DeMar’s Debacle on Slavery

Liberals love the myth of equality. They would probably die for it.

Fortunately for us they defend it in template fashion. The liberal emotionally distances himself from his opponent’s non-egalitarian view, which is evil prima facie. Such views are wicked not because Scripture and necessary inference denounce them, but because that is the category assigned to them by their other divided loyalty, political correctness (James 1:8; Matthew 6:24).  To the degree that the liberal actually argues against his opponent he only defends his disdain of a taboo position, usually a wishful straw man that he illogically connects to his opponent’s  actual position. Of course the liberal’s argumentation is only offered by way of backfill due to the visceral attachment he has already made against his opponent. Hence the reason egalitarian arguments are always emotive sound bites lacking any semblance of substance. It is also why, in the rare moments when the liberal properly identifies  his opponent’s thesis and posits an honest rebuttal, a beginning student of logic can quickly apply the appropriate fallacy.

In the end to witness arguments by liberals is to peek into the psychology behind their attachment to lies and perverse dreams.

DeMar, Our Friend

It is especially saddening to watch our otherwise conservative and sharp-thinking Christian brothers argue like liberals. For only the Christian man possesses a truly conservative ethic; and he, because he serves the Lord above all lords, should be the champion of sharp thinking. When presented with PC “truths” the Christian man ought to be equally competent in logically weighing them by his Lord’s word, and consequently offering the truly conservative position on the issue.

In this post we consider Gary DeMar’s position on slavery which perplexingly betrays his otherwise stalwart aversion to egalitarianism.  Unfortunately Gary DeMar takes the liberal/egalitarian approach to slavery, and this is most shocking when we know that DeMar is no ordinary Christian thinker, but ironically one who thinks through even more patently non-pc categories. DeMar, like all Christians, does not think that Christianity is one of many equal options. The faith once and for all delivered is superior to all its competitors. The Lord Jesus has no rivals in false gods and will crush all enemies that oppose him, either by conversion or judgment. Here DeMar is no egalitarian, and we applaud his faithfulness. But DeMar’s non-egalitarianism does not stop with a denouncement of pluralism. He believes societies should be Christian, run by biblical law. But apparently whether to execute sodomites and witches isn’t the litmus test for DeMar’s egalitarianism.

No, slavery is.

(Part One)

The following is a portion of a letter that sparked DeMar’s two-part response to the question, Does the Bible Support Slavery? Part 1 | Part 2

The Bible does not condemn slavery. The Bible does condemn abortion. Human legislation cannot make legal what God’s law condemns, or make illegal what God’s law allows. When you condemn what God’s law allows, you are a legalist and sin (Deuteronomy 4:3; Proverbs 30:6; Revelation 22:18–19). When you allow what God’s law condemns, you are a lawbreaker and sin (Exodus 20:1–17). When you can’t tell the difference, you can’t think as a Christian.

Now please pay close attention to this paragraph via response by DeMar:

I responded in a brief note that the slavery practiced in this country prior to 1860 was “man stealing” (kidnapping). West Africans were kidnapped, put on ships, brought to these shores, sold at auction, and placed in forced labor. Admittedly, many slaves were treated decently upon their arrival and during their captivity. But this is beside the point. They were still slaves, in captivity against their will!

The above response is a summary of DeMar’s position which he explicates in the article and which we will rebut.  But preliminarily, please notice some peculiarities about this response.

  1. Note the hasty generalization (fallacy of accident) in concluding that while some slaves were (likely) stolen, that “the [an unqualified universal] slavery practiced…was ‘man stealing’…”
  2. Note that kidnapping does not serve as the main objection, for he could have made the point by saying , “West Africans were kidnapped.” Rather, he continues: “…put on ships, brought to these shores, sold at auctions, and placed in forced labor.”  It seems that DeMar is drumming up emotional points with these four clauses.  But the first two are simply benign necessities to get the slaves to our land, the third is permitted by God, and the fourth is the nature of slavery itself!  Beating this emotive drum reeks of liberal tactic.

