CAN YOU KILL A GOD?

The Great Hush.

Suddenly, they never mentioned the God of slavery again. The Great Hush.

SHHHHH — We don’t talk about that God anymore.

Can you kill a God?

No.  But you can show it’s so fake that its own believers never mention Him again.  That’s what happened to the Southern “God of Slavery.”

✔️Slavery is sealed by the blood of Christ

✔️All opposition to slavery is silenced by the Holy Word of God

✔️ Our duty is to spread the "great truth"  that blacks are inferior beings, ordained to be punished for biblical sins

✔️Preachers were arrested, tortured and jailed for preaching against slavery in slave states

✔️It was a crime to own a book that questioned slavery

___________________________________

What the South bragged about at the time, our history books don’t even mention now. 

 Southern leaders did not admit they enslaved for God, that they went to war to spread slavery for God, nor than the punishment (torture of)  blacks was the will of GOD -- in fact, they bragged about it.

Slavery was "a divine gift"  said Jefferson Davis, and must be "protected"  even by violence against those who would speak, preach or try to vote against slavery in state elections.  In fact, no slave state every allowed a vote by the public on slavery.  

 Since you could not preach or speak publicly or own books against slavery,  it would be absurd to have a honest vote on slavery or the extension of slavery. And no such vote was ever held.

If you see, as you do, in text books such statements as "Missouri wanted slavery"   or "The South wanted slavery."  the author of such words does not know what they are talking about. 

Slavery was very much a religious based enterprise, so much so that slave states actually made it a crime to preach against slavery, or own a book that questioned-- just questioned -- slavery.

Slave owners did not allow the public to preach or write or even own books against slavery.   It did not matter one iota if the slaves knew of the books, or were influenced by books or preaching against slavery.  Just the existence, just the possession of such written materials was a crime, punishable by torture.

WHY?

From the 1830's on,  the opposition to slavery , in writing, in churches, in books,  even in the South had grown 100 fold from what it had been.   

Slave owners lost status and prestige -- in fact, anyone who sold or transported slaves was a social poriah -- they and their family were shunned, the outcast, the scum of the earth. 

______________________________and could not possibly have thrived in the Southern US without it.

In fact, the “Bible Belt” got its start, ironically, from this fierce religious defense of slavery. 

VIOLENT CONTROL OF RELIGION....
Anti -incendiary laws....

  As Debow (of Debow’s Review) said in 1843, “God has completely silenced all opposition to slavery by His Holy Word.”

Well, God silenced opposition in the SOUTH — with the help of the draconian “anti-incendiary” laws, which set torture as the punishment for those who wrote openly, or even owned books, that questioned slavery.  

Did did you know that it was a crime -- punishable by public torture then prison for those who simple preached against slavery?

Don't Dissatisfy a slave!

The "logic" (the excuse) for those laws was that slaves would be "dissatisified" if  they heard -- from anyone -- that slavery was evil.  The official line was that slavery was ordained by GOD -- and it was a crime to preach otherwise.

As if they cared about the "satisfaction" of slaves.    But that was the official -- official meaning backed by criminal laws that set torture and jail as the punishment to preach against slavery. 

______________________________________

Those preachers and people who were against slavery faced physical torture and jail if they spoke out against it.  And it's both stupid and a shame your teacher never told you any of th is.

The antebellum South shaped their world on this God — literally. The president and vice-president of the Confederacy both said slavery was the cornerstone of their nation. 

SLAVERY MUST SPREAD

THE SOUTH'S DUTY TO OBEY GOD

TO SPREAD SLAVERY,

 Their wars, their economy, their religion, was based on this idea that God that ordained slavery — and that slavery must spread, like the gospel itself.

Robert E. Lee himself wrote that abolitionists “are trying to destroy the American Church.” That’s right — CHURCH.  

Objections to slavery was met with the same basic response — slavery is “of God.”  Lee said only only God could end slavery -- because he ordained it.  It was evil -- evil -- remember that word, it was evil for man to even try to end slavery 

Those against slavery "are on an evil course."   Those against slavery were trying to "destroy the American Church"  per Robert E lee. .

Please don’t get me wrong — there were many great and kind people in the South.  But slavery was a vile, evil enterprise.  

