Edwin Tait - 26 June 2009 05:27 PM

Sometimes societies take a wrong turn morally. This happened in the 18-19th centuries with regard to slavery.

Just a small correction about dates. There is some evidence that the first African slaves were brought to England in 1555 and better evidence that there were slaves in North America before 1620. Thus English society - inlcuding its colonies - yook a wrong turn in the 16th-19th centuries. There were also slaves in Britain in the 11th century, but that practice was abolished in the 12th.

There are the related questions of indentured servitude and the rigid class system in many Christian nations. Whatever else may be said about the slavery that was practiced in the US, it was not an entirely new thing and was based, I think, upon the odd notion that some people are superior to others, not because of greater intelligence or greater effort, but because of accidents of birth. That notion persists in the US and elsewhere in the reluctance of many to regognized their unearned privileges. Someone once that George Bush was born on third and thought he had hit a triple! That may not be true, but I know many people who just assume that they have a right to privileges that come as accidents of birth and are unwilling to see others granted the same privileges.

Daniel Weir - 26 June 2009 05:51 PM

Edwin Tait - 26 June 2009 05:27 PM

Sometimes societies take a wrong turn morally. This happened in the 18-19th centuries with regard to slavery.

Just a small correction about dates. There is some evidence that the first African slaves were brought to England in 1555 and better evidence that there were slaves in North America before 1620. Thus English society - inlcuding its colonies - yook a wrong turn in the 16th-19th centuries.

I wasn’t talking about the practice of slavery. I was talking about the shift in attitudes about slavery that resulted in the rigid, strictly racialized, and vehemently defended system of the 19th century. The PBS program on slavery in America a few years ago pointed out that in the 17th and early 18th centuries, African slaves were not treated that differently from white indentured servants. They were often freed after some years of servitude, and they were able to use the courts to stand up for their rights. Only over time did the idea develop that Africans were intrinsically and uniquely fit for slavery. (In Apra Behn’s Oroonoko, the narrator has to explain why the Frenchman captured with Oroonoko wasn’t also enslaved—it wasn’t obvious to 17th-century readers that Africans and only Africans should be slaves. It was still what it had been since ancient times, a misfortune that might happen to anyone.)

There are the related questions of indentured servitude and the rigid class system in many Christian nations.

The class system in Christian nations was never, that I know of, entirely rigid. There was always room for some mobility, however much it was often deplored by some folks.

Whatever else may be said about the slavery that was practiced in the US, it was not an entirely new thing

It had elements, which I have detailed, which were new.

and was based, I think, upon the odd notion that some people are superior to others, not because of greater intelligence or greater effort, but because of accidents of birth.

Are you suggesting that more intelligent or hard-working people are intrinsically superior to others? That it seems to me is a truly disturbing and un-Christian idea. And it seems to me that the most vicious aspect of American slavery was precisely the notion that black people were less intelligent and less hard-working than white people, and thus more deserving of slavery.

I agree that some people throughout the centuries had linked social inequality with intrinsic value. Aristotle had made the horrible suggestion that some people were naturally slaves. And as Thomas Brady has pointed out in one of his books on 16th-century Strasbourg, there were stories in early modern culture such as the “beautiful children of Adam” which suggested that different social classes were somehow intrinsically more or less noble and more or less loved by God. But by and large, the thrust of Christian teaching has traditionally been against such ideas. Christian preachers and moralists reminded the elites over and over that they were no more valuable in God’s sight than peasants, and that their privileges really did result from God’s providential choice and not from any intrinsic value in their eyes (and that worldly status was ultimately worthless anyway). On a more secular note, medieval and Renaissance writers were fond of the image of fortune’s wheel borrowed from Boethius, which again pointed out that the wealthy and powerful had no intrinsic right to their status. This is one of the reasons why chattel slavery tended not to be a permanent condition in European countries, and why even serfdom more or less withered away in Western Europe in the later Middle Ages. There was a lot more social mobility than you are recognizing, and this social mobility derived to some extent from the Christian insistence that everyone was equal in God’s sight and that worldly status was temporary. (I’m not denying that Christian teaching could also foster complacency in the face of inequality and injustice along the lines described by Marx.)

That notion persists in the US and elsewhere in the reluctance of many to regognized their unearned privileges. Someone once that George Bush was born on third and thought he had hit a triple!

