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Ref: “The Slaves of Jonathan Edwards”
Is there value to mentioning the year of jubilee, and the freedom, as well as hope of freedom, a slave would have under a righteous Israelite slave owner?

Ian

Buying or selling a slave is “the slave trade” just as shipping them from some other continent is. The action of enslavement is perpetual, the slave is still enslaved every day and is thus daily deprived of his natural right to liberty just as much as if kidnapped from the coast of Africa. So no, it doesn’t matter if you buy, steal, inherit, or any other method of gaining slaves, keeping them at all is wrong.

Delk

So, if a research laboratory wants to purchase body parts from aborted fetuses from Planned Parenthood, that’s OK because the damage has already been done, the fetus can’t be returned like a used car, and scientific research is a positive goal that will help people? Just checking to make sure your argument is actually principled rather than result-oriented.

And I also don’t understand why you think that the fact that a disproportionate number of aborted babies are black makes abortion genocidal. A disproportionate number of victims of gun violence are black; does that make the Second Amendment genocidal as well? Again, just checking to be sure your argument is actually principled rather than result driven.

Mike

The exegesis in this article is good, but I am unsure as to what the verse “Do not return a runaway slave to his master” means. Considering that the Israelites owned slaves, and that slavery was permissible even though not desirable, could it be that the slaves not to be returned were ones that had fled from other countries, as Dabney suggested, and that the reasons slaves were not to be returned were that, unlike in Israel, they were given no protection and would have no knowledge of the True God? Otherwise, it seems that such a law would make slavery void, as slaves would, in affect, be slaves only as long as they so desired, and could leave whenever they wanted to, whether the master liked it or not.

James

Re: The Slaves of Jonathan Edwards, Part 2

Rev. Wilson,

“But slaves were not in the same category [as a stolen car]. They could not be returned. The great evil was already done, and if you kept your own hands clean, and the surplus “cargo” was then shipped off to Haiti or Brazil, what good did you actually do?”

The premise here is that the “great evil” was stealing the slaves from their former geographic location — to which they could not practically be returned. But the slaves are not the stolen car in this story — the slaves are the car’s rightful owner. They were not stolen but had something stolen from them: their freedom. Freedom can be returned and should have been. four-times over with a job and an education and continued support from the body of Christ.

In Christ

Kent

I appreciate your ongoing commentary on Jonathan Edwards, slavery, white supremacy, etc. After reading your most recent broadside (part 2), I was left with the distinct impression that you were pussyfooting around the question of Exodus 21:16: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death” (ESV). Easy, says I. Open-and-shut. Jonathan Edwards was found in possession of a stolen (wo)man, ergo he shall be put to death.

And then I asked myself: Is there any situation whatsoever in which a man might be rightly found in possession of a stolen person? Also easy: The righteous man in Deuteronomy 23:15. A man found in possession of a slave may be acting rightly, provided he is refusing to return the slave who fled to him from her master. (Although that may depend on one’s understanding of “found in possession.”)

I’m still not convinced that purchasing a slave could ever be in the same category as refusing to return an escaped slave—even if one does so to save her from a worse master—so I’m not sure that particular scenario could apply to Edwards. And I still don’t know precisely where I fall on the broader topic, except that I trust your commitment to the inspiration and authority of Scripture a far sight more than some others’ commitments to the inspiration and authority of critical theory.

Keep picking away at this one. You’re doing yeoman’s work.

Josh

Doc Wilson – In response to one of the other responses in which Edwards’ slave ownership was called problematic, you said that you’d like to know the circumstances before making a judgement.

To that point, a thought experiment: Let’s say that you’re a passionate anti-racist, anti-slavery Christian abolitionist back in the mid-1800s. You decide to take a somber walk through the slave trade stockyards one day to remind yourself of it’s evil, when you see an auction proceeding with only a single potential buyer in attendance – the meanest, cruelest master this side of the Mississippi. Suddenly, you have an idea: you have a pocket full of gold coins from a recent inheritance and you can outbid the cruel master on every last slave for sale, saving them from what’s sure to be a lifetime of toil and misery. Would you buy the slaves to save them?

