Drawing Conclusions

He continues with actual critiques of Wilson’s methodology, rather than saying “This hurts my feelings.”  In other words, now we are on to something.

It’s difficult to offer a critique of the history since there’s no clear substantive historical basis to the book. For example, Wilson writes that “it is necessary to get clear on the nature of American slavery, which was not what it’s abolitionist opponents claimed for it” (p. 4). But he doesn’t give us either a sustained critique of abolitionist claims or a sustained argument for a different view.

Well, he can say that. I thought the book offered history.  The world’s leading scholar on Antebellum slavery (Eugene Genovese) thought it offered history.  Who’s to say?

He summarizes Wilson’s thesis (accurately, I think)

Central to the book’s thesis and Wilson’s logic is the notion that “antebellum slavery was the normal kind of sinful situation” rather than “Apocalyptic Evil”

Here is why Wilson is right and Anyabwile is wrong:  the bible does not call slavery an apocalyptic evil, or even sin.  And if Cahill’s analysis of Hellenistic sociology is accurate, as I think it is, then Paul didn’t even call that institution evil, though he would have called the actions sinful.

And here is the dangerous challenge and warning:

At the same time, we should never allow secularists to come in and correct “mistakes” in our regular history that would also be considered (by our high gloss elites) to have been mistakes in the sacred history as well.

In fact, Wilson drops the hammer:

Why are we back-seat-driving for the Virginia plantation owner, or the Massachusetts farmer, when there is an abortion clinic just three miles from your house? What are we going to do about that, and why? Anything you praise a century and a half ago is praiseworthy now, right? Anything you condemn now should be condemned back then, right? If you would shoot somebody for doing “bad things” then, you should shoot somebody for doing worse now, right?

If slavery is evil and worth killing white Southerners over, and abortion is a greater evil (which all will grant), well…you aren’t stupid.  You can draw the conclusion. If you are not willing to draw it, then maybe you need to rework your historiography.

Wilson writes,

“It was the contention of this booklet that the way in which slavery ended has had ongoing deleterious consequences for modern Christians in our current culture wars, and that slavery was far more benign in practice than it was made to appear in the literature of the abolitionists” (p. 14; emphasis added).

Anyabbwile:  That’s a massive claim.

This is a commonsense claim.  I get really angry at conservatives for quoting Lincoln, comparing abortion to slavery, and then getting mad at Obama for executive orders.  So what that your state voted against sodomite marriages and a federal judge struck it down?  America fought a war that negated the 10th Amendment.  One of the consequences of that war is that a Federal judge has every constitutional right to strike down such a law (even if he will be judged by God for doing so).

.” I don’t begrudge Southerners telling their history and defending themselves at various points along the way.

Yes you do.

Anyabwile’s Specifics

My goal in these posts is to raise epistemological awareness of some issues relating to biblical ethics. As it stands, any humanist can ride circles around well-meaning Christian ethicists on what the Bible says about slavery.

After searching TGC for specifics on this debate, and wading through a lot of irrelevant posts on “insensitivity,” Anyabwile finally gets to the heart of the matter. He writes,

This, the central premise of the book, fails to sense how horrific an experience slavery was for African Americans.

Wilson’s larger argument is that Southern slavery was far more benign than Roman slavery. I do not think he is saying it is an ethical good, but merely making a contrast. I might take issue with some parts of Wilson’s book, but he has a point here: what was the difference between slaves in Greece and Rome and Southern slaves? The former could be killed and sexually used with impunity. While this certainly happened to a lesser degree in the South, the South had moral and cultural bulwarks to lessen this evil. Rome did not.  Here is the argument:  The Hellenistic world saw the man as needing sexual release in any way he got.  Semen was building up in him and he had to release it somehow (other men, women, animals, slaves, etc). Even Roman and Greek youth–youth who were not slaves– could be masturbated on until they became adults (Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea).  The only thing forbidden was actual penetration.  Now if that would happen to the free sons, imagine–or don’t, for that matter–what would have happened to the slaves. That didn’t happen in the South. There’s Christianity for you. But Lincoln died on the cross to free the slaves.

