Jan
19
2010
Worth a Look 1.19.10
Marty Duren posts the first installment of an excellent interview with author, Douglas Blackmon. The topic is Blackmon’s book, Slavery by Another Name, which explores the ways in which Southerners in the late 1800′s were able to get around the Emancipation Proclamation.
What [the convict lease system] did was create a market for people in a society which, when this began in the 1870s, was just 10 years removed from when people owned people and the idea of buying and selling humans was still natural. This new economic market mechanism for valuing men and trafficking in them, very quickly many people realized a new way to again take possession of a black man who had been their slave only a decade before.
Russell Moore on why King’s vision overcame “Christian” white supremacy:
The arguments for racial reconciliation were persuasive, ultimately, to orthodox Christians because they appealed to a higher authority than the cultural captivity of white supremacy. These arguments appealed to the authority of Scripture and the historic Christian tradition.
As we reflect on Martin Luther King, Jr., other forms of discrimination continue. Martha Coakley, candidate for the Massachusetts Senate, tells pro-life doctors and nurses that they should not work in the Emergency Room.
Paul Copan’s advice to a future seminarian:
As you go on for further pastoral training, continue to develop Christ-oriented, soul-shaping habits outside the classroom. Seminary students often neglect spiritual nourishment, falsely assuming that doing homework in biblical studies and theology will suffice. Meanwhile, their spirit shrivels or, at best, becomes stunted.