How Do I Biblically Think about Reparations

Title: How do I biblically think about Reparations?

Text: ,

Series: Questions about the Bible

Introduction:

The bible does not condone slavery, but it does recognize slavery as a condition within a corrupt world. Jesus has responded to this condition, and no amount of reparations will make you feel the freedom that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 2896 Church Asked to Pay “Reparations”

2896 Church Asked To Pay “Reparations”

The National Presbyterian Church of Washington, D.C., was asked for $2 million in reparations by the Rev. Douglas E. Moore, chairman of the Black United Front. The request was made at a morning worship service. The Rev. Moore noted the $8.5 million cost of the newly-opened church edifice, and said he thought it would be reasonable to ask its members to give $2 million to “rebuild the burned-out places” of the city—referring to the areas destroyed in the racial disturbances of April 1968. Requests for reparations have been made to other Washington churches and synagogues.

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/14/politics/slavery-reparations-explainer-trnd/index.html]

Sen. Cory Booker this week introduced a bill that would establish a commission to study possible reparations.

Sen. Kamala Harris recently told a radio show host that the idea of reparations should be considered in the face of economic inequality.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has spoken approvingly of the need for reparations for African-Americans, as well as for Native Americans whose land was seized by European settlers.

So has former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.

(1) What are reparations?

(1) What are reparations?

[https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-are-reparations-explainer]

By a Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, reparations are actions taken to “make amends, offering expiation (atonement), or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury.” Although it’s been thrust into the spotlight under the discussion of reparations for African descendants, it’s not a new concept. Historically, various groups have received reparations, including (but not limited to) payments made to Holocaust survivors and Japanese-Americans after their forced captivity in internment camps. In these cases, reparations have been financial payments, which is how they’re typically framed for descendants of slaves in the U.S.

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/14/politics/slavery-reparations-explainer-trnd/index.html]

How do you put a cash value on hundreds of years of forced servitude?

This may be the most contested part. Academics, lawyers and activists have given it a shot, though, and their results vary.Most formulations have produced numbers from as low as $17 billion to as high as almost $5 trillion.-- The most often-quoted figure, though, is truly staggering, as anthropologist and author Jason Hickel notes in his 2018 book, "The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets":"It is estimated that the United States alone benefited from a total of 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and the abolition of slavery in 1865. Valued at the US minimum wage, with a modest rate of interest, that is worth $97 trillion today."Keep in mind, the total US federal budget for fiscal year 2018 was $4.1 trillion.

Reparations are a means to try and satisfy or make up to those whose family were enslaved.

A biblical example of this: (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabiti-anyabwile/reparations-are-biblical/)

Consider the book of Ezra. The action begins “in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia” (). That places us at 539 B.C. when Cyrus the Great came to power. It is 70 years after Babylon captured Israel and took them into captivity. Already we’re talking about roughly two generations…

So two generations (70 years) after the Babylonian defeat by Nebuchadnezzar, an entirely new empire has emerged, and a pagan king uninvolved in the sacking of Israel initiates the repatriation and the reparation of Israel. That reparation began with returning the items taken from the house of the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar defeated them (). This was the first act of reparation. This was all by God’s hand.

Fast forward to . Another 20 years or so have passed since the opening of . The prophets Haggai and Zechariah speak God’s Word to Israel. Some Israelites have returned to the land, but other waves have yet to arrive. Now King Darius rules the empire. In one historical recounting, the temple is rebuilt in 515 B.C. … So we’re now about 100 years after the first exiles went into Babylon, about three generations later.

What do we see relevant to our discussion of reparations? We see exactly what we’re told would be injustices in any modern program of reparations. In , King Darius—a king who wasn’t even born when Israel was conquered ruling over an empire that wasn’t even in existence when the exile began—passed a law decreeing that taxes be paid by people who did not conquer or abuse Israel in order to restore Israelites who themselves were not alive during the Babylonian conquest of Israel.

… In other words, Darius, as head of state, compels his citizens through taxes to pay a reparation to Israel even though those citizens did not commit the offense and those Israelites did not directly suffer the offense. What had been stolen was returned and then some as the province was commanded to give “whatever is needed” to restore temple worship and offerings “day by day without fail” (v. 9).

(2) How does this relate to the bigger issue of slavery?

(i) Slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96), author of the powerful bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin, wrote that Southern masters had absolute control over every facet of their slaves’ lives: “The legal power of the master amounts to an absolute despotism over body and soul,” and “there is no protection for the slave’s life.”2

Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (p. 125). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

(i) Slavery with rigour is what Israel suffered in Egypt -

(ii) Slavery in Israel was different: , (Year of Jubilee consideration)

Relevance: Be careful not to confuse the slavery of Israel with pre-Civil War slavery. There are distinctions.

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 4342 Wilberforce’s Deathbed News

4342 Wilberforce’s Deathbed News

William Wilberforce early became enflamed with the idea of stopping the slave trade and slavery in England. He succeeded in becoming a member of Parliament. Goaded by William Pitt, he spoke often against slavery and the slave trade but suffered repeated defeats in Parliament.

In 1807 he persuaded his colleagues to ban the slave trade. Not until 1833 did both houses of Parliament finally abolish slavery in Britain. The news of total victory came to Wilberforce on his deathbed. He was motivated in his life’s career by an idea whose time finally came.

(3) Does the Bible condone slavery?

