From June 20, 2014, “Our job is to unlearn the lies we learned from the theologians of slavery“:
… The focus here is entirely on reputation. Thomas Kidd is concerned with how we ought to assess the reputation of theologians like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, and thus also with how to maintain our own reputation in properly remembering them.
And thus Kidd winds up distracting himself from what began as a hard look at a crucially important question, ultimately settling on a flaccidly platitudinous moral to the story: “God uses deeply flawed people.”
Well, first of all, no duh. “Deeply flawed people” is redundant. (As Edwards himself taught. Thus, Calvinism.)
But more importantly, we see here how a focus on reputation — whether Whitefield’s or our own — leads inevitably to the very “extreme” that Kidd was hoping to avoid. It takes us back to merely shrugging off Whitefield’s defense of slavery as a mere “flaw” that ought not to distract us from admiring his “powerful passion and integrity” and his “incredible significance and service to God.”
Just look at the unintentional self-refuting absurdity of that sentence about how Whitefield had, “in most other areas … integrity.” That’s not what “integrity” means. So Whitefield was uniformly consistent in all areas except for in those in which he wasn’t? Thanks.
Whitefield’s slave-owning and his lobbying for the legalization of slavery in Georgia were, in fact, an integral part of his identity. They were an integral part of his theology — his piety, his revivalism, his hermeneutic, his doctrine.
And thus they have become an integral part of our theology, piety, revivalism, hermeneutic and doctrine. Whitefield’s theology shaped the American church. Whitefield’s theology was grossly and essentially misshapen by slavery.
American theology and the American church are grossly and essentially misshapen by slavery.
Still.
That’s hugely important. Who gives a withered fig about reputation? Whitefield’s reputation doesn’t matter. Our “stance” regarding Whitefield’s reputation doesn’t matter. Whether or not Whitefield and Edwards should be “forgiven” and whether or not we personally should “forgive” them is a sleight-of-hand distraction from what really matters here.
What matters is that the theology of Whitefield and Edwards is pervaded by toxic lies that rationalized injustice. We — that is, white evangelical Protestants here in America — are their theological heirs. Our theology is thus pervaded by toxic lies that rationalize injustice.
Our job is not to assess the reputations of our ancestors. Our job is to unlearn the lies we learned from them.
Our job is to test everything and to hold fast only to what is good.
See also: Part 2 and Part 3. I think there may have been a Part 4 as well, but then I just stopped numbering them and started tagging posts with the keyword “slavery,” because this is an American blog and therefore that tag is necessary.
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