Introduction
As everyone should know by now, biblical slavery is my most favoritest subject in the whole wide world. I turn to it most every chance I get, and I even recently turned in the manuscript of an honest commentary on Philemon. This is an epistle that does receive a modest amount of attention from modern preachers and commentators, with many of them using an exegetical technique that they learned in the seminaries of our times, a technique best described as “hydroplaning.”
The book is a letter from the apostle Paul to a dear friend and slave owner, a man named Philemon, and the letter explains the circumstances around the reason for the letter, which is the return of a runaway slave named Onesimus. Onesimus had done some significant wrong to Philemon, had run away, and had somehow encountered the apostle Paul, who had led him to the Lord. Having done so, he returned Onesimus to his master, along with exhortations to receive him as a brother in the Lord now.
We need not go into all the things that the letter is not saying. Why do that? It is quite true that it is not saying those things—and many other things, for that matter—but the hydroplaners are generally quite good at delving into all of that. And even where I might agree with such coquettish expositions, we must not allow ourselves to go into it. This is November, after all, and I cannot allow myself to come across as being too reasonable. Leave that for the rest of the year. So we must content ourselves with what the letter is saying, which is, “I am returning your runaway slave now.”
That Was Then, This is Now
I remember pretty clearly when the penny dropped on this issue for me. It was back in the days of the Moral Majority, and I was watching Jerry Falwell Sr. debating with a liberal on television. I am not sure about this, but I think that the liberal was Bishop Spong. He was the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Newark, which kind of figures. As an indication of just how deep our national apostasy goes, the original name of Newark was New Ark of the Covenant. Get it? New Ark?
Falwell was doing good Christian work in rejecting homosexuality, as he most certainly should have been doing, and bless him. But then the questions why? and how come? arose. Falwell, a good Christian man, appealed to Scripture, as he most certainly should have done. Spong, if it was Spong, then said something like, “But the Bible allows for slavery.”
And at that moment, Falwell had a terrible choice before him. He could have looked at Spong with his very best fat face and said, “Yes, it does. What’s your point?” Had that option been taken, the media of that day would have reacted the same way a tank full of piranhas would have responded had some sociopath dropped a cute puppy in there with them. Screaming headlines would have run along the lines of, “Falwell Calls for Do-Over at Gettysburg,” and editorial cartoons would have shown him on the veranda of his plantation, receiving a non-alcoholic mint julep from Silas, his faithful manservant. The media frenzy would have been gaudy, magnificent, and overdone.
Or Falwell could have deflected the slavery objection by saying something like “that was then, and this is now,” which is what he did. But of course, I hope you can see the problem right off. Why do evangelicals get to play the “that-was-then-this-is-now” game, and the gay boys don’t get to? This is a different world now, in which that kind of slavery is unthinkable. Well, yeah, but among the Episcopalians of Newark they believe it to be unthinkable to proscribe two dudes from getting it on. Why should we get to make that appeal, and they don’t get to?
Either honest exegesis for both sides, or both sides get to resort to dishonest exegesis, as it suits their partisan interests. Unfortunately, because of our timidity, we have connived with the spirits of dissimulation and done the latter.
But watching that encounter, I resolved never to let myself get maneuvered into waffling or backfilling about anything that the Bible plainly teaches—however roughly it treats our modern sensibilities. One time back in the day we were handing out tracts outside a gay/lesbian dance. Somebody was upset by this for some reason, and so they called up the Methodist pastor, wanting him to come downtown and deal with us. And that is how I wound up talking with him about what we were doing, and I said that Scripture forbids homosexual relations. I think I referred to Leviticus 20:13. His response was not to dispute what Leviticus said, but rather to get me to be embarrassed about other things the Bible says. He said, “Well, the Bible allows for slavery.” And so I said, “Yes, it does. But what’s your point?” The end result of that exchange was not him saying checkmate, but rather me saying checkmate.
But it turns out that, taken as a group, evangelicals are allergic to checkmating, and are emotionally attached to being checkmated.
The Bible as Queen Mum
So conservative evangelicals, led into this by their professionally timid leaders, treat the Bible as a figurehead—as something of a Queen Mum, to be trundled out on the balcony in order to wave at everybody, and then to be taken back inside without actually saying anything about what we should actually do. We are going to do what we were going to do anyway, but for sentimental reasons we would like our figurehead to beam at us before we do it. We are going to undertake the important task of fighting for God in our own way. We need not consult what He actually requires. Like Hophni and Phinehas, we have taken the ark of the covenant out to battle the Philistines, and with similar results. But because are squishy new covenant types, it would be better to say we have taken the newark of the covenant out to battle.
If you doubt what I say, and there are many of you who are doing so, and for shame, let me give you an example. It might even be considered to be a glaring example. How many conservative Christians would be favorable toward a proposal, for example, to post a copy of the Ten Commandments inside every federal courthouse. That’ll show ’em.
I certainly would be in favor, actually, and it is likely that many others would be as well. They want to post them as a traditional values testimony in the courthouses, but they don’t want to deal with the ramifications of what they have posted. Should our laws touch on the first table at all? Should there be sabbath legislation? And . . . to the point of the particular issue before us today . . . what we are to do with the fact that the Ten Commandments were delivered to a slave-owning society, and that two of the commandments have to do with how we deal with those slaves?
The fourth commandment requires that your slaves be given a sabbath rest along with everyone else (Ex. 20:10). And the tenth commandment prohibits you from coveting anything belonging to our neighbor, that prohibition extending to his slaves (Ex. 20:17).
Biblical Absolutism
So why talk about this at all? What is the testing point? What am I asking evangelicals to affirm? What would keep them off the squish list? What would a biblical absolutist do?
It is pretty simple actually, and comes in two parts. All that is necessary is for someone to affirm that someone like Philemon could exist in the first century, being both a slave owner and someone who walked with God. He could own slaves in that time, provided he followed the biblical instructions and was careful to treat his slaves with equity (Col. 4:1). The second part is to affirm that someone just like Philemon could have lived in Alabama in 1850. He could own slaves, treat them biblically, and walk with God.
If someone refuses to do this, then they might want to call themselves an inerrantist . . . but it whatever they call it, it is just posturing.
Neglecting the Giveaways is a Bad Sin
There are two places you must go in order to get those giveaways. The first is the special page that Canon has set up to process all of this, and those titles can be found here. The offers will change with each post throughout the month, but for these Canon titles, they will always be found in the same place.
The fresh Canon titles are: Calvinist Poetry, Beowulf, Dangerous Alphabet, God Rest Ye Merry, So Come and Welcome, and Refuting the New Atheists.
The second place to go would be to my Mablog Shoppe. The list of free titles will grow through the month. The current list of free titles there is as follows:
Concise and to the Point
Virgins and Volcanoes
Blue Sky Vision
The Pink Spiders of Empathy
Letters to a Rootless White Kid
Jokes I Like to Tell
Chestertonian Calvinism
21 Prayers for Pastors
Letters of Marital Counsel
No Artificial Tweetners
N.T. Wright Rides a Pale Horse
Letters on Homosexual Desire
Letters to a Broken Girl
Some Adventures of Fun Dad
A Parliament of Pots
As I said in the video, if you wind up not getting any of these . . . that’s on you.
