Enduring Friendship by Bryan C. Loritts

Author:Bryan C. Loritts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: friendship;adult friendships;Christian friendship;biblical friendship;conflict;conflict resolution;friendship conflict;Paul;philemon;book of philemon;onesimus;how to make friends;reconciliation;maintaining friendships;how to maintain friendships
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2023-11-30T09:54:43+00:00

7

Excuses

It’s time to deal with the elephant in the room. We touched on it lightly when I mentioned the great Howard Thurman’s grandmother, who refused to read the letter of Philemon, along with Paul’s other writings, because they were (mis)used by her owners as grounds for her enslavement. Mother Thurman is hardly the only one to harbor sincere reservations about Paul’s letter. Honestly, it is hard to ingest. Bible-believing abolitionists did the exact opposite of what Paul instructs Onesimus to do—they protected slaves along the underground railroad rather than send them back to their enslavers. So what gives?

For years, Bible scholars have danced around the matter by saying slavery in Rome was far different from slavery in the first few centuries of American history. No doubt their observations carry a measure of merit. Often, Roman slaves were more educated than their owners and were people of great means prior to their captivity. Many were professionals of great service to their owners. What’s more, they were not enslaved because of the color of their skin. So, yes, there exist significant differences between the Roman and American approaches to slavery. But aren’t we just splitting hairs? At its core, both systems’ commitment to slavery was based on its very definition—the owning of people. Onesimus rightly understands the inhumanity of being the property of another.

No one articulated the inhumanity of being possessed by another quite like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, with the latter experiencing indignity and mistreatment as an enslaved woman. Sojourner Truth was once beaten so badly she had to use a cane for the rest of her life. She fought for the emancipation of all slaves as well as for the rights of women. In her most famous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” delivered in 1851, Sojourner Truth exhaled,

Look at me! Look at my arm. I have plowed, I have planted, and I have gathered into barns. And no man could head me. And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne children and seen most of them sold into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman?1

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