|
Feedback archive → Feedback 2001,
2009
The Bible vs slavery and apartheid
6 March 2001; Reposted 11 April 2009
From Mr Robert Howard of New Zealand, who gave permission for his full name to be
used. By his own admission in other correspondence, he is an atheist lacking any
scientific qualifications (and seems quite proud of this), in common with many vocal
skeptics in Australia. This letter continues his practice of criticising CMI without
first bothering to find out what we actually say, because many of his objections,
including in this letter, have long ago been answered. His letter is printed first
in its entirety. A response by
Dr Jonathan Sarfati, also (formerly) of New Zealand but now of Creation Ministries
International, Australia, immediately follows his letter with point-by-point
responses interspersed as per normal email fashion. Ellipses (…) at the end
of one of Bob Howard’s paragraphs signal that a mid-sentence comment follows,
not an omission.
‘Most of what you write I treat with amusement but your article suggesting
evolution led to racism is outrageous. Did you know the Dutch Reformed Church, one
of your Christian churches in South Africa upheld apartheid?
‘In spite of all the Christian churches in the American South I don’t
recall reading of any outcry against slavery before the civil war. Where were the
Churches and God fearing Christians during segregation in the South in the earlier
part of the last century.
‘The truth is your Christian churches upheld a lot of racism.
‘In the 19th century it was thought evolution meant humans ranged
from the Englishman at the top of the tree to the black African at the bottom but
that was at a time of still a lot of scientific ignorance. During the last century
scientific testing of people showed there was no difference between any humans mentally
and only minor physical differences.
‘You might have read in the last few days that studies of DNA have shown even
less difference. There might be more difference between two people of the same race
than between two people of different races.
‘Science has done more to kill racism than anything.
‘Plimer was right when he said you were prepared to lie to uphold your philosophy.
‘Bob Howard’
Most of what you write I treat with amusement …
It’s doubtful that Mr Howard is in a position to know, because it’s
obvious from this and other correspondence that he has’t read most of what
we write.
… but your article suggesting evolution led to racism is outrageous.
It’s a historical fact, as we have amply shown in Q&A:
Racism. The leading evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould
(an atheist and Marxist as well as an anti-racist),
wrote (Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Belknap–Harvard Press, Cambridge,
MA, USA, pp. 127–128, 1977):
‘Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they
increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.’
Did you know the Dutch Reformed Church, one of your Christian churches in South
Africa upheld apartheid?
Yes we know that (and we also know that the South African Anglican Church always
denounced apartheid as a heresy). However, the DRC's seminaries had accepted
theistic evolution, effectively denying the authority of Scripture. Also, they developed
a theology of separate development of different ‘races’ by misapplying
Scriptural passages about the separation of the Israelite theocracy from the surrounding
pagan nations. Of course, this was based on religion rather than ‘race’,
and as shown in One
Blood—the Biblical answer to racism, individuals from different
‘races’ (or preferably, people groups) could marry Israelites if they
converted to faith in the true God of Israel. The Biblical rules of separation applied
only to the coming of Israel’s Messiah through whom all nations would be blessed
(Genesis
12:3). Since His death and Resurrection, the wall of separation between
Jew and Gentile has been broken down (Ephesians
2:14). Now both Jews and Gentiles can become one in Christ Jesus (Galatians
3:28,
Col. 3:11). See the discussion in Separation
from the nations and Breaking down barriers.
But based on their faulty theology, which was not helped by the evolutionism at
the top, and ignoring the above Biblical teachings, the DRC created a separate church
for black believers. Persons of colour were not allowed to attend any services of
the white church. The DRC never officially supported white supremacy, although this
was the effect in practice of their faulty theology, with its corollaries of white-only
beaches, amenities, etc.
The DRC did however lead the way out of apartheid in the early 80s when
a committee paper, Kerk en Samelewing (Church and Society) was accepted
by the annual general convention of the DRC (Algemene Sinode). This paper rejected
the former position and effectively destroyed the theological foundation of apartheid—at
a time when it was still firmly entrenched politically speaking. This paper in theory
allowed persons of colour back into the DRC, and eventually led to a countrywide
church split when the nationalist Afrikaanse Protestante Kerk (Afrikaans Protestant
Church) was founded in protest. This paper undoubtedly had a great influence in
dismantling apartheid, since >70% of white South Africans voted ‘yes’
in a series of referendums that led to the Nationalist government’s demolition
of the apartheid system, which culminated in the first all-race elections in 1994.