Let’s proceed to examine DeMar’s arguments piece by piece.

The Indentured Servant

Demar writes

Many of this nation’s earliest settlers paid for their passage as indentured servants. Indentured servitude is neither unbiblical nor unconstitutional. A thief who was unable to make restitution could be sold into servitude for his theft (Exodus 22:3b). Even after the abolition of slavery, indentured servitude was retained by the Constitution as a legitimate form of punishment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (Amendment XIII, Section 1). We should, therefore, distinguish between slave (man stealing) and bondservant (indentured servant). We should also keep in mind that the word “slave” appears only once in the King James Bible (Jer. 2:14a), as does the word “slaves” (Rev. 18:13). The word slavery does not appear anywhere in the King James Version.1

DeMar’s first error is he fails to categorize indentured servant hood as a type of slavery that the Bible permits.  Instead he makes indentured servitude a distinct class from slavery rather than making it a subset of slavery.  His second error is equating “slave” (rather than bondservant) with man stealing,  the fallacy of accident mentioned above. Third, seizing on the liberal trick that “slave” is more emotive than “servant”, DeMar fails to mention that both are legitimate English translations of the Greek doulos, which is the LXX rendering of the Ebed (slaves) of the Old Testament (see Dabney, p. 146 ff.) which were bought from gentile nations—a slavery that all liberals abhor.  A rose by another name smells as sweet.  Besides, word-count exegesis (another liberal debate trick) is almost a sure-fire sign of defeat.

DeMar continues:

I quoted Exodus 21:16 to support my contention that slavery as practiced in America cannot be supported by an appeal to the Bible: “And he who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.” The letter writer supported his position by claiming that Exodus 21:16 only applies to kidnapping Hebrews (compare Deut. 24:7). Robert L. Dabney, the most articulate defender of Virginia and the South, disagrees: “It need hardly be said that we abhor the injustice, cruelty, and guilt of the African slave trade. It is justly condemned by the public law of Christendom. . . . It is condemned by the law of God. Moses placed this among the judicial statutes of the Jews: ‘And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.’”2 There is no indication that Exodus 21:16 only has Israelites in mind. If it does, then verse 12 would also only apply to Israelites since its language is similar to that of verse 16:

“He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death” (21:12).

“And he who kidnaps a man whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death” (21:16).

Yes, Dabney agrees with DeMar on this point, but of course this is not how Dabney defended American slavery. DeMar will turn to Dabney’s true defense at the end of his response, but for now the reader should realize that only if he buys DeMar’s hasty generalization is this argument useful.  The reader should also realize that this is a tendentious way of ending “part one” to his response.  DeMar is banking on the reader to make the erroneous connection that “American” slaves ipso facto equals “stolen” slaves.  And that is why he leaves you pondering these passages that (rightly) show the wickedness of slave-stealing.

(Part Two)

Leviticus 25: 44-46

Defenders of Southern slavery appeal to Leviticus 25:44–46 to support their pro-slavery position since it describes the enslavement of pagans…

The enslavement of pagan nations under the Old Covenant was tied to the jubilee laws described in the same chapter. The jubilee was fulfilled in principle by Jesus (Luke 4) and abolished historically when Israel as a nation ceased to exist with the destruction of its religious and civil governments in A.D. 70. Slavery of heathen nations was tied to the special character of the land of Israel in the same way that distribution of the land of Israelite families was tied to the special redemptive character of the land.

Except that Lev 25: 46 says that “they shall be your bondmen forever,” thus the slave is not released at Jubilee. But slavery in the Bible was also race-based. The slaves freed at Jubilee were only those of the Israelite tribes; all pagan slaves were held permanently.  DeMar should read his Bible and Dabney (p. 117) more carefully.  Moreover, Dabney does not “base his argument for slavery” on this passage, but appeals to it to justify, not the ideal term for slavery, but the principle of involuntary slavery: “Here is involuntary slavery for life, expressly authorized to God’s own peculiar and holy people, in the strongest and most careful terms.  The relation, then, must be innocent in itself” (Dabney, 118). Regrettably the analytical precision applied to Dispensational writings DeMar does not use when considering the great Dabney.