I suspect that the failure to _recognize_ unearned privilege derives largely from the American belief that there shouldn’t be any unearned privilege. Most viciously, this takes the form of the Horatio Alger myth that anyone who works hard can get anywhere in American society (or should be able to), so that the poor are poor by their own fault (and the rich by their own merit). But again, this isn’t a traditional view. Whatever the flaws of the traditional attitude (as I said, I know it often fostered complacence and became self-serving for the elites), it recognized the reality of unearned privilege and told the privileged to be properly humble about the fact.

This discussion is taking me in directions I didn’t intend to go. The point I’m trying to make is that traditional Christian theology did not teach that some people were intrinsically superior or inferior to others. It did teach that social inequality was a reality of a fallen world and something to be accepted humbly by both the privileged and the unprivileged (not that the poor couldn’t try to improve their lot, but they weren’t supposed to be envious or resentful of those with more privilege). I’m not claiming that this attitude is beyond criticism, only that it’s quite different from the theory of racial superiority that undergirded 19th-century slavery. Racism isn’t an extreme example of social inequality in the traditional, providentialist sense. It’s something quite different, not without precedent in Aristotle and some ideas held by European elites in the past, but without any support in classical Christian theology of which i am aware. When the angry Southern letter-writer told William Lloyd Garrison that his advocacy of equality for African-Americans was irrational because their body temperature was different from that of whites, he was reflecting a view of humanity radically different from that of traditional Christianity.

In Christ,

Edwin

Dr. Tait and Father Weir:

I am a new member here and I don’t know very much about the Episcopalian or Anglican Church.  I’m trying to learn how it fits together.  I’ve read all of the posts on this thread and I suppose that before I comment on Dr. Tait’s responses I would like to ask you to recommend a book for me about your church’s history and organization. 

This thread’s movement was very interesting!  It first discussed the church’s organization, checks and balances of power, how they play into intellectual freedom and insight against the backdrop of what identifies and keeps your church cohesive, the integrity and preservation of their doctrine when they apply it and are tested in the real world and how too much academic insight can lend to the church or the priest losing sight of land.  Then someone mentioned how society can take a turn for the worst sometimes and slavery was set up as an example.  Then Dr. Tait spoke about the rich dynamic involved in slavery and the church’s provision of insight to deal with it, science’s role and society’s apathy and the weight of momentum.

I think Dr. Tait’s observations about slavery are wise.  I don’t agree with the concept of contributing to white guilt because slavery is often much more complicated than just one person or one culture or color.  There are a myriad of ways to enslave a people and reasons for doing so - color is not the only motivation - often resources, money, power, mythology, science and status play a larger role and is not so easy to cast off once it sets in.  As long as there is money, commerce, masonry and people - there will be always be slaves and, as Jesus said - “there will always be poor people.”  You are right that Christian Tradition often equips us very well for dealing with the world - it is the people within that ignore its adjuring.  Paul writes that we are not to be conformed to the culture of our day, but rather, let our minds be renewed in Christ.  Modern society experiences those (and much more cunning cages) at a faster rate and so preservation of tradition may very well be more important now than ever and not so much because of a blind and superstitious bulwark, but rather the understanding that evidence of its enduring or empheral nature will play itself out.

So, in this way, I see the church’s embracing of tradition as very admirable and wise - but there may very well be something missing here in this discussion and that is —how does the built and visual world speak to your church about its failures and successes?  If Paul was to everyone what they needed him to be, to the young, the young, the old, the old, to the broken, the broken - then how does your church respond to what the world needs you to be so that we understand your language?  And Paul also said to find a common platform.  I don’t believe kids will stop listening to Colplay, Ben Johnson any time soon, U2 or the Beatles or Britney Spears or Paul Simon.  So, again, I ask - how does the built and visual world speak to your church about its failures and successes and what parts of its broken cries ask you to speak to it in its language?  How does your formation, structure, polity - whatever - permit the flexibility in meeting Paul’s evangelical techniques?  How far does your polity go in dictating the flexibility of that form/platform?

My bible study teacher is an 80 year old african american woman whose views on the civil rights movement are very moving.  Scripture says that we should not try to take off the yoke of slavery, because Christ serves all - but if we can and have an opportunity - then go ahead (scriptures says) but to be gentle with your masters.