Therefore it was the Bible that corrected the previous errors, and as will
be shown, this was true of slavery too.
The Bible speaks against racism regardless of any way in which people have misused
it … Any good philosophy can be (and is) misused to support evil, but sound
exegetical principles make it clear that it is indeed misuse. Conversely,
racism is consistent with evolutionary theory.
One chapter of
One Blood is devoted to refuting the nonsense that black people
are the result of a curse on Ham, which is non-existent in the Bible. Another is
devoted to refuting other pseudo-biblical arguments adduced by white supremacists
to support their cause. The main point is that the Bible speaks against racism regardless
of any way in which people have misused it, and CMI has consistently opposed
racism for this reason, as a cursory glance at our website would show (see
Q&A: Racism). Any good philosophy can be (and is) misused to support
evil, but sound exegetical principles make it clear that it is indeed misuse.
Conversely, racism is consistent with evolutionary theory. For example,
the atheistic evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith, wrote (Evolution and Ethics,
Putnam, NY, USA, p. 230, 1947.):
‘The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist;
he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory
of evolution.’
In spite of all the Christian churches in the American South I don’t recall
reading of any outcry against slavery before the civil war.
This merely shows that Mr Howard’s recall is faulty, as will be shown.
Where were the Churches and God fearing Christians during segregation in the South
in the earlier part of the last century.
The novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896), Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(1852), written from an overtly Christian perspective, is widely recognized as a
major cause of people in the North turning so strongly against slavery. Abraham
Lincoln called her: ‘the little woman who wrote the book that made this great
war.’ She came from a prominent family of theologians and married a theologian,
and also wrote religious poems and Woman in Sacred History (1873), an exquisitely
illustrated book, which stated in the Introduction (p. 11):
The object of the following pages will be to show, in a series of biographical sketches,
a history of WOMANHOOD UNDER DIVINE CULTURE, tending toward the development of that
high ideal of woman which we find in modern Christian countries.
She also pointed out (p. 63):
It has well been said that nations struggling for liberty against powerful oppressors
flee as instinctively to the Old Testament as they do to mountain ranges. The American
slave universally called his bondage Egypt, and read the history of the ten plagues
and the crossing of the Red Sea as parts of his own experience. In the dark days
of slavery, the history of Moses was sung at night, and by stealth, on plantations,
with solemn rhythmic movements, reminding one of Egyptian times.
Image University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin
William Wilberforce
The anti-slavery forces in the USA were influenced by William Wilberforce (1759–1833),
who tirelessly fought for 50 years against slavery in Britain, basing his opposition
on Biblical morality. Wilberforce realized that the Dominion Mandate of Genesis
1:28 did NOT extend to fellow humans. He also understood that
1 Tim. 1:10 lists ‘slave traders’ (ανδραποδιστής
andrapodistēs) with murderers, adulterers, perverts, liars and other
evil people. Paul also encouraged Philemon to free his escaped slave Onesimus (Philemon
16), and ordered masters to treat their slaves in the ‘same way’
as they were treated, and not to threaten them (Eph.
6:9). Such practice would see the end of slavery.
Wilberforce in turn had been influenced by the preaching of John Newton (1725–1807),
who wrote the famous hymn Amazing Grace. Newton in his earlier days had
been a slave trader himself before his conversion to Christ. After conversion he
first insisted that slaves were treated humanely, then came to see that since the
slaves were also created in the image of God, the slave trade was wrong regardless.
He left the trade, became friends with the great evangelists George Whitfield and
the Wesleys, became a minister, and testified to King George III about the atrocities
of the slave trade.
Another prominent anti-slavery activist in Britain was Granville Sharp (1735–1813),
who was most responsible for a law that a slave became free from the moment he set
foot on English territory, and founded a society for the abolition of slavery. He
was also a joint founder of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Society
for the Conversion of the Jews. A noted Greek scholar, he published a detailed and
accurate study, discovering a rule of grammar that’s accepted by the majority
of Bible translators today and now bears his name. But the existing English translations
had overlooked this rule, thus, as he pointed out, they obscured the deity of Christ
in places like
Titus 2:13 and
2 Peter 1:1, which should say ‘our (great) God and
Savior Jesus Christ’. (See also
this collection of Christian anti-slavery articles from history.)