In addition, the Gentiles are given a new status in the New Covenant. The coming of Christ was “a light of revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32; see Isaiah 42:6; 49:6). Jesus began His public ministry with the reading of Isaiah 61:1, “to proclaim release to the captives” (Luke 4:18). We know that this release included Gentiles: “And He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles. . . . And in His name the Gentiles will hope” (Matt. 12:18, 21).

Gentiles were not given a new status in the New Cov.  The gospel opened to Gentiles in greater degree than it was in the Old Cov. To suggest that Gentile expansion of the gospel precludes gentile slavery is an assertion with no proof. The release of captives that Jesus preached is metaphorical of the bondage of the world. The “captive” that Jesus graciously restored to the state of slavery was literal (Matt 8: 5-13; Luke 7: 1-10)! Strange, did the Lord not practice what he preached? Is DeMar suggesting that the in the New Covenant Gentiles are generally finally free from the captive-creating slavery which God authorized?

With the gospel’s breaking of national Israel’s old wineskin, a new means of foreign evangelism began. New Testament evangelists are to go to foreign lands as servants, not as slave-masters or their economic agents, slave traders. They are to warn men and women to submit to God’s rule voluntarily. . . . Christians are to bring the message of liberation which Jesus announced in Luke 4.3

Absurd reasoning: false dilemma. Rather, one “serves” God by obeying his Law. The liberation that we bring is the freedom within, not beyond or contrary to, God’s law! DeMar knows this. In fact his site recently published an article on this.

Racism

The history of the enslavement of African blacks has been an impediment to the gospel.

How so? The Slave Narratives and the testimony of many slaves, including some Negro leaders today, is that such was a blessing to the Negro precisely because it brought the gospel to a race of former cannibalistic, savage, pagans who were at war with and enslaving each other.

Instead of being fishers of men, many in the church supported the notion of being the enslavers of men, in particular, black men, women, and their children.

Another classic false antithesis: either you are a Negro soul winner, or a Negro enslaver. Like we said, many slaves praised God they were rescued from their native witchcraft (and hell) by slave-holding evangelists.

The Bible, including Leviticus 25, does not support enslaving exclusively African blacks. Racism seems to be the motivating factor.

First part–agreed. Who said it did? Dabney? Second part–what does DeMar mean by “racism”? An irrational hatred of one based on biology? Then he is a liar.  Or perhaps the view that men-eating, satan-worshiping, savages are less intelligent, more improvident and indolent than the civilized white? That the European man is culturally superior to the Negro? Where is the evidence to the contrary? Lincoln was not aware of any—he was a white supremacist.

The New Testament

We know that in the New Testament Paul condemns slave traders (kidnappers) in 1 Timothy 1:10. Revelation considers those who traffic in “slaves and human lives” to be immoral and destined for judgment (Rev. 18:13).

Again, a confusion (or confusing) of terms.  Slave trading (buying) is sanctioned in the Bible, while kidnapping (man-stealing) is forbidden. DeMar might be missing the point of Rev 18:13 for there slaves are mentioned in the same category as wine flour, horses, wine, wood, and marble.

Nowhere does the New Testament support trafficking in slaves.

Funny how a theonomist would ever utter such words.

Paul’s letter to Philemon does not support the notion that the New Testament tolerated chattel slavery.

Another amazingly non-theonomic argument from silence.

Defending the Indefensible

In case DeMar should have a reader who sees through the smoke and mirrors of his previous arguments, he at last gives some substance.  But pay attention, because we while we are at the heart of the issue of defending American slavery, DeMar fails to drop the dagger in Dabney’s (and the Bible’s) defense. To set the stage, let the reader assume that holding a slave is lawful, so long as the master treats his slave right. But what if that slave were stolen, maybe not by the current master, but by the one from whom he acquired him? Good question.

