Who Said That?
Monday, July 16, 2007 at 11:22AM 
Who said that?
"Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. . . . There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world."
Please leave your guesses in the comments section below. Please no google searches. You must guess!
Kim Riddlebarger
This offensive screed can be found on page 24 of the "booklet" Southern Slavery As It Was, edited by Steve Wilkins and Doug Wilson. Even if the distinction between race-based slavery as a sin and slavery as an institution can be sustained--and I am not sure it can be--the fact of the matter is that these sentiments are repugnant and Reformed Christians must repudiate them.
Southern slavery was race-based, and the subsequent failure of Reconstruction cannot be used to justify the supposed "idyllic" conditions of "Christian" antebellum south.
Reader Comments (29)
But several are telling us they know [or cheated and thus know] it is Doug Wilson.
Would someone care to please help me with Doug Wilson?
He starts his own church, school, denomination, debated James White on the Question of "Is the Roman Catholic our brother in Christ?"
Perhaps several of you out there can educate me regarding Doug Wilson?
Where does he fit? Who is this guy?
I would be appreciative!
www.dougwils.com
"The Reverend Douglas Wilson may not be a professional historian, as his detractors say, but he has a strong grasp of the essentials of the history of slavery and its relation to Christian doctrine. Indeed, sad to say, his grasp is a great deal stronger than that of most professors of American history, whose distortions and trivializations disgrace our college classrooms. And the Reverend Mr. Wilson is a fighter, especially effective in defense of Christianity against those who try to turn Jesus' way of salvation into pseudo-moralistic drivel."
—Eugene Genovese, Ph. D. Columbia University, author of nine books including Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made, winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History, teaching positions at Rutgers, University of Rochester, Yale, Cambridge, and formerly a distinguished scholar in residence for the University Center, Georgia.
Not to say I'm on board.
I remember when the controversy over that pamphlet broke out at the local university near Wilson's church. I couldn't believe my friends were actually defending him when I read the excerpts!
i don't know. that sounds a bit whiggish and puritannical to me. i always favored the deep south's old school prebies who left such sentiments up to the christian conscience. i wonder if such charges can be used to simply rest on a majority morality that has accumulated over time and place and ultimately judge christians in the past where we might "compare ourselves down to easy devils and handily declare ourselves fit."
i say that even as one who does find these sentiments repugnant and deserving of repudiation. but i am not so sure every christian is indebted to agree...
zrim