Not the kind of slavery that the Bible is often accused of condoning.

The runaway slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1817–95) wrote in his autobiography about his first slaveowner, Captain Anthony.

He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave-holding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.

Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (pp. 124-125). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

(4) How the gospel shapes our perspective of slavery?

10,000 Sermon Illustrations Sin of Slavery

Sin of Slavery

That great American hero, editor, school teacher, and Presbyterian clergyman Elijah Lovejoy left the pulpit and returned to the press in order to be sure his words reached more people. The Civil War might have been averted and a peaceful emancipation of slaves achieved had there been more like him. After observing one lynching, Lovejoy was committed forever to fighting uncompromisingly the awful sin of slavery. Mob action was brought against him time after time; neither this nor many threats and attempts on his life deterred him. Repeated destruction of his presses did not stop him. “If by compromise is meant that I should cease from my duty, I cannot make it. I fear God more that I fear man. Crush me if you will, but I shall die at my post...”

And he did, four days later, at the hands of another mob. No one of the ruffians was prosecuted or indicted or punished in any way for this murder. (Some of Lovejoy’s defenders were prosecuted! One of the mob assassins was later elected mayor of Alton!) However, note this: One young man was around who was deeply moved by the Lovejoy martyrdom. He had just been elected to the Illinois legislature. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

Paul Simon, “Elijah Lovejoy,” Presbyterian Life, 18:13 (November 1, 1965), quoted in K. Mennenger, Whatever Became of Sin, p. 210

(i) First, understand that the Old Testament presents the reality of life in a sin-corrupted world.

In other words, the slavery of the OT is far more significant. It is a slavery into which all mankind has fallen. The slavery (mastery) of sin - culminating in physical death.

Slavery is the result of moral failure among humans. Men and women do NOT love each other as they should.

Moral failure among humans is a result of spiritual failure before the Creator. Men & women do not love God as they should.

Thus: you cannot separate physical slavery from understanding the spiritual root.

(ii) Second, through the law God’s ideal is continually presented.

What should the world look like?

An ideal where God is worshipped alone.

An ideal where there is holiness and love for God and our neighbor.

An ideal where we care for one another.

(iii) In the NT, we see Jesus Christ come to fulfill this ideal by:

Being the only true free One who loves God and loves his neighbor perfectly.

By voluntarily submitting himself NOT to the mastery of sin but the mastery of the consequence of sin — Death.

Through this Jesus positions himself to break the chains of this consequence, which he does in the Resurrection.

(iv) In the NT, we see Jesus Christ now make true free living available to those who are captive to Him.

(v) Jesus thus makes it possible to be a people who cannot be enslaved by consequence of sin any longer.

This then eliminates a slavery that is purely circumstantial.

We don’t see slavery is purely a physical problem. We understand it to be a symptom of a deeply spiritual problem.

(vi) Thus a person who has been liberated by the gospel sees slavery through a completely different lens.

He is not ruled by money

He is not ruled by the fear of men circumstantially

10,000 Sermon Illustrations Sin of Slavery

Sin of Slavery

That great American hero, editor, school teacher, and Presbyterian clergyman Elijah Lovejoy left the pulpit and returned to the press in order to be sure his words reached more people. The Civil War might have been averted and a peaceful emancipation of slaves achieved had there been more like him. After observing one lynching, Lovejoy was committed forever to fighting uncompromisingly the awful sin of slavery. Mob action was brought against him time after time; neither this nor many threats and attempts on his life deterred him. Repeated destruction of his presses did not stop him. “If by compromise is meant that I should cease from my duty, I cannot make it. I fear God more that I fear man. Crush me if you will, but I shall die at my post...”

And he did, four days later, at the hands of another mob. No one of the ruffians was prosecuted or indicted or punished in any way for this murder. (Some of Lovejoy’s defenders were prosecuted! One of the mob assassins was later elected mayor of Alton!) However, note this: One young man was around who was deeply moved by the Lovejoy martyrdom. He had just been elected to the Illinois legislature. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

Paul Simon, “Elijah Lovejoy,” Presbyterian Life, 18:13 (November 1, 1965), quoted in K. Mennenger, Whatever Became of Sin, p. 210

One mightier than Elijah Lovejoy and a greater than Abraham Lincoln gave his life for your freedom.

Summary:

The bible does not condone slavery, but it does recognize slavery as a condition within a corrupt world. Jesus has responded to this condition, and no amount of reparations will make you feel the freedom that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

(5) How do I think biblically about reparations?

(i) Remember that the bible presents the ugly consequences of sin.

(ii) Remember that Jesus came to liberate you from slavery for his glory (irony: enslave you to himself).

(iii) Be careful not approach the bible with your political agenda in mind.

So two generations (70 years) after the Babylonian defeat by Nebuchadnezzar, an entirely new empire has emerged, and a pagan king uninvolved in the sacking of Israel initiates the repatriation and the reparation of Israel. That reparation began with returning the items taken from the house of the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar defeated them (). This was the first act of reparation. This was all by God’s hand.

(iv) Vote your conscience, but trust the Lord’s providence. consideration

Conclusion:

The bible does not condone slavery, but it does recognize slavery as a condition within a corrupt world. Jesus has responded to this condition, and no amount of reparations will make you experience the freedom that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

either the bible is contradicting itself OR

there is a mis application of the Bible that is taking place.