Back to DeMar.

The letter writer (see Part 1) concludes his argument in defense of slavery by quoting Dabney. Dabney, as we saw earlier, abhorred “the injustice, cruelty, and guilt of the African slave trade.” Then why did he continue to support the holding of slaves? Dabney writes: “When the property has been acquired by the latest holder, fairly and honestly; when, in the later transfers, a fair equivalent was paid for it, and the last possessor is innocent of fraud in intention and in the actual mode of his acquisition of it, more wrong would be effected by destroying his title, than by leaving the original wrong unredressed. Common sense says, that whatever may have been the original title, a new and valid one has arisen out of the circumstances of the case.”5

Dabney moves his argument away from the Bible to “common sense,” a clear indication that he does not have a biblical argument. While the slave trader may have acquired the slaves through immoral means, Dabney argues, the person who receives the stolen men, women, and children is not bound by the original illegality. In essence, he cannot be held accountable for the initial fraud since he purchased the “merchandise” in good faith. Dabney begs the question. How can the purchase of human beings for the purpose of using them for slave labor be done “fairly and honestly” when Dabney fully admits “that the original slave catcher” who “captured the African was most unrighteous”?

Dabney does not say that the new title holder knew about the illicit character of the original slave owner.   But God who does know will punish the stealer of merchandise, not the buyer who in good faith bought something he thought was lawfully acquired.  DeMar makes too much of Dabney’s appeal to common sense. Dabney says that such abolitionists should give up their property, as it was taken from the Indians by fraud and/or violence.  He doesn’t need a biblical argument when a reductio is sufficient.

Those who purchased slaves at auction in the United States knew that the slaves were kidnapped victims. The slave owners were not operating “in good faith” since they knew “that the original slave catcher” who “captured the African was most unrighteous.”

Really? This seems like an assertion. Notice how Gary digs to the very nub of the disagreement. If Dabney is right on this point he and American slavery is justified; if wrong they are condemned.Yet, DeMar merely announces that the slave holders knew they were buying stolen merchandise.

Pathetic.

Conclusion

It is unfortunate that DeMar does not concern himself with the biblical arguments for slavery, for they are replete. If DeMar would treat American slavery as he handles Dispensationalism, Natural Law or Socialism, if he would contend with Robert Dabney as he manages Hal Lindsey, Ronald Sider or Democrats, he would at least address the Bible’s lawful prescription of purchasing and permanently holding slaves. DeMar could at least honor his theonomic principles by resolving why he New Testament in no way modifies or rescinds these laws while denouncing nearly every category of prevalent sin of its time but ubiquitous slave holding (Mark 7:21-22; Romans 12:9-21; Romans 13:8-14; Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 5:9-11; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Ephesians 4:25-31; Ephesians 5:3-5;  Colossians 3:5-9;  2 Timothy 3:1-5; Revelation 9:20-21; Revelation 21:8).

Rather, from the gate DeMar tendentiously introduces emotive terms (e.g. “chattel”, “human beings”) and confuses concepts (e.g. slavery and kidnapping). Along the course he introduces New Testament arguments from silence, à la those used by his anti-theonomy opponents.  And at the end when DeMar finally gets to the heart of a true defense of American Slavery he dismisses it with one sentence which merely asserts his positions without proof.

DeMar’s debacle on slavery leaves the uninformed reader believing the lie that slavery practiced in this country prior to 1860 is properly categorized “man-stealing” as innocent little West Africans were kidnapped, and that Christ came to abolish slavery of heathens. Yet, DeMar’s liberal tactics show informed reader that the vestiges of humanism that can remain even in seasoned and sharp theonomists.

Further Research and Notes

Please read Dabney’s excellent (and free!) A Defense of Virginia which is a life-changing destruction of egalitarianism. Also see John weaver’s excellent sermon series on Where We Are and How We Got Here. Part four deals with the biblical case for slavery, but please make use of the entire series.