Liberals should not be so quick to point to the Judeo-Christian west for once having
slaves … All parts of the world practised slavery. … Rather,
we should remember that of all the cultures that practised slavery, the Judeo-Christian
west was the only one to abolish it.
Because of their tireless efforts, Britain not only abolished slavery, but used
her gunboats to enforce the ban—i.e. she imposed her morality on others!
In America, there were also powerful Christian voices against slavery — see
the many articles in
this archive (off site).
Closer to our time, the news has reminded us of one of the atrocities during the
civil rights struggles in the USA in the 1960s. That is, the indictment of former
Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry for murder, for his alleged part in the KKK
bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama,
15 September 1963, which killed four black girls. This shows once more the virulently
anti-Christian attitudes held by fanatical racists. (Update 17 July 2001: Cherry
was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial, but two other ex-klansmen had previously
been convicted of murder for this bombing).
Conversely, it was futile to rely on other means to achieve abolition. For example:
Politics: The USA had been prepared to give states the option of
choosing to be ‘slave’ or ‘free’. By 1820, there were only
22 states, 11 of each. After that, in admitting new states, Congress was very keen
to make sure that this ‘balance’ was maintained. So the ‘Missouri
Compromise’ was reached when Maine entered the Union as a free state and Missouri
as a slave state, and any new states to the south would be slave and northern ones
were to be free. Thus Arkansas entered as a slave state in 1836 and Michigan as
a free state six months later. Then there was the ‘Compromise of 1850’
where California was admitted as a free state while allowing for the possibility
of admitting more slave states to balance the numbers.
England’s politicians were no better—Wilberforce, Sharp and their allies
had to battle prevailing attitudes like, ‘Humanity is a private feeling, not
a public principle to act upon’ (Earl of Abingdon) and ‘Things have
come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life’ (Lord
Melbourne). It is also notable that pagan philosophers such as Aristotle regarded
some people as ‘natural slaves’, and ‘Enlightenment‘ philosophers
hostile to Christianity such as Hume and Voltaire believed in inferiority of dark-skinned
people.
But society hasn’t learnt from this folly—when pro-lifers speak out
for the millions of unborn babies butchered in their mothers’ wombs every
year, much the same fallacious arguments are raised about ‘religion invading
public life’ (never mind the humanist religion
that has already invaded it!). Instead, abortion, like owning a slave, is portrayed
as a ‘choice’ that must be protected, and the fact that another human
being is involved is conveniently ignored. For more information, see
Q&A: Human Life: Abortion and Euthanasia.
The legal system: In 1857, the US Supreme Court, under Roger Brooke
Taney (1777–1864) ruled in the ‘Dred Scott decision’ that Congress
could not outlaw slavery in any territory—this was to be the territory’s
‘right’ after it had become a state. Also, slaves were defined
as non-persons, and their descendants could not become citizens.
Later, this was rescinded, but it severely dented the moral authority of the Supreme
court. And they haven’t learned either. In 1973, in Roe v. Wade,
liberal justices led by Harry Blackmun invented a ‘right to privacy’
supposedly found in the US Constitution, applied this to a woman’s womb, and
decided that she has a right to abort her baby for any reason. In the process, the
Court explicitly declared the unborn baby a non-citizen. One day, posterity will
look upon Roe v. Wade with as much revulsion as the Dred Scott decision.
Finally, liberals should not be so quick to point to the Judeo-Christian west for
once having slaves, or considering it exclusively a matter of white-on-black racism.
All parts of the world practised slavery. In fact the word ‘slave’
comes from a white race, the Slavs, who were often enslaved. Frequently
black slaves were captured by other Africans and sold to the Europeans. Rather,
we should remember that of all the cultures that practised slavery, the Judeo-Christian
west was the only one to abolish it.
In the 19th century it was thought evolution meant humans ranged from
the Englishman at the top of the tree to the black African at the bottom but that
was at a time of still a lot of scientific ignorance. During the last century scientific
testing of people showed there was no difference between any humans mentally and
only minor physical differences.