Father Weir’s comment about George W. Bush made me laugh because I happen to be a fan of George W. Bush and I would never say he was born on third and thinks he hit a triple.  The gospel turns the world’s wisdom upside down.  The least is the greatest and who is not to say that George W. Bush on 9/11 was the least and servant of all?  Or that government service is not all it’s cracked up to be?  George W. Bush, even if he was born on third base, with no outs, bases loaded would have Jesus sacrifice himself to bring him to home base. 

I would argue there are more slaves today than there were when the Declaration of Independence was written, ableit in a different form.  The process is still unfolding.  Kristol wrote recently in the Gainesville Sun a piece sharing how his friends gather and read the Declaration of Indepence every fourth of July and other documents.  Each would take turns and read.  In the article he writes, “Jefferson may have been overly sangine that the spread of the light of science would necessarily strengthen the cause of human rights.  But even the optimistic Jefferson was well aware that the enemies of liberty and equality would regroup and resist.  That’s one reason he trusted that ‘the annual return of this day’ would ‘forever fresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.’”

If abortion is slavery - enslaving a woman to health issues out of fear of caring for her child and the elegance and wealth and status society will not give her if she keeps the child on her own - what role does the church play now as it played when it turned a blind eye to the indentured servants brought over in boats?  If automobile payments of $400 a month in car, gas and cities not designed for human beings is slavery - what role does the church play now in “taking a turn for the worst?”  If $60,000 debt by the time you are 24 years old is slavery for an education so that you can earn enough money to eat and survive - what role does the church play now as it played back then in our narrow view of what slavery is?  If escalating property prices imprison people in mortgages and automobiles and cities that keep you tied to your job, paycheck to paycheck, food that is grown in another continent - what role does the church play in contributing to that slavery?  If the inability and lack of opportunity for people to work with their hands is gone, enslaving people to be dependent on other people’s masonry - what role does the church play in turning a blind eye to that? 

If form follows function and funtion follows form - what form does your church’s polity play in muffling and/or communicating the Spirit’s reflection and sword in service to the broken?

I don’t think I’m making much sense here, but… with regard to “taking a turn for the worst” - I personally cannot get over arab oil in automobiles - the quintessentially american dream.  If sweat, blood, human interaction, one on one - outside of the church - constitute walking cities - how does form dictate the function of the society we are called to serve and how does the church help people not fall into those traps without overtly benefiting from them? (large donations and socially implied exclusionary practices). 

Posts here have been written regarding these issues. entire sermons (one by Mr. Gunter that was a hit on You Tube) about Iraq, oil, war… Mr. Strout spoke about affordable housing…

This is very complicated - but for me - again I ask - perhaps because I lived in Japan and studied Asia for so long - how does the built world speak to us?  And what imagination does it inspire - or block out - of christian scholars, teachers and missionaries - using its own weight of tradition to make it fall?  If, as written here, the Episcopal Church loses one diocese a year - is God about Form or is he about Function and what traditional Christian attitudes are we broad brushing or being tricked and tripped by with our own myopia?

Where, exactly, does reason take a turn for the worst?  When you put arab oil in your automobile and think nothing of the people that give it to us?  Exactly how does that form, follow the function and the polity of your church?  What does that built world speak to you?  Am I getting across?  Am I out of context?  What do the masonry of our wares say to our intellectual castles and how does the church’s worship form’s function contribute to “taking a turn for the worst?”

Mr. Uffman wrote Karen once:

Karen,
You are right to point out the importance of historic Christianity to our mutual discernment.  The name given to this very important concept is regula fidei or the Rule of Faith.  The point is that we always are to read Scripture diachronically and synchronically (horizontally and vertically across time) with all the communion of saints.  So that sets boundaries for us so that we know when our readings are a departure from tradition.  But those boundaries are not inviolable (witness readings on slavery, for example). Rather, the Rule of Faith sets a very high bar for us as we begin to believe that we as a community have been guided by the Spirit into a reading that departs from the Tradition.  But how does is departure authorized?  The answer, dating back at least as far as the Benedictine communities that are so important to Anglicanism, is that we discern-in-communion.  And such discernment presupposes that all persons discerning are bathed in Scripture through their consistent participation in the daily office, personal meditation, and the Eucharist, so that the community has been equipped for such discernment by the Spirit. Discernment-in-communion is a conservin

Yes, I forgot also to ask what aspects of your church’s polity and organization determine its reaction time on attacks on tradition and scripture and the confusion it creates when the most basic scriptures below are in question. 

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians 6:18-20.