Does that make African slavery right?  (Why just African?  Many Scots and Irish went to the plantations, too).  My point is that if Paul knew that was happening to slaves in the Roman empire and he didn’t say anything (the only thing he did say was Masters be right to your slaves), then that sheds some light on Southern slavery and the Church.

Anyabwile writes,

Second, Wilson writes about the “obvious inferiority of black culture” with seemingly no understanding or acknowledgement of how the Southern culture he’s defending actually actively guaranteed black underdevelopment!

I think both of them are wrong on this point. Wilson is simply stating a historical fact: where in Africa do you find Bach, Vivaldi, and neo-Classical architecture prior to the coming of the European?  Where did Voodoo come from? Why did the Haitians consecrate their island to Satan? The Malinese are kind of an exception. I am not making a judgment, just an observation. Anyabwile does have a point that the Southerner could have done a better job in elevating black culture. Fair enough.

Anyabwile is upset that Wilson writes,
Christians who doubt this should consider whether it was safer to be a black child in the womb in 1858 or in 2005″

But this is no different than what Martin Luther King’s daughters have been saying for the longest time.  Why is it bold and heroic for Alveda King to say stuff like this but racist for Wilson to say it? It is no different than What Ms Sanger said when she started Planned Parenthood. It is no different from what Alice Walker’s daughter has said, and Anyabwile has yet to answer the question, “Well, is it more dangerous?”

Wilson had written that more people are upset over someone’s calling Robert E. Lee an honorable than the black-on-black crime. Well, he has a point.

Even Will Smith was bold enough to call out black on black crime.

Anyabwile for the most part doesn’t deal with the specifics of biblical exegesis or historical realities.  At most he simply accuses Wilson of “racial insensitivity.”  Let’s pretend that is a sin for the moment.  Per Matthew 18, eventually Wilson should be excommunicated from the church (let’s pretend the Federal Vision didn’t happen for a moment).  By extension, that also means that anyone who thinks Robert E Lee is a noble human being is also guilty of racial insensitivity and thus risks excommunication, which is being cut off from the Kingdom of God.

How is this any different from Romanist tyranny?  Racial inensitivity is not a biblical category, and so it isn’t a sin.  Aspects of said behavior might be sinful in “not putting others first,” but that’s a different question.   While we are on racial fellowship in the church, when I used to attend Auburn Avenue (this was a long time ago) there were black people in the church (how many white PCa churches can say that today?  LOL).  We had the Lord’s Supper every week.  Thus, blacks and whites were sharing communion and eucharist with each other.  I would say at the same table ala Galatians 2, but churches don’t eat communion at tables any more, Galatians 2 notwithstanding.  But you get the idiom.

The Anyabwile/Wilson debate

My take is different.  I am not here to defend the “Confederacy” or State’s Rights.  I am largely indifferent to the political minutiae of such issues.  My concern is that well-meaning Christians, rightly recoiling from concrete instances of racism, go beyond Scripture and proclaim as sin what Scripture does not call sin. This is the essence of Legalism.

I am not defending slavery. I am defending the Bible.  If the bible doesn’t call “slavery” a sin, then I can’t.  If the Bible doesn’t call for the Jubilee laws to be enacted on all Christians (whether or not that is a good idea) then we can’t say someone who doesn’t call for that is sinning.

Further, unless conservatives own up to the fact that the Bible sanctioned slavery as a regulation of ills in society, whether related to sin or just bad luck, they will lose every debate with humanists.

It’s difficult to follow this debate.  Neither debater does a good job collecting all of the posts for and against.  More often than not Anyabwile is not attacking biblical arguments but pointing out to Wilson that he is “insensitive.”  And?  After a while it gets hard to find yet new ways to “reconcile” or apologize for the infinite strands of racism.   Even worse, insensitivity isn’t  a biblical category.

