Evolution: Slavery’s Patron

“God does not show favoritism
but accepts men from every nation
who fear him and do what is right.”
Acts 10:34

Benjamin Franklin’s Anti-Slavery
Petition to Congress
February 3, 1790

Mankind are all formed by the same Almighty being, alike objects of His Care & equally designed for the Enjoyment of Happiness the Christian Religion teaches us to believe & the Political Creed of America coincides… promoting the Welfare & Securing the blessings of liberty to the People of the United States…

“These blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without distinction of Colour, to all descriptions of People, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing expectation, that nothing, which can be done for the relive of the unhappy objects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed…

“[We] earnestly entreat your serious attention to the Subject of Slavery, that you [Congress] will be pleased to countenance the Restoration of liberty to those unhappy Men, who alone, in this land of Freedom, are degraded into perpetual Bondage…”

Benjamin Franklin, President, Pennsylvania Society for Abolition of Slavery, February 3, 1790

Harriett Tubman
(1822 – 1913)

This courageous little lady exists as a giant
in the pantheon of human dignity and freedom.
She devoted her 91 years, putting her life on the line,
fighting to break the bonds of slavery in America
and to teach God created all mankind equal.

God created mankind in His very own image. Humans, corrupted by sin and driven by greed, shredded the beauty and the dignity of that perfect image. Slavery provided a showcase for unspeakable evil, a living demonstration of mankind’s contemptuous capacity to demonstrate man’s inhumanity to fellow humans.

What can be appreciated from a distance is the several centuries of courageous mothers and grandmothers who taught sons and grandsons of a God of love who promised eternal life and a forever freedom from slavery, for all believers who obeyed His commandments and remained faithful to Jesus.

WLJ

Rhiannon Giddens’ musical presentation, “At the Purchaser’s Option,” portrays a young slave woman’s anguish at the prospect of her baby son being torn from her arms and sold into a bleak future of cruel slavery.

As haunting and stark the message, there is no way someone living free can begin to sense the depth of the emotional agony of a caring mother being trapped as slavery’s pawn. Slavery’s insidious evil, lingers in the form of not-so-subtle discrimination, even in a culture, proud of its cherished claim of “liberty and justice for all.”