What's the point of all the moralizing against a practice that was just about universal in the world, and still is outside the west, as if you are somehow above such things yourself, as if you wouldn't have been just as pro-slavery as anybody else under the right circumstances?
Interesting question. What if I suggested to you that in the right circumstance you might be a Jesuit. Would that end your long standing judgment of those folks?
Of course not, but I don't judge them as human beings, I judge the evil ideology that is drummed into them. And I didn't suggest that moral failures are in any way lessened by knowing you're a fallen person who could have been guilty of anything you are condemning others for. I said more than once that it wouldn't make slavery less evil -- or Nazism or Japanese torture of prisoners or Communist murder of dissidents or any other criminal or cruel behavior.
Judging the moral wrongness of these things is not the same as self-righteously condemning individuals as you do, setting yourself above them. You consider yourself a Christian, right? Did Jesus condemn sinners? No. He condemned those who put themselves above sinners, the Pharisees. He didn't even condemn the ruthless Romans, only the self-righteous judges.
If I become pro-slavery under the "right circumstances" then I would be embracing evil. But many folks in those times did nothing of the sort.
As a human being you embrace evil simply by being a child of Adam. You may not own slaves or actively torture anyone, but you were "born in iniquity" as King David said of himself. How many in the deep South managed to escape being pro-slavery? Or racist? Even Harper Lee's father, who was her model for the righteous Atticus Finch, was imbued with racist attitudes in reality. I think this is point Percy has been trying to make: rising above your culture is a very rare occurrence, and even the best can't do it without special experiences or education to give them a different point of view. Otherwise you inherit the views of your family and the people around you. So how many who were born in the deep South managed to escape supporting slavery? Christians should have but even they didn't. The Christians in the North were the source of abolition, but they had the advantage of not belonging to a slave-dependent culture.
Although Lincoln was anti-slavery he had the wisdom not to condemn the Southerners for it. He had a sense of history and a higher sense of righteousness and realized the problem needed diplomatic solutions.
I think you are being a self-righteous know-it-all prig about it.
So it is easier to judge me that it is to judge any slaver. I see.
As I say above, Jesus was a lot harder on the self-righteous judgmental Pharisees than on sinners as such.
The most amazing and important thing is that the Japanese officer responsible for the torture of this Englishman, the "railway man," sincerely repented of his crimes after the war,
That's right, that officer was remorseful and repented of his sins after his country lost the war. That puts him miles ahead of folks that did not learn such lessons even after getting the dog crap beat out of them. Nice story.
What are you saying? Are you being sarcastic about the man's repentance? I can't tell. When you know about the atrocities the Japanese committed, apparently under an emperor-worshiping sense of superiority and right to rule the world, plus advocacy of cruel treatment of enemies that was drilled into them, I think that officer's repentance is quite remarkable and touching. He claimed to suffer greatly from his sense of guilt, and I believe him. It would be easy to conclude that there's some kind of cruelty inherent in the Japanese or their culture that couldn't be surmounted, but he demonstrates that empathy and remorse can be roused in anyone. By contrast, in documentaries I watched after the movie, other Japanese participants in WWII continued to justify Japan, denying the cruelties etc. etc.
You seem to want to treat all Southerners as evil people as if they aren't merely human and you made of the same stuff, but you exonerate yourself of ever sharing in such a mentality as theirs. If there's one thing a Christian should know about himself, it's that he's a sinner, and very likely worse than others, not better. The problem I have is with your condemning people, not just condemning a specific moral failure.
ABE: Here it comes, all the accusations that I'm just the pot calling the kettle black, that I condemn people too. Well, I don't think so. I sometimes warn that God judges sin and condemns sinners but that's a warning, and a warning God Himself wants us to give since He doesn't desire the death of sinners but their repentance. The message is God judges sin but it can be escaped if we judge ourselves as sinners, and repent. If I've lapsed into moral condemnation of the sort you do I'd like to know about it because it's something I've spent my life trying NOT to do.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
™ Version 4.2