Anyabwile begins with a list of agreements that most could agree on.  I do want to call attention to his “Jubilee” logic.  I agree that the Gospel liberates, but appealing to the Levitical Jubilee is problematic: 1) It’s in Leviticus so it isn’t immediately clear how it applies today (remember why Bahnsen got persecuted?) and 2) Jesus and the disciples did not make the connection between Jubilee logic and freeing slaves, whether or not such an inference is warranted.

Anyabwile rebuts Wilson for privileging constitutional arguments over GOd’s word.  If that is what Wilson truly were doing, then he’s wrong.  I don’t think that is the case, though.

Anyabwile writes,

Only an immediate end to slavery would have been consistent with the “jubilee logic” of the gospel and repentant of the “grievous sin” of racism upon which the practice was based.

I don’t want to sound cold or hard, but this isn’t true.  It flies in the face of Leviticus 25 (and if the Jubilee applies today, then so does chapter 25). And it is a matter of common sense that a person, white or black, who is culturally, educationally, and spiritually not as advanced cannot seriously participate in the advanced culture of a civilization.  Go to the ghetto today and tell me I am wrong.

Regarding #2: Speculation is vain.  We have no idea how slavery would have continued or ended if the South had won.  We do know that the Confederate elite:  Jackson, Lee, A.H. Stevens, and others rejected slavery and sought for better means of ending it.   Further, Wilson completely refutes Anyabwile’s logic:

For an American soldier to go the Middle East today and fight for “democracy” is also to fight against nations that don’t allow abortion-on-demand, and it is to fight for a nation that does. To help America is therefore to help abortion.

That is the most devastating rebuttal I have seen in the past few years.

Further, Wilson points out something painfully obvious:  Our obedience before God will be reckoned in how we dealt with the sins of our own era, not the sins of another. My central interest in all these historical issues has to do with how the legal principles that were laid down then are being understood and applied today.

Regarding #3 Anyabwile effectively concedes the debate to Wilson, only noting that we need to be gentle about “angular texts,” whatever that means.

Regarding #4:  I agree that the Constitution is a weak document and appeals to it are pathetically naive.

Elsewhere, Anyabwile tries to give concrete definitions on “racism” and “sensitivity.”  This is good, as many are notoriously vague on this point. He defines it as,

I would suggest it’s a certain inability or unwillingness to sense and lovingly consider the concerns, feelings, and perspectives of others across racial lines

Fair enough.   We should all be aware of common courtesy.  I’m just not clear on the biblical directive that I should use this as the filter for all truth and discussion.  Further, anybody to the left of Hillary Clinton is a racist by these standards.

He goes on to say,

So, who gets to decide? I don’t know if they get the final word, but the person so hurt should at least have the first word

 

Looks good on paper, but this can go back and forth.  Given the ubiquitous dominance of rap music, particularly its lyrics about women–white and black–does this count as a “hurt party?” (Just consult any Dr Dre song about white women getting raped and killed).  Anyabwile then gets to the heart of Wilson’s book, which I will address in another post.

 

Revisiting the Wilson-Evans debates

One of the stupider–at least rhetorically–things Wilson said is his view that

In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.

When I first read Fidelity I didn’t catch that (or I did and it was eight years ago and I have since forgotten).   I understand why feminists like Rachael Held Evans got angry.  Admittedly, this sounds degrading to women.    I am not defending Wilson, but I want to see how this debate plays out and issue a warning that while Wilson’s language might be stupid, his position is by no means the most demeaning among the debaters.

(It did provide fodder for some hilarious memes)

What Wilson Probably Meant (But Didn’t Say)

If you have read Lewis’s Space Trilogy, he develops the idea that maleness-femaleness cannot simply be reduced to sexual genitalia.  It is part of our very being (and maybe the cosmos, since one can find male-female dualisms in nature).  “Equality,” whatever that word means, cannot simply be achieved with legislation or feminist propaganda. Even if it were achieved, it wold make harmony impossible.   God’s universe doesn’t change because Congress gets angry.   Did Wilson intend all of that?  Who knows?  I think Lewis is right and Wilson probably should have quoted Lewis.

