Opus 2019-211: Monday Pulpit: Lessons from Joseph, part 2 of 2, Slavery Sidetrack

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.  He was sold to Ishmaelite traders, distant relatives on their way to Egypt.  This is a good time for another aside.  The tangent is slavery which is a hot topic for us in the United States.  Reparations anyone?

Americans don’t know history.  Part of that is deliberate.  People who know history tend to vote different than people who are ignorant.  Take slavery.  The average American feels like slavery is an American problem, a blot on the soul of a nation.  It is the American Sin.  Such an attitude feeds into the manipulation of the elites but has nothing to do with reality.

Slavery has been a normal part of society throughout the history of mankind.  It was common in every culture on every continent except Antarctica.  It was considered normal.  The only people who were against slavery were the slaves and even most of them accepted it as normal.  Slavery still exists today in its standard form.  Even more people are enslaved in trappings that we don’t think of as slavery, such as prostitution and sweat shops.  Far from being an American problem the stand against slavery was an area that America took an early interest.  The eradication of slavery should bring pride not the guilt demanded by the left. 

Joseph’s experience is a good illustration of how slavery works.  His brothers were mad at him so they got together, imprisoned him and then sold him.  A good number of the slaves that ended up in the Western hemisphere got there start that way.  As a slave Joseph prospered.  He was given responsibility and power.  Of course he was still a slave but if you follow his story through you find that eventually he was second in power only to Pharaoh. 

Does that make slavery a good thing?  No, not in our modern way of thinking.  It just makes it something that was considered normal until modern times. 

Making slavery some kind of test of worthiness of guilt is nonsense.  Keep in mind that the slaves that came to America started their journey being enslaved by other black Africans.  They might have gone through several black slave traders before they ended up on a European ship.  Keep in mind that the slaves were going east into the Arab world for millennia before they went across the Atlantic.  Look up Kush and Axum.  One of their main trade goods was slaves.

In fact it was the Christian gospel that began a serious examination of slavery.  It is hard to hold someone as a slave when they are created in the image of God and are a brother in Christ.

We need to continue the discussion without phony guilt trips and political manipulation. 

homo unius libri