I have scheduled a meeting with a prominent researcher and physician at the University of Miami’s School of Medicine, a Christian, and will ask him to post bona-fide medical journals and opinions regarding Karen Younge’s thread in this discussion if he is so permitted so that we can add an element of reality to this discussion.  Ms. Younge brought up two very important topics and I read through the entire thread and all of the comments - “Can two walk together if they disagree,” and “The Possible Health Effects of Anal Sex.” 

I am interested in really finding out the facts.  Because, if indeed, like abortion, and like Ms. Younge noted - there may very well be real adverse effects to this choice, lifestyle, inclination - whatever - then how does the church reconcile very clear teaching in the bible against sodomy and same sex sexual activity and the very real evidence in our population of the effects of this.  It is so uncomfortable, but like Father Weir said, “sometimes societies go off in the wrong direction.”

Can someone help me understand how real these statistics are.  Surprisingly, while a very, very, very small portion of the population is homosexual, they constitute over 50% of the AIDS cases.  And, contrary to popular belief, AIDS has not infiltrated the general population - so, my question again, is it possible for two to walk together if they be disagreed?  May I invite a prominent physician from the University of Miami to post information for review so that I can be less confused about all of the fighting? 

Below is an article I found written by a Dr. Brian J. Kopp, published in the Centre Daily Times.  I’m not sure I understand why the entire Christian world is confused by the Episcopalian Church’s stand and afraid of it veering us off into a world that we may not be able to understand without the loss of human life.  That causes so much suffering!  How does the entire Christian world look over the Episcopalian Church’s dialogue and the basic scripture in Corinthians:

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians 6:18-20

Published by Centre Daily Times, Friday, June 2, 2000

Homosexual behavior increases risk of AIDS

by Brian J. Kopp, DPM

Parental warning: The following “My View” contains graphic medical terminology about sexual activities that may not be suitable for younger readers.
(Covenant-Communion readers - please do not read this article if you find medical terminology and activities offensive).

Brian J. Kopp, DPM writes as follows:

In her May 12 “My View,” Mina Yindra makes many errors, but I would like to correct her statements regarding AIDS and “bigotry.”

Promiscuous heterosexual sex carries with it a much higher risk for AIDS, primarily because of the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) associated with it, causing a breakdown in the natural barriers of both male and female reproductive tracts. AIDS is primarily concentrated among heterosexuals in Africa because of the high rate of female genital mutilation, leading to much higher than average rates of anal and oral intercourse, and culturally-accepted extramarital sexual activity, including widespread prostitution. Rates of STDs are quite high in these populations.

However, AIDS is by far most common among the homosexual population in the United States, primarily because the type and frequency of sexual contact, combined with STDs, is the perfect method of spreading a body-fluid borne virus.

Public health records demonstrate that homosexuals, representing 2 percent of America’s population, suffer vastly disproportionate percentages of several of America’s most serious STDs, with incidences among homosexuals of diseases like gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis A and B, cytomegalovirus, shigellosis, giardiasis, amoebic bowel disease and herpes far exceeding their presence in the general population. These are due to common homosexual practices that include fellatio, anilingus, digital stimulation of the rectum and ingestion of urine and feces.

An exhaustive study in The New England Journal of Medicine, medical literature’s only study reporting on homosexuals who kept sexual “diaries,” indicated the average homosexual ingests the fecal material of 23 different men each year. The same study indicated the number of annual sexual partners averaged nearly 100. Homosexuals averaged, per year, fellating 106 different men and swallowing 50 of their seminal ejaculations, and 72 penile penetrations of the anus. (Corey, L, and Holmes, K.K., “Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men,” New England Journal of Medicine, 1980, vol 302: 435-438; as quoted in “Homosexuality and Civil Rights,” Tony Marco, 1992).

A study by McKusick, et al., of 655 San Francisco homosexuals reported that only 24 percent of the sample claimed to have been “monogamous” during the past year, and of this 24 percent, 5 percent drank urine, 7 percent engag-ed in sex involving insertion of a fist in their rectums, 33 percent ingested feces, 53 percent swallowed semen and 59 percent received semen in their rectums in the month just previous to the survey (“AIDS and Sexual Behavior Reported by Homosexual Men in San Francisco,” American Journal of Public Health, December 1985, 75: 493-496; quoted in “Homosexuality and Civil Rights,” Tony Marco, 1992).

