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BORN FREE
PART II (final)
All Scripture citations
are to the New International Version, British edition (NIV-UK)
Then the LORD said to
Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?’
‘I don’t know,’ he
replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’
Genesis 4: 9
THE
WHITE SANDS and azure seas of West Africa
attract thousands of tourists every year. Hotels fronted by sun loungers dot
the coast line on either side of the river Gambia. It is a popular destination,
one visited in ancient times by Greek and Roman traders. After Rome’s demise,
Islam came to dominate the old frontiers and Africa’s merchandise had to travel
to Europe over the Sahara by costly caravan. It was only after Europe began her
renaissance that the sea routes were again mastered.
In the
fifteenth century, Prince Henry of Lisbon sent out his merchant seamen to
discover new lands and peoples. Antam Goncalvez was one of a few to navigate
the stormy seas round Cape Bojador, and perhaps the first European to sail to
the tropics. He came not only as an entrepreneur but also as an ambassador for
Christendom. His royal mission had a double purpose: to return with profit and
with representatives, or interpreters, with whom Portugal might establish
trade.
Serving
up the Servants
However
noble the motives of Goncalvez may have been, the heartless act of brigandry
that followed would set the pattern of European and African relations for the
next four hundred years. In 1441 Goncalvez anchored his small galleon off the
coast of Guinea and from here a small band ventured inland, looking for
natives. Under the cover of twilight the raiding party surprised and
overpowered twelve of the locals and took them back to the ship.[fn1]
Goncalvez
returned to Portugal with his captives and presented them to Prince Henry, who
in turn wrote of the conquest to the Pope. The Holy Father exhorted Henry to
take the Catholic faith to the new lands and reduce to servitude those who
would not submit. Within twelve years of this first raid, one thousand slaves a
year were trafficked to Lisbon. Sixty years later the numbers had surpassed
three thousand a year. A century after Goncalvez’ foray into Guinea, one in ten
inhabitants of the Portuguese capital was a slave from Africa’s Atlantic coast.
In
exchange for the human cargo, the Portuguese traded horses, gold and arms with
the African chieftains. War became a lucrative business, yielding captives for
the foreign slave markets. In a cruel twist of fate, Africa’s enslavement
coincided with the discovery of the Americas, two events that rewarded the
seafaring nations of Europe with great fortunes. And while Europe grew rich,
Africa divided into feuding tribes.
Europe’s
Dark History
The
French, English, Spanish and Dutch soon established forts and markets along the
African trade routes and competed with the Portuguese for an easy source of
labour for their plantations in the New World. Prison ships transported the
slaves to America, and after unloading their human cargo, were filled with
cotton, tobacco and sugar for Europe. By the mid-nineteenth century, after a
prolonged campaign on both sides of the Atlantic to bring an end to the slave
trade, over fifteen million Africans had been seized, sold and transported to
North and South America.
In the
old world slavery had never been practised on the organised scale that Europe
developed, nor was depravity so blatant. Roman slaves could at least hope for
release after six years, but workers on the Caribbean plantations were in
bondage for life. Only three quarters of the slaves survived the sea journey to
America, with captives confined by the hundreds below deck, chained together in
rows. There are no such horrors recorded in antiquity.
Four
centuries of this dark trade belies Europe’s claim to be Christ’s Kingdom.
While many individual lives have been transformed through obedience to the
teachings of Christ, the nation states of Europe, embroiled in wars and serving
economic interests, have not brought about the promised relief of mankind
promised in the Bible.
Chief
of Servants
The
contrast is stark. Those nations among whom the light of the Gospel has shined
brightest, whose kings, queens and ruling classes confessed Christ as their
Redeemer, failed to heed Jesus’ admonition that ‘whosoever will be chief among
you, let him be your servant’. It is a hard saying, and the weight of it also
caused the Jews to stumble.
God had
long promised Israel that He would exalt them, that He would raise up a strong
Deliverer who would with a rod of iron subject the surrounding nations to Jerusalem
(Micah
4: 1-3; Psalm
2: 5-12). Jesus did not fit the Jewish
expectations of a Messiah. The carpenter’s son, in spite of his erudition,
noble bearing and miracles, had neither military rank nor political backing.
Indeed His words and work only undermined the Jewish establishment’s prospects
of success. Jesus’ great love, meekness and humility discredited Him in Jewish
eyes from any claim to be King. The very qualities with which God endowed Him
for His future reign, repulsed those looking for one to lead Israel to earthly
prominence.
It has
been the same with Christendom. Many were bewitched by the promises God made to
His church to be judges and kings among men (Revelation
5: 9, 10; 1
Corinthians 6: 2). Authority and power intoxicate
the human heart, and God takes precautions to prepare those He chooses to exalt
with bitter experiences of shame, suffering and disappointment. Those who
endure these trials to the end possess a tenderness and pity that fits them to
rule over others, as well as having the patience and humility that preserves
their virtue while wielding power for another’s good.
It is not
so for the remainder of mankind, with whom executive ability is highly prized
and mistakes are counted as weakness. All men and women love to be free, and
the fear of being ruled over spurs them on in the race to get ahead, to be
recognised and to be rewarded with responsibility. These ambitions are not
necessarily evil, but the tactics employed often are.
