emphasis added)
None of this detracts from the enormity of the suffering of
later black slaves, but it was based on the white servitude preceding it.
Jordan and Walsh cite Lerone Bennett, an African American writer:
When someone removes the cataracts of
whiteness from our eyes, and when we look with unclouded vision on the bloody
shadow of the American past, we will recognize for the first time that the
Afro-American, who was so often second in freedom, was also second in
slavery.[xii]
The first black slaves arrived in
North America in 1626 when a Dutch ship brought a slave shipment to Manhattan
Island. Hannah-Jones and Gorman date the arrival of slaves at 1619.[xiii]
Why the discrepancy? If Crits insist on distinguishing indentured servitude
from slavery, the fact is when blacks arrived in Jamestown in 1619 they were
considered indentured servants and few outlived their term of indenture. By
1625 there were only 23 Africans in the colony.[xiv]
Should any white or black outlive their indenture, they were freed and eligible
to receive a “headright.”[xv] One of those who secured his freedom was
Anthony Johnson who was among those Africans arriving in 1619. His story
represents a paradox and a counter to the contemporary Crit 1619 narrative.
Anthony Johnson, as the African came to be
known, not only secured his freedom but also became a successful planter
himself and went on to buy servants of his own, white as well as black.
Thirty years after Johnson first touched American soil, he got into a dispute
with a servant, a fellow African who was demanding his freedom. Johnson
resolved it by persuading a court to enslave the man for life. This was
one of the first cases of lifetime slavery being imposed in North America—a
black man playing one of the villains imposed in the ghastly tragedy that was
beginning to unfold.[xvi]
The point is slavery is a horrible
evil. At the same time, only those determined to perpetuate the “big lie” insist
the origin of slavery in America was color specific and began in 1619. As
Lerone Bennett said, “Not only in Virginia but also in New England, the first
Blacks were integrated into a forced labor system that had little or nothing
to do with skin color.”[xvii]
It is no wonder numerous reputable historians raised questions about the
New York Times “1619 Project.”
There is a third factor entering
into the contention slavery was America’s original sin. It is well known
slavery always created moral problems. This fact is true in heathen cultures as
well as later Christian societies. When slavery reappeared after a Medieval
hiatus, the Catholic Church first raised issues regarding the treatment of
slaves and in some instances called for manumission and abolition. Catholic
popes approved the issuance of a variety of codes establishing treatment of
Native American slaves.
While slavery existed in most
North American colonies, slavery in the North mostly consisted of consumption slavery.
At one point, slaves could be found everywhere but Maine and Massachusetts.
Such slaves were generally treated well and became part of the family. Therefore,
slavery, as we usually consider it, was restricted to the South. Despite
counting slaves as “real estate” in the South, laws prohibited murder and slave
owners were obligated to feed, clothe, and provide medical care for slaves. In
some Southern cities, slaves could “hire themselves out (paying a fee to their
masters), and sometimes they pursued highly skilled trades.”[xviii]
Although Crits choose to denigrate
the “Declaration of Independence,” the document shows the attitudes of the
Founders. Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.” Jefferson, a Virginian, owned more than 600 slaves during his
adult life, but he consistently spoke out against the international slave trade
and outlawed it while he was president. Like many Americans, he favored gradual
manumission as opposed to immediate freedom. His initial draft of the
“Declaration of Independence” contained a clause denouncing King George III for
“forcing the slave trade onto the American colonies.”[xix]
Furthermore, he was a lifelong advocate of ending the Atlantic Slave Trade and
as president signed the 1807 law forbidding importation of African slaves.
None of this was unusual in early
United States history. The American white population, even in the South, saw
slavery as a “necessary evil.” Prior to the growth of King Cotton, indigo was a
cash crop grown mostly in South Carolina. Working with indigo was both labor
intensive and dangerous. Extracting the dye required splitting the indigo reed
and soaking it to release the dye. Ponds where indigo reeds soaked often became
stagnant and malarial. Growers preferred using Irish immigrants to work the
indigo to black slaves because the Irish were ignorant, deplorable, and a “dime
a dozen.” Once short-staple cotton became profitable due to the invention of
the Cotton Gin, blacks were increasingly utilized.
Despite all of this, pressure to
abolish slavery began as early as 1700. Samuel Sewell published The Selling
of Joseph, the first abolitionist tract written in America. Sewell was a
prominent Bostonian, a devout Puritan, a Harvard graduate, and successful
merchant. The abolition movement, however, began not in Boston, but years later
in Philadelphia. Stark writes:
John Woolman, a very pious young man whose
moral concerns about slavery surfaced when he was asked by his employer to draw
up a bill of sale for a female slave. He did so but experienced unrelieved
guilt as a result. Woolman’s concerns about slavery grew critical when, while
traveling through Virginia, he observed the misery of slaves. Upon his return,
he wrote his first tract against the “sin of slavery.” … He began by quoting Matt. 25:40: “For as
much as ye did it to the least of my brethren, ye did it unto me,” with the
direct implication that to enslave a “Negro” was to enslave Christ.[xx]
From that point on, the Quakers vigorously opposed slavery
and many other Christian leaders and groups became abolitionists. Northern
churches and ministers identified with the anti-slavery cause including Lyman
Beecher and Charles Grandison Finney.