CMI has always pointed out that the concept of human ‘races’ should
be abandoned.
You might have read in the last few days that studies of DNA have shown even less
difference. There might be more difference between two people of the same race than
between two people of different races.
Clearly, Mr Howard has not paid us the common courtesy of reading what we say before
criticising us. We have often pointed out this fact. For instance, the article
Interracial marriage—is it Biblical? points out:
The truth though is that these so-called ‘racial characteristics’ are
only minor variations among people groups. If one were to take any two people anywhere
in the world, scientists have found that the basic genetic differences between these
two people would typically be around 0.2 percent—even if they came from the
same people group. But, these so-called ‘racial’ characteristics that
people think are major differences (skin colour, eye shape, etc.) ‘account
for only 0.012 percent of human biological variation.’ In other words, the
so-called ‘racial’ differences are absolutely trivial—overall,
there is more variation within any group than there is between one group and another.
If a white person is looking for a tissue match for an organ transplant, for instance,
the best match may come from a black person, and vice versa.
Actually, this article, because it argued there was no
Biblical impediment to so-called interracial marriage, mainly because there is neither
Biblical nor scientific basis for the concept of different ‘races’,
resulted in a lot of hate mail from white supremacists. Our responses to their pseudo-biblical
arguments formed the basis of ch. 7 of
One Blood.
Science has done more to kill racism than anything.
Science can tell us that all humans are the same, but it can’t tell us that
they ought to be treated the same … Nazism flourished in the most
scientifically advanced nation on Earth, with a third of all science Nobel Prizes
awarded up to that time.
Science can tell us that all humans are the same, but it can’t tell us that
they ought to be treated the same. The Bible does give us an absolute moral
basis for this. Conversely, if we are just rearranged pond scum, then as Lanier
said and Dawkins affirmed here: ‘evolution …
leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have
no basis in nature.’ It’s important to note that
Nazism flourished in the most scientifically advanced nation on Earth, with
a third of all science Nobel Prizes awarded up to that time.
Plimer was right when he said you were prepared to lie to uphold your philosophy.
If anyone trusts a demonstrably unreliable source like Ian
Plimer, then they are not to be taken seriously. After all, Plimer has sometimes
professed to be a practising Christian and feigned concern that creation is damaging
to Christianity, but this is incongruous with his signing of the following statement:
‘I subscribe to the objects and rules of the Humanist Society of Victoria
in order to create a society in which a person may reach their full potential free
from supernatural beliefs’, and he was even Australian Humanist of
the Year (1995). All Plimer’s charges against CMI in his book Telling Lies
… were proven false by the committee led by Mr Clarrie Briese, former
Chief Magistrate of New South Wales (Australia), nationally famous for his campaign
against corruption in high places, which ended the career of notable anti-Christian
High Court justice Lionel Murphy (see interview). See
the committee’s conclusion and
CMI’s point-by-point rebuttal of the book. Also, a fair-minded person
would see through Plimer’s unethical debating tactics such as guilt-by-association,
innuendo, half truths, and name-calling. Also, anyone with a modicum of scientific
competence would not have made crass scientific and logical
blunders, and if the Australian Skeptics were truly concerned about good
science rather than promoting atheism, they would have pulled him up on these. More
examples of unethical behaviour by Plimer, which is evidently condoned by the Australian
Skeptics, are documented in
this critique.
Also, lying would be inconsistent with our belief that Jesus Christ is ‘the way and the truth and the life’
(John
14:6). But it’s impossible to conclude ‘lying is wrong’
from either of the premises ‘Evolution is true’ or ‘God does not
exist’. So on what basis should a consistent evolutionist be concerned about
alleged lying? We also shouldn’t be surprised that Plimer and his Skeptic
mates believe that it’s acceptable to use deception to advance the anti-creationist
cause. The problem is, how can we be sure that any attack on creationists they present
isn’t just another part of this deception?
Bob Howard
(Dr) Jonathan Sarfati
Research scientist, author and editorial consultant
CMI (Australia)
Related articles
Further reading
| Derek C. wrote: “This is an awesome website. As a Christian who’s finally just turning my life over to God (for good), I needed somewhere to look for answers when I had no one to ask.” Help keep the ‘awesome’ going!  | | |
|