DeMar’s Notes

1. Dabney, A Defence of Virginia, 117–121.

2. North, Tools of Dominion, 145.

3. North, Tools of Dominion, 173.

4. North, Tools of Dominion, 180.

5. Dabney, A Defence of Virginia, 288–289.

15 thoughts on “DeMar’s Debacle on Slavery

  1. feminizedwesternmale

    Bravo. You obviously put in much time and effort. I congratulate you on your thorough and exhaustive reasoning. This was something that we used to spend our time doing.

    Did you send it to DeMar? If he knows, he won’t respond, and will have to live with himself and God. If he does the Devil’s work, he will tack further into the emotive sea of liberalism – he won’t be able to resist the temptation, the tease of faux catharsis.

    Mike

    1. admin

      Thanks, Mike. I won’t send it to DeMar. He has a successful ministry, and the proper response to my post would offend his underwriters and jeopardize AV’s donations.

  2. Angela Wittman

    Actually in this case Gary DeMar is correct and has my utmost respect for taking a truly Biblical approach to the subject of slavery. May he stand firm on the solid rock called Christ Jesus and may those in error repent.

  3. Lewsta

    I found this linked from De Mar’s website, so he knows. No issue there.
    Your entire position rests on which way the blade will slice in splitting the hair between “kidnapping” and “slavery”. De Mar’s knife holds the latter to be a subset of the former, thus condemned. You hold them to be distinct on the basis that, once having got to the New World, the “title” to the captive slave is now clear, and thus he becomes merchandise free of taint in the marketplace.

    Please tell me, how many black africans, having been transported in the hold of a ship as cargo to Havana or Port au Prince felt they were where they desired to, or should, be? You compare them with the indentured servants coming from Europe, having bought their passage (in steerage or better accomodations, a far cry from the cramped holds of the slave ships) by pledging their services once here for a limited and defined period of time. Once having served that time, the individual was free to do and go as he pleased. Not so the african slaves. They were chattel. You “justify” their forced transportation by the fact (with which I do not contend) that some heard the Gospel and were thus set free indeed in Christ Jesus. Well, a large number of them retained, or returned to, their pagan devil worship. Their resultant spiritual condition is no justifier of their capture.

    What you fail to realise is that, once having been kidnapped, as each one so detained was passed along the chain of events to arrive at Smith’s Planation in Athens Georgia, a defective “title” passed along with that individual. So raiding troupes of moslem warriors invaded a village and kidnapped forty men. They were stolen, kidnapped. Those warriors “sold” them, having no valid “title”, to the drovers who moved them to a seaport, delivering them to some slave buyer.. again, defective title. The slave captain paid for them, again with no clear title, transported them to Havana or equivalent, delivering them to another buyer.. no title of standing. That buyer put them at auction, defective titles all, sold them to another who brought them to Savannah Georgia, again, defective title, to be resold at auction to Farmer Smith of Athens….. thus, from his initial capture in Africa by moslem raiders, Mbwele was stolen from his people (no valid title), resold through many phases of his journey, never a valid title involved, until he becomes the “possession” of Mars Smith of Athens… who may have a document in hand showing his purchase, but the reality is that Mbwele was stolen in Africa, and, being stolen goods, was never rightly the property of anyone, not even Smith.

    Do not take me for a fool of such low intelligence to declare that “some slaves got here legally”. No, not one ever did. Prove it. EVERY ONE of them was stolen, and passed stage to stage as property. If I were to come to your residence and take you by force of arms, compelling you do come along with me, I am guilty of the charge of kidnapping. If I were to “sell” you to another, who in turn passed you along to yet more, no later “transfer” would negate the fact that you were initially taken against your will, stolen. If you were found four years later and “freed”, the one in whose possession you were when found would be as guilty of kidnapping as would I, who took you in the first instance. At each step of the way, anyone who had you in forced custody would stand trial for their crime, never mind how much money might have changed hands at your “transfer”. The fact that some of the “steps” in the chain of forced possession might not be able to be identified does not exonerate those guilty of possession further down the “chain”, does it?

