{"id":1459,"date":"2013-04-22T17:21:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T17:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/04\/why-is-a-famous-evangelical-pastor-defending-slavery.html"},"modified":"2013-04-22T17:21:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T17:21:00","slug":"why-is-a-famous-evangelical-pastor-defending-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/04\/why-is-a-famous-evangelical-pastor-defending-slavery.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Is a Famous Evangelical Pastor Defending Slavery?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

I was recently made aware of a debate going on in the neo-reformed Gospel Coalition corner of the world that I tend to avoid. Doug Wilson, a megachurch pastor from Boise, Idaho, argues in his newly released book \u201cBlack and Tan\u201d that the abolitionist movement was wrong and the Civil War should never happened, because if Southern slave-owners had been allowed to implement the Bible\u2019s teachings on slavery, then a more humane transition would have taken place through \u201cgospel gradualism.\u201d So a Caribbean neo-reformed pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, who writes for the Gospel Coalition, decided to engage him in charitable conversation (summarized by the Wartburg Watch\u00a0here<\/a>) about his assertions (which I guess would be the equivalent of a Jewish person sitting down to have a civil discussion with a Holocaust denier).<\/div>\n
I\u2019m of course horrified that this conversation is happening at all, but I\u2019m going to try to represent Wilson\u2019s view as accurately as possible so that I can\u2019t be accused of caricature. Basically Wilson seems to be coming at this from several angles which I would summarize in the following three points based on direct quotes taken from\u00a0his blog<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Anyabwile\u2019s blog<\/a>:<\/div>\n
1. If we say that Christians can\u2019t fight a civil war today to stop abortion from happening, then we shouldn\u2019t say that the Civil War were justified as a means of freeing slaves.<\/div>\n

\u201cIf we could bring an end to abortion in the United States by precipitating a war (or by trying to), should we do that? Abortion is at least as great an evil as slavery was. Abortion is at least as great an evil\u00a0for black culture<\/em>\u00a0as slavery was. If you allow for gospel gradualism now, then why is my urging a gospel gradualism in 1858 a thought crime? And if gospel gradualism was sinful then, why isn\u2019t it sinful now?\u201d\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently made aware of a debate going on in the neo-reformed Gospel Coalition corner of the world that I tend to avoid. Doug Wilson, a megachurch pastor from Boise, Idaho, argues in his newly released book \u201cBlack and Tan\u201d that the abolitionist movement was wrong and the Civil War should never happened, because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Is a Famous Evangelical Pastor Defending Slavery?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was recently made aware of a debate going on in the neo-reformed Gospel Coalition corner of the world that I tend to avoid. 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