In case you have been locked in your basement, my home state
of Pennsylvania has been involved in two controversial matters regarding issues
surrounding the separation of church and state. The most recent case involves District Judge Mark
Martin’s decision to rule against an Atheist that was allegedly attacked by a Muslim man for dressing as a Zombie Mohammed during a Holloween parade,
citing a lack of evidence for the charge of harassment. The troublesome part of
the ordeal was the near 30 minute didactic lecture that Judge Martin gave to
the plaintiff claiming that the First Amendment is not to be used for insulting
the Islamic culture or religion in a public defamatory display. A firestorm has
since erupted and the Atheist community unfortunately responded in typical
reactionary fashion by overly exaggerating the details of the case and
calling the judge a Muslim. This was to be expected, but the reaction of American
Atheists, a national non-profit atheist organization and Central Pennsylvania
based atheist group, Pennsylvania Non-Believers, has, it appears, reached peaks
of ignorance and hypocrisy of unfathomable measure regarding another issue.
What began as regular business in January, 2012, with the the Pennsylvania House of Representatives adopting 11 resolutions in recognition of groups and individuals around the
state, including a resolution
titled, ‘2012, The Year of the Bible’ has elicited a response of disapproval from
all faiths and non faiths around Pennsylvania and the country. According to a conversation I had with my local Representative, who did vote positively for the all 11 resolutions, she had
indicated that Representative’s offices have been barraged with phone calls and
emails demanding an explanation for this resolution. The resolution was not
championed by her, so she did not have a comment on the motives of her fellow
Representatives. I did let her know that I was displeased with the verbiage of the
resolution as it is not a means of collectively recognizing all Americans and/or Pennsylvanians for
their part of the creation of our democratic state, but instead exacerbates the kind of deleterious religious and cultural divides, placing one group’s
unique contributions over the other. After our discussion, she kindly apologized
and even empathized with the message that this kind of call for recognition of unity is not the unity exemplifies the efforts of a pluralistic society.
Now my 45 minute phone call was enough to quell the concerns
that I had regarding the resolution, and I hope that my Representative takes mine
and other resident’s feedback seriously so that these matters do not have to be
addressed again.
However, other members of society have decided to use discernibly
different methods to send a message to the Pa State House of Representatives.
Early this week, in a co-funded effort, American Atheists and Pennsylvania
Non-Believers unveiled a billboard portraying an African-American slave with
some barbaric restraining device around his neck while also displaying a verse from Collosians
which asks that “Slaves, obey your masters.”
Now, I am not a Bible scholar and I want to state up front
that I am not going to be doing much arguing from Scripture. When I do, I will
enlist the help of other sources to back up my claims and arguments. But,
taking that I am not a biblical scholar, I was still confused about the message
that these atheist groups were trying to send by placing an African American
slave on a billboard with some verse from the bible imperatively stating that
slaves should obey there masters. It was not long until I realized that
American Atheists and PAN (as the call themselves) wanted to use this public
display to demonstrate that the Bible, more specifically, the New Testament,
has verses that imply immoral behavior. To further the relevancy of this
billboard, several members of these groups have come out to state that slavery
in the United States was endorsed by verses like this, and that endorsing the
Bible as a book that should be revered in the year 2012 for its contributions
to humanity comes with the cost of acknowledging a checkered past of endorsing slavery here in the United States.
What, if anything, is wrong with this picture?
Well, for starters, American Atheists and PAN will be found guilty of contributing the same kind of divisive rhetoric based on faulty information
by ignoring the facts as those who sought to use the Bible as propaganda to
perpetuate the practice of slave owning/trading. My support comes from the most notable man to use the Bible to justify slavery in the mid 1800’s, Jefferson Davis, and the interpretation
of the allegory for which it was really intended.
The justification for slavery in the United States,
according to this Wiki article, began in the 1930’s by then Senator Jefferson
Davis of Mississippi. Davis' main claim is that the story of Ham in Genesis was the biblical
justification for the enslavement of African Americans as Ham is interpreted as
being black. But when I did a little bit a research I found that this
interpretation is not actually the one that has the greatest consensual agreement. In the
context of Ham being cursed, the objective of this punishment was to justify
the subjugation of the Canaanites by the Israelites. If my historical memories
serves me right, and forgive me, it has been some time since 6th
grade history class, the Civil War was not fought for the rights of the
Israelites to conform to the Unions precedence and ultimately abolish the
slavery of the Canaanites. Jefferson Davis, using his scholarly interpretive
methods, I am assuming, saw this as a chance, I want to say last ditch effort considering the fact that this kind of argument was only beginning to make its way into the public forum around 1830,
to use the propaganda that the Curse of Ham was actually a racially inspired
curse and that the last forty to fifty years of a 400 year tradition of
subjugation and brutality is now ordained by God.
So we are left with two big mistakes on the part of American
Atheists and PAN. The first, as I claimed in the beginning of this article is
that these groups of Atheists have fallen into the same credulous trap of
pushing a biased agenda for political gain regardless of the facts surrounding their
claims. Funny, that is the same thing they blame Christians for doing.
The next big mistake they made is two part: First, the
irresponsibly and insensibility of using the tribulations of a race of people who suffered
unimaginable degradations over many centuries to be used as a prop,
irrelevantly I would like to remind, to gain the political favor of Atheists and "closet atheists" and to
prove that the Bible is immoral. If the last sentence sounds ironic that is
because it is supposed to. To add injury to insult, these crusaders of reason
are not even prepared to accurately provide the historically pertinent verses
used to back up the claims that they are making. Even if we consider the verses like the ones found in Collosians or I Corinthians, God asking slaves to obey their masters or accept their fate as slaves is derived from the still popular mindset that what happens here on earth is only a precursor for what lies ahead after death. And this is one of many main messages that God delivers in the Bible regarding slavery; that it does not matter if you are a slave or not, Heaven awaits those who are devout. In no way shape or form do any of these verses tell white people to take ships to Africa and enslave Africans because they have a right or even better, it is commanded. These are not justifications, these are consoling messages to a subjugated race of peoples; nothing more, nothing less.
Both the Stoics and the early Christians opposed the ill-treatment of slaves, rather than slavery itself. Advocates of these philosophies saw them as ways to live within human societies as they were, rather than to overthrow entrenched institutions. In the Christian scriptures equal pay and fair treatment of slaves was enjoined upon slave masters (as they also had a Master in Heaven), and slaves were advised to obey their Earthly masters and lawfully obtain freedom if possible (Ephesians 6:5–9; Colossians 4:1; 1Corinthians 7:21).
Yes, that is the context in which the verse used was written
and as you can see it is primed to create the kind of moral outrage that would
advocate depicting an African American slave in bondage to send a message to
the Pa House of Representatives that the Bible is immoral -insert sarcasm here-.
More importantly, the issue here is the separation of church
and state and ensuring that all citizens of our country and states are paid homage
to by their legislators. It is not only Christians that pay their salary and it
was not only Christians that forged together one of the greatest democratic
empires in the history of the modern world. I want to congratulate the Pa House of Representatives, American Atheists, and PAN for completely ruining an opportunity to forge alliances with the citizens of our states and country as to work for a common cause.