    You need to readjust the angle of the knife as it slices this futile hair. Once kidnapped, the victim remains his own sovereign person no matter what misrepresentations might accompany him, nor what might be “paid” by those later imprisoning him. You hold Dabney up to be an authority.. which he is, and a wonderful one, insofar as he bases his statements upon scripture. Sorry, on this matter he misses the mark, and De Mar hits it squarely. Your fogbank hovering over the “title” of the captured african slaves only serves to obscure the vision of one not wanting to see. If I steal a trainload of Chrysler cars, falsify documents to allow me to sell them “with title”, I have still stolen them… and the paperwork that accompanies them as they find their way into your driveway does nothing to undo the fact they are all stolen, and that you are the owner of stolen property. You are ignorant, but are such due to your own negligence. Stolen goods are stolen goods, no matter the path they take to their present situation. And there was no other way than via kidnapping by which any african slaves arrived in the New World for subsequent “sale”. They were none of them indentured servants for a set period of time, as were the Italian, Irish, Polish immigrants to the New World who CHOSE to come here… even at the cost, for some, of selling themselves for five or ten years of service.

  4. Shotgun

    Mr. Lewsta,

    Your passionate defense of politically correct rhetoric is duly noted, and I’m sure the office of PC police has put an additional smiley face next to your name; relieving you of yet another ounce of white guilt.

    With that out of the way, perhaps level-headed reasoning can enter the discussion?

    It is dangerous to abstract an issue from its cultural and historical context and arrive at conclusions about it in its divorced state.

    The slavery issue is a case in point.

    The Southern slave trade is a complex social issue that needs to be looked at objectively in its proper context before any discussion of “man-stealing” can legitimately be raised.

    Jefferson Davis devotes the entire first chapter of his “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Vol I” to a discussion of the slave trade, and goes through pains to highlight the South’s role in (and attitude concerning) the trade itself. Overall, sentiments were against it. The Constitution allowed the slave trade to continue until 1808, after which it was promptly discontinued.

    The large majority of African slavery in the South consisted of those born into their situation. (A relationship that you failed to address in your tirade concerning legal causation.)

    The picture of Southern slavery as a mass of kidnapped blacks is, then: dishonest.

    There is an additional problem in what you’ve said. One presumes that you are not against kidnapping in all of its forms, else you’d be arguing against the state’s kidnapping of certain criminals. Hauling someone off to be locked in a concrete box is surely just as horrible, if not more so, than making someone work in a field all day? At any rate, if you acquiesce to State kidnapping then you must admit that, at least under certain, arbitrarily defined situations, kidnapping is acceptable.

    Who are you to say that the (hypothetically speaking:) Chokwe’s capture, imprisonment, and sale of the Cewa’s was illegitimate? Before slinging the word “ignorant” around, and using cavalier rhetoric, you need to clearly and carefully consider how to go about designating and qualifying this situation. Because so far, you haven’t.

    As far as plantation owner Smith is concerned, the Chokwe’s legitimately captures the Cewa men in battle, and made a profit on them by selling them to the Dutch! (Hypothetically!)

    There is one final line of thought I’d like to submit for consideration, and that is an objection to the logic of your argument concerning the legal chain of responsibility.

    Gary North points out (in his book Victim’s Rights) that the bundle of responsibility for a crime (a theft) is not passed on to the buyer of the stolen goods, but remains the responsibility of the thief. If, in our case for instance, a man-thief confesses to selling stolen goods, then HE is legally responsible to pay restitution to the man who purchased the slave. So, even if the slaves were ALL obtained immorally, according to Biblical law, the buyers (as long as they were unaware) remain innocent parties.

    To conclude, I’ve offered three objections:

    (1): You abstract “slavery” from its cultural and historical context.