Lesbians show similar patterns of high venereal disease incidence relative to the general population. They are 19 times more likely to have had syphilis, twice as likely to have had genital warts, four times as likely to have had scabies, seven times more likely to have had infection from vaginal contact, 29 times more likely to have had oral infection from vaginal contact and 12 times more likely to have had an oral infection from penile contact (“Medical Aspects of Homosexuality,” Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, 1985, Jaffe and Keewhan, et al.; quoted in “Homosexuality and Civil Rights,” Tony Marco, 1992).

AIDS research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that the typical homosexual interviewed claimed to have had more than 500 different sexual partners in a lifetime. Considered by themselves, the AIDS victims in this study averaged more than 1,100 lifetime sexual partners. Some reported as many as 20,000. Studies reported by A-P. Bell, M.S. Weinberg and S.K. Hammersmith in the book “Sexual Preference” (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1981) indicated that only 3 percent of homosexuals had fewer than 10 lifetime sexual partners. Only about 2 percent could be classified as either monogamous or semi-monogamous (from “Homosexuality and Civil Rights,” Tony Marco, 1992).

To the present time, 75 to 85 percent of AIDS cases reported are related to homosexual activity, promiscuous heterosexual sex and IV drug abuse. AIDS stubbornly refuses to spread into the population in general, even 20 years after its discovery, despite dire warnings to the contrary.

These diseases are acquired directly through the sexual behavior homosexual activists are asking Americans to legally endorse and protect. Yet, as professor Jerome Lejeune of Descartes University, Paris, says of AIDS: “Only God can truly pardon the one who violates His laws; man pardons at times; Nature never pardons at all: She is not a person.” The brutal consequences of attempting to break the natural law are not bigoted or hateful, nor are those, like Dr. Laura, Cal Thomas or Gary Morella, who try to point out the dangers and simple truths.

We are seeing the natural consequences of violating nature’s laws now. They are also a warning to prevent the ultimate eternal consequences. How many will ignore that warning and continue to call the messenger a bigot and continue to shake their fist at God? How many will heed that warning of a loving Father, ready to forgive and reconcile His prodigal children?

I would argue there are more slaves today than there were when the Declaration of Independence was written, ableit in a different form.

As an aside, this is quite right - there are more ‘slaves’ today then at the height of the Atlantic slave trade. PLEASE see the work of International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.orj)to see their excellent work on fighting human trafficking.

Ms. Molina:

I fear that I’ve hijacked the thread by my posts on slavery and inequality. So I will respond to you in a new thread (perhaps more than one given the breadth of issues you raise). Fr. Weir: I’ll also respond to any further posts of yours on the topic of slavery/inequality in a new thread.

Edwin

P.S. I am also a very new member, by the way!

Dr. Tait and Dr. Clauss -

I will need to read through and digest the website that Dr. Clauss referenced - http://www.ijm.org/ - and then I will respond.  Yes, the breadth of issues is large, but a sin (a missing of the mark) does not stand alone; it generally resonates across social, political, physical and spiritual strata.  So, indeed, when even discussing one simple and seemingly small sin, weakness, less than stellar deft in identifying the enemy, we find that, inextricably, it is bound within the human flesh with all of its perpexlities, oblique paradoxes and a forest with tongues in trees and sermons in stones.  Perhaps in a moment like that scripture is the stone we use to sharpen our swords and, in conjunction with the rest of the armour Paul so eloquently describes - we may be able to find the Church’s role in dealing with it’s own disintegration (a houses divided will fall) and find our own place, contribution, silence, indifference, activism or outline of understanding of the issues that plague the church and that the church was called to race in.  “Run the good race.”  1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.  1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  1 Corinthians 9:25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

I would also love to be recommended a book about the history of your church, so that I may better understand how your polity plays into the sharing of the gospel.  Dr. Clauss, I thank you for bringing this very important element to the fore.  I know that George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice worked heavily on cracking down on the sex trade.  I know that in Thailand the sexual tourism is very lucrative and attractive and very supported by the Americans and the American pornography industry and certain communities.  My highschool friend who serves in the U.S. forces said that in a town in Asia he was called into a home and found under the home several young boys and girls who were going to be sold in sex slave trade. 

While not necessarily a specifically “Anglican” issue - as a church I feel that it may very well reflect on our blind spots; our communal blind-spots.

Thank you for your reply. Today is my day to rest and I must be going now to share lunch with friends.

Dr Clauss?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry…

Just call be Charlie