Always
a Race to the Top
Whatever
good there was in the word ‘politics’ has been driven out by its bad
connotations. The word has come to mean whatever is expedient – whether right
or wrong – to achieve the will of one’s party. Politics now extends into the
office, and even into the family, and generally refers to the manipulation of
events for selfish intent. Politics works by degrees, establishing a hierarchy
of privilege, a social order influenced by the ability of an individual to hide
his own faults and point out another’s, or to amplify one’s own achievements
and deprecate the deeds of the competitor. The daily exchanges on the
Parliamentary benches are evidences of this.
To be
truly political, to act in the best interests of the people, requires
submission, service and sacrifice. Jesus ably demonstrated His mastery of all
three qualities. As God’s chief agent in the work of creation, He had held a
position of power and honour immeasurably above the status of mankind, yet He
gladly relinquished that glorious office to become the man Christ Jesus, the
world’s Redeemer.
As a
servant, Jesus preached to Israel the promises of God’s Kingdom – healing the
sick, feeding the hungry and enlightening the blind. His work culminated in the
sacrifice of His life and all that He might have had on earth. To free mankind
from the curse of death, Jesus first had to die. One might say Jesus is the
golden standard of what a perfected humanity is capable.
Perfect
through Suffering
The
accomplishment of God’s plan required Jesus to give up His freedom and choose
God’s will above all else, even unto death. St. Paul employs the Greek word doulos
(meaning slave, or servant), to describe Jesus’ condescension to man’s
estate. In His three-and-a-half years of ministry to Israel, Jesus did not practise
‘politics’. Being numbered with the transgressors and dying as a criminal, His
own good deeds were hidden from all but a few.
It is a
tragic irony that in their suffering and enslavement the ‘heathen’ Africans
lived closer to Christ than did their Christian masters. And when by God’s
intervention the Christian calling came to those African-Americans in chains,
the suffering bore fruit in their refinement of character – an evidence of
God’s promise to exalt those that are abased, to the confusion of the wise and
mighty. Not that this justifies the cruelty: God wants His creatures to possess
a deep spirituality, a trustful dependence on His providence, and a sympathy
for the weak and unfortunate – qualities which tend to atrophy and fade when
one is accustomed to comfort and luxury.
Service
prepares man for future responsibility, and the greater the degree of sacrifice
in service the greater the responsibility. Self must be mastered because
self-interest, when unrestrained, injures others. To choose self-abnegation is
difficult, because it is contrary to man’s natural desires. To serve another,
or to esteem others better than oneself and submit to them, opposes an inherent
sense of equality in mankind.
All Are
Equal
In the
words of Thomas Jefferson, ‘all men are created equal’, an expression made
famous through the American Declaration of Independence. The same aspiration is
found in the anonymous motto of the French Revolution – Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity. In both France and America the assertion was a reaction to unjust
servitude and the cry for equality was followed by a catalogue of rights to be
protected and enshrined in law. All of these rights have been framed from the
perspective of the individual and our modern post-war world is founded on this
principle.
In
December 1948, with the wounds of conflict still raw, members of the United
Nations agreed to disseminate, display and spread the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. The Charter lists rights which are now taken for granted:- the
right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to legal
representation, the right to be assumed innocent until proven otherwise, and so
on.[fn2] The Declaration is more than noble sentiments and has
spurred the movement to champion human rights everywhere.
The laws
of the United Kingdom changed fundamentally in 1998, when a Parliamentary Act
gave legal effect to certain fundamental rights and freedoms derived from the
U.N. charter. Subscribing nations are, in this regard, no longer truly
sovereign, being subject to the International Court of Justice, an agent of the
U.N. which settles disputes among member states. The U.N. Declaration is a fair
statement of man’s highest conception of what is right. But the equality of all,
though the concept stands unassailable in the minds of men as a self-evident
truth, is not absolute. God’s law is higher.
Love
is the Law
God’s law
for man is not a selfish preservation of his legal entitlement, but a
requirement that man be prepared to sacrifice even this for the higher good.
Love is the law – this is the essence of St. Paul’s exhortation in
Romans
13: 10. For Love will not violate justice, but
will see that justice is preserved and even lay down life itself in the
blessing of others. Love is the lifeblood of service. This is not merely a
sensual or sexual love, but one which has no self-interest, a love which is
prepared to suffer loss in order to foster the welfare of others.
God is
love, and man was made in God’s image. We might therefore expect love to be a
defining characteristic of humanity. And so it is. The proof of the observation
is that out of love the individual often abandons his claim to personal freedom
and chooses to enslave himself in service for others. It is a master-stroke of
God that He has put into His Word this gem of wisdom – that the ideal state of
man is one of service, and that he is either degraded or exalted by it.
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Notes
[fn1] Gomes Eannes De Azurara, Chronicle of the Discovery and
Conquest of Guinea (London: Hakluyt Society, 1896), 39. The account of
Antam Goncalvez’ raid can be found online here:
<http://www.archive.org/stream/chroniclediscov00presgoog#page/n124/mode/1up> (retrieved 22
November, 2010).
[fn2] United Nations Declaration of Human Rights <http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/> (retrieved 22 November, 2010).
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Article copyright August 2010 by
ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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