    (2): You haven’t clearly discussed why the acquisition of Southern slaves was immoral. (You just assume it was.)

    (3): You imply that the Southern slaveholders themselves were the responsible immoral agents in the situation. (Again, an unfounded assertion.)

    Please think more carefully about the issue in the future.

  5. JD

    In the NT, the gospel implicitly makes obsolete the OT law allowing permanent ownership of involuntary slaves, for two reasons: 1] because in Christ there is no emphasis on physical race or nationality; and 2] because of the responsibility Christians now have of preaching the gospel to all people. A slave owner is required to preach the gospel to his slaves. When they are converted, and baptized, they now must be considered brothers, fellow members of the new “race” of NT Saints. The OT law does not allow the permanent ownership of a covenant brother as a slave…unless that slave voluntarily chooses permanent servitude. Consequently, the vast majority of negro slaves in the American south should have been eventually freed, at least those who were the property of Christian slave holders.

    1. Fr. John+

      Why, thank you Mr. JD. I wonder how the anti-miscegenation clauses of the Deuteronomic law can be said to be ‘done away with,’ when Christ noted that in His day, men and women were still ‘marrying, and giving in marriage’ and noted that this ‘quaint custom’ would continue until ‘the end of the age’?

      Considering the fact that here we are, 20 centuries later, even after trying to ‘define marriage’ to include “Adam and Steve” yet there are still those who, following the Bible, consider gay marriage to be an abomination, who have also note that the rationales for G.M. are the EXACT same ones that (legally, if not covenantally) struck down ‘mixed-race marriage’ in Loving v. Virginia, in 1967!

      So, unless you agree to gay marriage (and if you do, you have no business on this forum!) then your duplicity in saying that the law is NOT ‘holy and Good’ and that that same law, clearly prohibits racial miscegenation between the sons of Adam (from Aw-dam- meaning ‘fair, ruddy, able to [visibly] blush’) and the goyim (non-Caucasoids), is as vast as the Grand Canyon. And just as empty of viability.

  6. Shotgun

    Hey Mr. JD,

    I’m not convinced of your implications.

    In terms of (1), I think a lot more work needs to be done to demonstrate that “In Christ there is no emphasis on race.” This is a statement fraught with ambiguities. If you mean that the covenant of salvation is open to membership from all ethnicities, then I agree…but I don’t agree that this eliminates one’s social standing, race, or gender anymore than a cocaine addict would suddenly become free of addiction after being inaugurated into the covenant.

    As for (2); it sounds like you’re trying to systematize evangelism and dogmatically apply it to a social institution. This seems unfair; for example: I walk by homeless people every day…and I’m a Christian…therefore, someone who was especially sensitive to the issue of Homelessness could charge me with the duty of providing for them and evangelizing them…and claim that by not doing so…I’m in sin! But I can’t change the entire social system that gives rise to homelessness, and I can’t evangelize every one of them on a daily basis! The ethics of this deserve to be fleshed out and dealt with more clearly.

  7. JD

    Thank you for response and your statement that one’s race, gender, social status, etc. are not eliminated in the NC. It may be better to say that the era in which God’s redemptive plan was focused in and through one nation / race [not in an absolute sense, however] is over. This, I believe, has implications for the question of permanent ownership of slaves and for the Mosaic laws that were given to regulate the institution. The Law forbade a citizen of Israel to keep another citizen of Israel [i.e., a covenant brother] in permanent servitude. I admit the difficulty in knowing how to apply this prohibition in our day. Does it mean that one U.S. citizen should not be allowed to permanently own another U.S. citizen? Does it mean that one Christian should not be allowed to own another Christian permanently? Does it apply in both contexts?? You made a great point when you said “a lot more work needs to be done” ..in learning how to apply God’s law in the modern world — and I believe this includes working out and applying the “implications” of the gospel.
    In regard to my 2nd point: Notice again that my statement was: “the vast majority of negro slaves in the American south should have been eventually freed, at least those who were the property of Christian slave holders”. This could not have happened in one lifetime. It would have been a process that took place through multiple generations. However, as long as white southern Christian slaveholders refused to accept the “implications” of the gospel and neglected to emphasize the importance of evangelism among their own negro slaves, the “entire social system” that “gave rise” to permanent negro servitude would have remained in place. If white southern slave-holding Christians would have recognized this gospel implication, it would have certainly, eventually changed the entire social system that contained permanent negro servitude. The vast majority of negro slaves would have become covenant brothers [as multitudes actually did] and many, therefore, would have been allowed to work their way freedom in the same way the ancient Israelite would have. The final result may have been the liberation and exaltation of an entire race of people on the American continent without the “help” of a bloody and unnecessary un-Civil war.

