From Bill Bennett's American Patriot's Almanac:
Frederick Douglass was born a slave near Easton, Maryland, in February 1818 (the exact date is uncertain). A story from his youth sums up his courage in many ways. When he was sixteen years old, his master hired him out to a farmer named Edward Covey, who had a reputation for cruelty to slaves. Covey often whipped his new field hand until Douglass was, in his own words, “broken in body, soul, and spirit.”
One day Covey began to tie Douglass with a rope, intending to beat him again. “At this moment—from whence came the spirit, I don’t know—I resolved to fight,” Douglass later recalled. He grabbed Covey by the throat and held off his blows. The two men fell to wrestling and rolling in a barnyard until finally Covey quit. Striking a white man could bring severe punishment, but Covey told no one of the fight—he did not want people to know he could not control a 16-year-old slave. He never tried to whip the boy again. “My long-crushed spirit rose,” Douglass remembered. “The day had passed forever when I could be a slave.”
Douglass eventually escaped to the North, where he became one of the nation’s most eloquent voices decrying the evils of slavery. After the Civil War he continued to write and speak for the rights of black Americans. Though often a fiery critic of his country, he was also a patriot who was determined to make it a better place. “No nation was ever called to the contemplation of a destiny more important and solemn than ours,” he wrote. He spent his life working for an America that offered “justice for all men, justice now and always, justice without reservation or qualification except those suggested by mercy and love.”
Every day, Bill Bennett provides via email--for free--a reading from his American Patriot's Almanac. You’ll read about heroes, their achievements, and key events that took place “On This Day” in American history. Click here to subscribe.
Welcome to the Intersections Blog, where I try to work out where politics, pop culture, and the Bible meet
So What's This All About?
In case you didn't know, I'm in the multi-year-long process of posting a Christian devotional at the TAWG Blog. The TAWG Blog is, and always will be, mostly apolitical. For the most part, Bible-believing Christians will find little to disagree with there. But I also firmly believe that God's word can--and should--inform everything in life, and this should include politics and popular culture. How should we vote? How should we respond to hot topics such as abortion, capital punishment, taxes, and other issues? Which party, if either, is closer to the Biblical ideal? Tony Campolo and Ron Sider, Evangelicals whose political leanings are on the Left, have made the case in several of their writings that God wants his followers to vote politically on the Left more than on the Right. At times, some of them have gone so far as to equate voting on the Left with obedience to Christ, either subtly or not-so-subtly contending that the converse is true as well: If you vote Republican, you're sinning against the Savior.
I don't agree. I think that to the degree they actually resort to the Bible, they're misinterpreting it. With a whole bunch of caveats, I think politically conservative positions are a lot more compatible with the Scriptures than the Leftist positions.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
So there are two main purposes for this blog. One is to make a case for my political beliefs based on Scripture. The other is a bit more vague, basically to work out my political beliefs and figure out what's based on Scripture and what's based on my own biases. I certainly don't have all the answers. Some of this stuff I'm still figuring out. And I'm certainly open to correction. As long as you make your case civilly and based on Scripture, feel free to make a comment, and I promise I'll post it and consider your arguments thoughtfully and prayerfully. Who knows? Maybe we'll learn a little something from each other.
May God bless our common striving together towards both the "little t" truth and "Big T" Truth. Our watchword here is a line from C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle: "Further up and further in!"
P.S. -- Below on the left is "Topics I've Covered" which lists everything I've posted topically. It's come to my attention that some people would like to see everything just listed for them. If that's you, you can get it here. Thanks to my friend Stephen Young for the tip!
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