And to protect this vile enterprise, South leaders necessarily used violence -- including torture -- to stop those who preached or wrote or spoke publicly against slavery.

If you grew up as they were raised, you would of course believe much like they did.  Lee, and men like him, never heard a legal sermon against slavery, never read a legal book that contradicted slavery as being from God.  We seem to forget that now.

We all know, and would agree, that power corrupts.    No one is today so stupid as to not grasp that power corrupts.

Well, slavery was an astonishing power, and it corrupted the entire system of government and religion.  Rather, men who had that power made sure they kept power and that included violence against those who resisted the spread of slavery, or even spoke against slavery, or own books against slavery, or preached against slavery,

Books against slavery were banned, of course, ships were searched regularly for “contraband” — meaning books and pamphlets against slavery.

  Preachers could not even own books against slavery — or they too were subject to not only arrest, but torture as well.

Stopping free religious speech corrupted everything. 

With religion unable to fill its moral role, unable to challenge evil, there was no power to stop slavery.  Religion became SUPPORTIVE of not just slavery, but even supported the torture of slaves.

A Southern “best-seller” was Slavery is Ordained of God by Pastor Ross.  Many of the slogans used by Lee, Davis and others,  came directly from, or were much like, the book "Slavery Ordained By God.
_______________________________________

BEATING A WOMAN TO DEATH

IS OKAY-- IF SHE LIVES A WHILE FIRST...

The Bible, it said, condoned not only slavery, but the torture of slaves.  

You can beat a slave woman to death — as long as she doesn’t die the same day you beat her. If she lives a day or two, and then dies from her injures, that’s fine.

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Exodus 21:20-21)

The Bible also implies that slave women must submit to the master’s sexual demands.  This is another scripture widely known at the time — but never mentioned now.

And remember, no one could preach otherwise.  There were very strong scriptural arguments against slavery — but such arguments were outlawed.

It was not always that way. Up to 1820, there were more anti-slavery publications in the South than in the North! But, as slavery grew, so did the threat of rebellion and the dangers of runaway slaves

.  So slave owners, who took virtual control of all Southern governments, and most of the federal goverment, passed laws outlawing all speech and writing that was against slavery.

If you preached to Blacks, you had to have a special license from the government — and you had to agree only to preach obedience.

So slave owners were eager to “give the slave religion” because the only religion slaves could legally hear about was for total and absolute obedience — even to the violent, sadistic, and sexually perverse slave owners.

When you hear of Lee or Jackson giving their slaves “religious education” — as if it were out of the goodness of the master’s heart — this is what they were teaching.

So the power of religion was only used one way — to enforce slavery.  It was not legal or possible for it to be used to oppose slavery.

Most of us in the 21st century assume that our ancestors had freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press in the South.  Not so.  

From 1820 on, slave owners enacted very strong laws against free speech and free religion.  See the book The Other South by Carl Degler.

Lee thought God would never have allowed slavery to prosper if it was not the will of God.  Therefore, because it exists, and because slave owners were the wealthy class, it must be of God.  That is all he was taught, from childhood on. What else could he believe?

To Southern leaders, the proof of God’s wish for slavery was not only in the Bible, it was also in their own wealth — and in the rapid increase of slaves.  

As the governor of Florida wrote, the slaves’ “rapid increase in numbers is the highest testimony of the humanity of the owners.”

If you were against slavery, you were “against God and civilization” — said the Texas Declaration of Causes.

Lee said God intended slavery to be painful and cruel to slaves — that is how you teach slaves, Lee wrote.  Pain was “necessary for their instruction as a race,” wrote Lee.

Davis said slavery was a “Divine Gift of God” and that “God delivered the Negro unto us.”

Slavery was “sealed by the blood of Christ.” The “great moral truth” that “God ordained slavery” was the very basis of the the Confederacy said its vice president, Stephens.

…The Confederacy was essentially a government by the religious leaders, for the religious leaders.  There was no distinction between the government and God — very much like radical Islam.  Robert E. Lee accused those who spoke against slavery of “trying to bring down the American Church.”…Yet for all this religious emphasis, virtually none of this is taught in our schools.  Why?