  8. Fr. John

    I only wish I had had your critique of DeMars’ betrayal of everything RJRushdoony taught and held to, when I was writing my analysis of the same Leviticus 25 section.

    But, it is astounding to see how similar our conclusions are at the end of the day. Sadly, you also have to put up with the BS of unregenerate Evan-jelly-goos, who ‘will not have this man [Christ] and His LAW WORD to rule over us’ and would prefer their ‘seeker sensitive,’ ‘rock band’ ‘touchyfeely’ pastors, than the Church of Christendom.

    Many Years, sir.

    http://thewhitechrist.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/lev-2544-46-–-the-word-of-god/
    http://thewhitechrist.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/lev-2544-46-part-two/

  9. joseph

    Dabney is a constant reminder to one and all that the unsanctified human intellect is the greatest instrument of evil in this world. *+*

    1. Tribal Theocrat Post author

      By sanctification, you mustn’t mean according to the Scripture, but to Cultural Marxism. Thanks for stopping by.

  10. Kernel P

    Well done, Shotgun. DeMar and many others have imbibed of the Kool Aid. In the 19th century the Kool Aid drinkers were most prevalent in the north. There were some notable exceptions in the South, namely Parson Brownlow of TN. In the north there were Kool Aid abstainers such as Charles Hodge, Bishop Hopkins of Vermont and Nehemiah Adams of Mass.

    Hodge testified: “If, therefore, the Scriptures under the Old Dispensation permitted men to hold slaves, and if the New Testament nowhere condemns slave-holding, but prescribes the relative duties of masters and slaves, then to pronounce slave-holding to be in itself sinful is contrary to the Scriptures. It is as much contrary to our allegiance to the Bible to make our own notions of right or wrong the rule of duty as to make our own reason the rule of faith.”

    Hopkins: “Here, therefore, lies the true aspect of the controversy,
    and it is evident that it can only be settled by the Bible. For every Christian is bound to assent to the rule of the inspired Apostle, that ” sin is the transgression of the law,” namely, the law laid down in the Scriptures by the authority of God the supreme ‘Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.’ . . .Yet he [Christ] lived in the midst of slavery, maintained over the old heathen races, in accordance with the Mosaic law, and uttered not one word against it ! What proof can be stronger than this, that he did not regard it as a sin or a moral evil ?”

    Adams: “Zeal against American slavery has thus been one of the chief modern foes to the Bible. Let him who would not become an infidel and atheist beware and not follow his sensibilities, as affected by cases of distress, in preference to the word of God, which is the unhappy fate of some who have made a shipwreck of their faith in their zeal against slavery.”

    I have at least four generations of Southern Presbyterian slave owners in my tree. I have resolved to defend them. When the Kool Aid drinkers charge them with man stealing, I demand proof by testimony of two or three witnesses that my granddaddys knew their slaves were kidnapped. Of course they cannot. They are then confronted for bearing false witness.

    Keep up the good work.

    Deo Vindice

    Kernel P

  11. Shotgun

    Hey Kernel,

    I was in Knoxville recently and had the immense pleasure of pissing all over Brownlow’s grave.

    Thanks for the kind words.

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