Let’s continue with the line that Wilson is wrong on this point.  I hold that he is.  I hold that he is because this will show that his feminist opponents–by their own words–are more degrading to women. Fast-forward to the 50 Shades of Grey Debate.   Wilson makes the point that sexual morality (even between male and female) is defined ultimately–to the degree such a definition can be given–by God, not by “mutual consent.”  Like Wilson or not, I think that is a truism in Christian ethics.    He quotes Evans as saying,

Just a few interactions though. Rachel Held Evans says this–and lest someone think I am taking Evans’ words out of context, the background to this is the 50 Shades novel, which Jared Wilson rebutted by the above reference to Fidelity:

“Note: I get that some folks enjoy getting ‘conquered’ to some degree in bed. That’s fine. Do what you both enjoy. But this should be a mutual decision, pleasurable to both parties, and it is certainly not required by God-ordained gender roles.”

I think both Wilson and Evans in this context are using “conquered” in the sense of bondage.  True, Wilson used the language of “conquer” in Fidelity, but since Evans and Wilson have now moved the conversation to 50 Shades, it seems the definition of conquer has shifted to more–well, you get the idea.   Wilson then makes an interesting observation,

So the problem is not the language I used about penetration or conquest, but rather who is in charge of the whole thing. The objectors have wanted to slander me by pretending that I put the man in charge of it, but I most emphatically do not. What I actually do (as she accidentally acknowledges here) is to say that God is in charge of it.

I’ve long since given away (Or thrown away) my copy of Fidelity, so I’ll have to take his word for it.  He continues,

It also means that I believe that mutually-agreed-upon rape games in marriage are out. Mutual consent is necessary in godly marital sex (1 Cor. 7:4), but mutual consent is not the final authority. Mutual consent is required by God, but mutual consent is not God

If mutual consent were the final authority, then there is no reason why a married couple could not decide to read 50 Shades together.

Again, it’s hard to argue with this (and I still think his language his poorly chosen).  Let’s go back to one of Evans’ quotes,

“Note: I get that some folks enjoy getting ‘conquered’ to some degree in bed. That’s fine. Do what you both enjoy. But this should be a mutual decision, pleasurable to both parties, and it is certainly not required by God-ordained gender roles.”

Wilson rejects this line of thinking.  So I ask you, “At the end of the day, which person believes that women-bondage is okay?”  Of course Evans will reject this, but given her language its hard to see what else she meant.

Foxy Bubbles

Doug Wilson originally wrote a piece on the Vision Forum scandal where he applauded DP’s “confession” and alluded that the woman in question was a Delilah or a “Foxy Bubbles.”  Now, Wilson is smart.  He doesn’t actually call the intern “Foxy Bubbles,” but the connection is hard to miss.  He doesn’t actually excuse DP’s behavior, but he plays the line “no one should say anything until they know what’s going on” with the qualification “no one will know what’s going on.”  Problem is evidence is coming to light.   He notes,

The point is that patriarchy is inescapable, and our only choice is between men being faithful, for blessing, and men failing, for humiliation and chastisement. The thesis is not that men are good, but rather that men are crucial. When they are crucial and selfish, a lot of bad things happen. When they are crucial and obedient, a lot of good follows.

As is the problem with everything Wilson writes, it sounds good on paper but there is so much ambiguity here.  He denies that the VF system, or the system that created VF, is to blame.  His reason, “Men will be men.”   What isn’t said and what is on everyone’s mind concerning the elephant in the room, is the implied “Delilahs will be Delilahs.”

Wilson’s Review of Doors of the Sea

I only recommend Doug Wilson with extreme reluctance and caution, but this merited a post:

Doors of the Sea Review.  David Bentley Hart is a talented Eastern Orthodox scholar who wrote a criticism of Calvinism after the South Asia tsunami.  Wilson explodes it.