AFTER THE ASS KICKING — A DIFFERENT GOD

Notice, however, that once Lincoln, Sherman, Grant, and the Union Army won — not one Southern leader ever said such nonsense again.

Not Lee; not Davis; not Bedford Forrest. Not Debow. Not any preacher; not any civil war veteran.

Not the most extreme; not the most timid.  In fact, even private citizens, Southern newspapers, Southern books, thereafter never said God told them to enslave Blacks or anyone else.

One day their entire lives, their status, their reason for doing everything — was God telling them to enslave Blacks.  But then Lee surrenders — and they never mention that God again.

Even in their private letters, there was a drastic change.  No more mention of this God that ordained slavery.  No more insistence that they were doing the work of the Lord to spread slavery.  Yet this idea filled their private correspondence before the war.

No one said they had to give up their God of Slavery.  The only condition to end the war was for the South to stop fighting it, and recognize the government in Washington.

But Southerners en masse, without communication, dumped this God of Slavery. Totally, instantly, and forever.

It’s as if a light switch was flipped, and suddenly, no more God of slavery.  What they screamed from the rooftops one day, they did not even whisper in private the next.

LINCOLN’S LASTING IMPACT

Lincoln’s lasting effect is not just the 13th Amendment… his most lasting effect was forever exposing the God of Slavery as a fake….  It’s unthinkable that anyone anywhere will again use the Christian faith to justify slavery….

All other things may change — we may see the U.S. fall into disunion, we may see all kinds of havoc and discord.  Lincoln’s efforts to keep the U.S. together may only last 200 years or less.

But his efforts to discredit the God of slavery will very likely be enduring.

THE GREAT HUSH --

by Mark Douglas  Curran 

SHHHHH — We don’t talk about that God anymore.

           Can you kill a God?              

No.  But you can show it’s so fake that its own believers never mention Him again.  That’s what happened to the Southern “God of Slavery.”

What the South bragged about at the time, our history books don’t even mention now.  Slavery was very much a religious based enterprise, and could not possibly have thrived in the Southern US without it.

In fact, the “Bible Belt” got its start, ironically, from this fierce religious defense of slavery.  As Debow (of Debow’s Review) said in 1843, “God has completely silenced all opposition to slavery by His Holy Word.”

Well, God silenced opposition in the SOUTH — with the help of the draconian “anti-incendiary” laws, which set torture as the punishment for those who wrote openly, or even owned books, that questioned slavery.  Those preachers and people who were against slavery faced physical torture and jail if they spoke out against it.

The antebellum South shaped their world on this God — literally. The president and vice-president of the Confederacy both said slavery was the cornerstone of their nation.  Their wars, their economy, their religion, was based on this idea that God that ordained slavery — and that slavery must spread, like the gospel itself.

Robert E. Lee himself wrote that abolitionists “are trying to destroy the American Church.” That’s right — CHURCH.  Objections to slavery was met with the same basic response — slavery is “of God.”  Lee said only God could end slavery, because He ordained it.

Please don’t get me wrong — there were many great and kind people in the South.  But slavery was a vile, evil enterprise.  If you grew up as they were raised, you would of course believe much like they did.  Lee, and men like him, never heard a legal sermon against slavery, never read a legal book that contradicted slavery as being from God.  We seem to forget that now.

We all know, and would agree, that power corrupts.  Well, slavery was an astonishing power, and it corrupted the entire system of government and religion.

Books against slavery were banned, of course, ships were searched regularly for “contraband” — meaning books and pamphlets against slavery.  Preachers could not even own books against slavery — or they too were subject to not only arrest, but torture as well.

Stopping free religious speech corrupted everything. With religion unable to fill its moral role, unable to challenge evil, there was no power to stop slavery.  Religion became SUPPORTIVE of not just slavery, but even supported the torture of slaves.

A Southern “best-seller” was Slavery is Ordained of God by Pastor Ross.

The Bible, it said, condoned not only slavery, but the torture of slaves.  You can beat a slave woman to death — as long as she doesn’t die the same day you beat her. If she lives a day or two, and then dies from her injures, that’s fine.

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Exodus 21:20-21)

The Bible also implies that slave women must submit to the master’s sexual demands.  This is another scripture widely known at the time — but never mentioned now.