In 1833 leading abolitionists
formed the American Anti-Slavery Society led by passionate William Lloyd
Garrison, editor of The Liberator. By 1838 more than 1,000 chapters of
the American Anti-Slavery Society were holding forth for immediate
emancipation—abolition. The church fought for abolition. Stark writes:
“Moreover, as abolition sentiments spread, it was primarily the churches (often
local congregations), not secular clubs and organizations, that issued formal
statements on behalf of ending slavery.”[xxi]
Outspoken abolitionism Northern
churches caused division in congregations and denominations. During this period
Baptists split into northern and southern denominations as did the
Presbyterians and Methodists. Despite all this resistance to slavery, how could
the church be complicit? Jemar Tisby sums up his claim for the church’s
complicity for slavery when he writes:
The failure of many Christians in the South
and across the nation to decisively oppose the racism in their
families, communities, and even in their own churches provided fertile soil for
the seeds of hatred to grow. The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is
itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression.
History and Scripture teaches us that there
can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without
confession. And there can be no repentance without truth.[xxii]
(Emphasis added)
There is so much wrong in Tisby’s
statement, I do not have time to deal with all of it. Suffice it to say, I have
already supplied evidence that the church “across the nation” was not complicit
in continuing the “peculiar institution.” When Tisby speaks of racism, he is
not utilizing the traditional definition of racism. Rather, he is speaking and
writing in Marxist language which assumes a majority population oppresses one
that is a minority. Further, Ephesians 2 and Colossians 3 says nothing about
the necessity of repentance and confession prior to the reconciliation of Jew
and Gentile. Once individuals are brought to Christ, they enter a relationship
in which there is unity. Christ does the work, Jew and Gentile, bond and free,
male and female, and, dare I say, white, black, red, and yellow are all made
one. It remains for Christ’s disciples to love God with all their heart, soul,
and mind; their neighbor as themselves, and each other with a sacrificial love.
Like most Crits, Tisby and others
are so focused on groups they do not see that God’s focus is on
individuals. What is happening in contemporary culture is that those caught up
in Critical Race Theory and all its components are blinded by their emphasis on
the philosophies of men. They are unable to see that the “misconceptions perpetrated
by historians whose failure to see things as they were lay mainly in their
antagonism toward religion in general.”[xxiii]
Such misconceptions stem from two
sources: (1) A desire to reject religion in general and Christianity in
particular. The CRT attacks, supposedly on issues of racism, are really attacks
on Western culture arising from postmodern ideology and is essentially an
effort to undermine and destroy the influence of Scripture and the church. (2)
Marxist ideology, which is a heretical form of Christianity. Marxists envision
a culture driven by unselfishness. Sadly,
only two means exist for accomplishing this: voluntary denial of self-interest
or force. Only biblical Christianity leads to the former.
[i] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
[iii] The
term “crit” is a term applied to advocates of Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Therefore, I use it here and in subsequent articles dealing with CRT subjects.
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project
[v]
“Systemic” is defined as (1) of or relating to a system, especially when
affecting the entirety of a thing; (2) relating to or nothing a policy,
practice, or set of beliefs that has been established as normative or customary
through a political, social, or economic system. It is this second definition that
applies to accusations of “systemic racism.”
[vi] See
Jemar Tisby’s book Color of Compromise for a defense of the so-called
truth about the American church’s complicity in racism. The greatest problem
with Tisby’s book is his painting with a broad brush of the entire American
church prior to and after the Civil War. He is guilty of stereotyping all
Christians because they did not meet the Crits requirement of immediate and
bold action against racism and slavery. He is guilty of imposing on the past
conscious beliefs of the present.
[vii]
Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2003), p. 291. Stark rejects any contention by historical revisionists
to deny the church’s role in abolition.
[viii] Stark,
p. 296.
[ix] Stark.,
p. 292.
[x] Don
Jordan and Michael Walsh, White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s
White Slaves in America (New York: New York University Press, 2007), p. 15.
[xi] Jordan
and Walsh.
[xii] Jordan
and Walsh., p. 14 citing Lerone Bennett Jr., Before the Mayflower: A History
of the Negro in America 1619-1964. Available as an eBook from Amazon for
$1.99.
[xiii]
Stark, p. 318.
[xiv]
Jordan and Walsh, p. 87.
[xv] The
English Virginia Company awarded 50 acres to free men in the colony: a
headright. It proved advantageous to bring indentured servants to Jamestown because
those who did so received 50 acres for every immigrant. If I understand this
correctly, it was doubly advantageous because when the servant died the land
reverted to the individual who brought in the servant.
[xvi]
Jordan and Walsh, p. 169.
[xvii]
Jordan and Walsh, 170.
[xviii]
Stark, 322.
[xix] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery
[xx]
Stark, p 340.
[xxi]
Stark, p. 343.
[xxii]
Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019),
Kindle.
[xxiii]
Stark, p. 347.
