There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect[a] and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ... Ephesians 6 :5
I know what my American cousins think of the Orange Menace but I've never asked their opinion of what seems to me to be a baffling, overwhelming system of governance in which transitions with elected leaders seem to take forever, election campaigning begins almost immediately following inaugurations, and then there are mid-terms. And why does everyone including dog-catcher have to be elected?
During the recent mid-terms I was startled to discover that five states were voting on abolishing slavery...what!? Of course, slavery officially ended in the United States with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the liberation of slaves was finally enforced in Texas in 1865 -- now recognized as Juneteenth. According to a Global News article:
Voters in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont have officially abolished slavery in all forms by voting to amend their state constitutions, removing a legal exception that still permitted slavery and involuntary servitude as forms of punishment for crimes.
The initiatives on the ballot Tuesday don’t force immediate changes in the states’ prisons, where inmate labour continues to be used, but they may invite legal challenges over the practice of coercing prisoners to work under threat of sanctions or loss of privileges if they refuse the work.
But in Louisiana, voters rejected the proposed Amendment 7 that would have reworded the offending part of its constitution, partly because it might have legalized slavery again.Louisiana’s Constitution currently states: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, except in the latter case as punishment for a crime.” The amendment would have changed that to: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, but this does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice.”
These votes are reminders that slavery and involuntary servitude have been part of human societies for as long as we have been "civilized." Slavery existed in Canada as well, for Blacks and Indigenous peoples, as it did throughout the British Empire until the early 1800s.
In many places it was Christians who challenged the practice, arguing that it was antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In North America the Quakers were involved in the Underground Railroad, although there wasn't unanimity and some risked their lives in helping enslaved people to escape their oppressors. White people have tended to write history, though, and Blacks such as Harriet Tubman were fearless in their efforts to free others.
Sadly, other Christians have quoted New Testament passages which seem to accept slavery and justify their involvement in oppression. The apostle Paul wrote a letter pleading on behalf of a slave named Onesimus who seems to have escaped from his master, Philemon. This missive in now part of our Christian New Testament.
There are still enslaved persons around the world and, as I wrote yesterday, there are concerns that foreign workers in Qatar are mistreated and are in a state of involuntary servitude which has resulted in the deaths of thousands. In the States thousands of prison inmates do back-breaking and often dangerous work, including fighting wildfires, with little compensation. Do you remember Paul Newman as part of the chain-gang in Cool Hand Luke from 1967? It still happens.
I suppose we can be grateful for those occasions when oppression is abolished, even if should never have been institutionalized in the first place.
Working on the chain gang
That's the sound of the men
Working on the chain gang
All day long they work so hard
'Til the sun is going down
Working on the highway and byways
And wearing, wearing a frown
You hear them moaning their lives away
Then you hear somebody say...
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