This illustration could go and on with further situations, but the point is: life is rarely simple, and situations are often far more complicated than we think. Maybe someone bought a slave to more or less work them to death – or maybe they bought them because they saw them as children of God, and knew this was an opportunity to protect them from harm in an otherwise hostile land. Or maybe something even more complicated still – who knows?

Long story short, I agree. It always pays to know the circumstances – even if you think it’s a clear-cut sin issue, there may be more to the story.

Austin

As someone who lives in the UK I thought your piece on Boris Johnson and Hard Brexit was a bit naïve. I predict that Johnson will resign in the next few days. Today, Tuesday, 24th September, the highest court in the land has found him guilty of breaking the law and misinforming the queen by seeking to shut down parliament so as to silence debate in the run up to Brexit on the 31st October. The idea that the UK will simply leave Europe, and everything will work out fine in the end, is not shared by the by the wider British public. Recently, a leaked document outlining the Conservative party’s “Worse Case” scenario with a no-deal Brexit suggested the likelihood of violence, civil unrest, increased food prices, less goods available in supermarkets, a shortage of medicine both for hospitals and pharmacists, three day delays at departing/arriving at ferry ports to/from the Continent. Curiously, you say nothing about the Irish backstop, and the threat that a no-Brexit deal poses for peace in Northern Ireland. There is a tense, even toxic, atmosphere on the political scene here, and people are war-weary with the shenanigans of Boris Johnston. There will be no trade deal with the USA in the event of a no-deal Brexit, because the House of Representatives has said it will block such a deal if peace in Ireland is threatened. This is good news, because putting people before profit is always the best way forward for a country—and a sure way of receiving divine approval, if not blessing Love your website!.

Brendan

I recently stumbled across your article “Sexual Dirt and A Gospel Backhoe,” as I have been trying to find resources on the question of whether it is sin to have sex with my wife while she is on her period. I agree with much of your article, and found the questions of “unhealthy, unnecessary, unclean, or unnatural” particularly helpful. They have gotten me pretty far in determining my answer to this question. I would not categorize sex while menstruating unnatural, nor would I find it unnecessary. As far as I can tell, I see nothing to suggest that it is especially unhealthy. However, I struggle with whether it is unclean. The OT certainly seems to suggest that it may be, especially Leviticus 15, 18, and 20. However, these seem to be grounded in its status as something that ritually defiles, much like any other bodily emission, the ritual status of which have been abrogated by the work of Christ on the Cross. Any thoughts on this?

In the aforementioned article, you mentioned that you would devote a longer post to this very question, but I have been unable to locate it (if it exists).

Grant

Some of the fine folks at Warhorn Media, namely Nathan Alberson, Jake Mentzel, and Brandon Chasteen of The Bookening podcast have had some rough things to say over these last few months about C. S. Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia. Also, a few years back they were quite sharp concerning Lewis’s “‘Till They Have Faces.” I would love to hear your response to that material. Lewis has definitely lowered in my estimation. I think they mount a very credible attack. I also can think of a few avenues of rebuttal and defense. However I think their audience and yours overlaps and could benefit from you entering the discussion.

Calvin

Apropos of nothing perhaps but, as you are one of the rare voices who has raised concerns before—I am very concerned by how influenced the Denhollanders seem to be by the ways the world thinks today. Here she is tonight calling for the complete de-platforming of Paige Patterson (indeed she very nearly uses the word). No “this book is full of errors so Lifeway should stop selling it,” which would be respectful in any circumstance. No, we need to be a “safe” community, which apparently requires that nothing this man ever wrote now be available for purchase. Golly, where have I heard people make arguments like that before . . .?

I don’t know them well, but my sense of the couple is that they started off as people already leaning toward the Left side of conservative circles, and now fame has made them doubly desirous of the world’s applause (no doubt, in their own minds, so they can do more good). And, perhaps understandably, they seem especially influenced by modern feminism, uncritically sharing rape statistics that essentially define rape as “any sex the woman regrets later,” and using very pointed words for Christians who defend traditional sex roles and few to none for people who do the opposite. I fear for where they will be in five years and who they will lead astray in the process.

Robert