And remember, no one could preach otherwise.  There were very strong scriptural arguments against slavery — but such arguments were outlawed.

It was not always that way. Up to 1820, there were more anti-slavery publications in the South than in the North! But, as slavery grew, so did the threat of rebellion and the dangers of runaway slaves.  So slave owners, who took virtual control of all Southern governments, and most of the federal goverment, passed laws outlawing all speech and writing that was against slavery.

If you preached to Blacks, you had to have a special license from the government — and you had to agree only to preach obedience.

So slave owners were eager to “give the slave religion” because the only religion slaves could legally hear about was for total and absolute obedience — even to the violent, sadistic, and sexually perverse slave owners.

When you hear of Lee or Jackson giving their slaves “religious education” — as if it were out of the goodness of the master’s heart — this is what they were teaching.

So the power of religion was only used one way — to enforce slavery.  It was not legal or possible for it to be used to oppose slavery.

Most of us in the 21st century assume that our ancestors had freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press in the South.  Not so.  From 1820 on, slave owners enacted very strong laws against free speech and free religion.  See the book The Other South by Carl Degler.

Lee thought God would never have allowed slavery to prosper if it was not the will of God.  Therefore, because it exists, and because slave owners were the wealthy class, it must be of God.  That is all he was taught, from childhood on. What else could he believe?

To Southern leaders, the proof of God’s wish for slavery was not only in the Bible, it was also in their own wealth — and in the rapid increase of slaves.  As the governor of Florida wrote, the slaves’ “rapid increase in numbers is the highest testimony of the humanity of the owners.”

If you were against slavery, you were “against God and civilization” — said the Texas Declaration of Causes.

Lee said God intended slavery to be painful and cruel to slaves — that is how you teach slaves, Lee wrote.  Pain was “necessary for their instruction as a race,” wrote Lee.

Davis said slavery was a “Divine Gift of God” and that “God delivered the Negro unto us.”

Slavery was “sealed by the blood of Christ.” The “great moral truth” that “God ordained slavery” was the very basis of the the Confederacy said its vice president, Stephens.

…The Confederacy was essentially a government by the religious leaders, for the religious leaders.  There was no distinction between the government and God — very much like radical Islam.  Robert E. Lee accused those who spoke against slavery of “trying to bring down the American Church.”…Yet for all this religious emphasis, virtually none of this is taught in our schools.  Why?

AFTER THE ASS KICKING — A DIFFERENT GOD

Notice, however, that once Lincoln, Sherman, Grant, and the Union Army won — not one Southern leader ever said such nonsense again.

Not Lee; not Davis; not Bedford Forrest. Not Debow. Not any preacher; not any civil war veteran.

Not the most extreme; not the most timid.  In fact, even private citizens, Southern newspapers, Southern books, thereafter never said God told them to enslave Blacks or anyone else.

One day their entire lives, their status, their reason for doing everything — was God telling them to enslave Blacks.  But then Lee surrenders — and they never mention that God again.

Even in their private letters, there was a drastic change.  No more mention of this God that ordained slavery.  No more insistence that they were doing the work of the Lord to spread slavery.   No more nonsense that GOD wanted white men to punish black race for biblical sins.

Yet this idea filled their public propaganda and justification for slavery, and even for going to war to spread slavery..

It's important to notice something -- no one said they had to give up their God of Slavery.   Lincoln said nothing of the sort, no one did.  No formal or informal request to do so, much less requirement.  The only condition to end the war was for the South to stop fighting it, and recognize the government in Washington.

But Southerners en masse, without communication, dumped this God of Slavery. Totally, instantly, and forever.

It’s as if a light switch was flipped, and suddenly, no more God of slavery.  What they screamed from the rooftops one day, they did not even whisper in private the next.

LINCOLN’S LASTING IMPACT

Lincoln’s lasting effect is not just the 13th Amendment… his most lasting effect was forever exposing the God of Slavery as a fake….  It’s unthinkable that anyone anywhere will again use the Christian faith to justify slavery….

All other things may change — we may see the U.S. fall into disunion, we may see all kinds of havoc and discord.  Lincoln’s efforts to keep the U.S. together may only last 200 years or less.

But his efforts to discredit the God of slavery will very likely be enduring.