Featured Reparations

I object to your position that all posters here must stipulate that reparations are owed by innocent people to non-victims, or that slavery has any relevancy today to anyone's financial state. It seems your position is that reparations are owed, but should Christians find scriptural excuses to not repay. The reparations movement is all about looting and stealing.

 

The Mosaic Law gives instructions to Israel where the offending party pays restitution (reparation) to the victim. This law is governmental and as such the US government could fashion their own laws after it as a sort of "case law."
If we were to follow this path regarding slavery in the US, then only slave holding states before the Emancipation Proclamation would be held responsible for reparations. In fact, we could break it down to...only slave owning families in those slave States would be held responsible for reparations. States/families who did not have slavery, or States that did not exist at the time would be exempt. Anyone who could not prove ancestral lines to slavery would be excluded. Anyone who could not be tied to owning slaves would be excluded. Only the victim of the offender would receive restitution. (Nashville would be emptied of it's old money.) Rule of law would be accomplished.
So, yes, based upon the Mosaic Law, a reparations law could be established in the US. How quickly would racism rise if such a law were invoked? Wow, it would get ugly.

 

Yet again, this turns political immediately, because the admitted intent is to apply it solely to one issue—American slavery—but only very narrowly, without any thought to historical context. If we were to take this matter seriously, we would have to assess kidnappers, enemy tribes, slavers, transporters, traders, financiers, shipbuilders, everyone involved in the whole sordid mess of triangular slave trading. Then we would also have to review all that transpired since to right the wrongs and all benefits that have accrued compared to what each person’s state would have been had they never come to or been born in America.

 

I believe they have already been provided in this thread by another person. They are in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

 

Indeed, it would be messy and it would reveal injustice.

 

I would be cautious in so doing, though if a certain acceptable-to-God behavior was described in multiple passages, that would add weight to considering it as a principle. I'd offer the Sunday meeting day as a possible example where caution seems appropriate. Paul told the Corinthians to gather offerings on the first day of the week, though he added that it be done before he came to minister there, so I'm not sure that's a command to meet for worship and fellowship on the 1st day. That day is certainly fitting, as Christ arose on the 1st day, but Paul also wrote to the Romans about being cautious in esteeming one day above another. It seems there's some liberty there, though whichever day we choose, it should be done for the Lord.

 

I think this is an irrelevant discussion. What about Irish/Scottish slaves send to America or White slavery in Europe which continued almost until 17. century?
What about White man/women/children forced to work 14 hours a day or burned in factories behind locked doors?
Or indentured servitude (which we still see a reflection of this in brothels)
What about reparations for the people of Libya, Iraq or Syria?
Do you care about the people dying in Yemen? Not 200 years ago but still!
What about women abused from all races by men? Sexual slavery is still alive! Any plans to end this slavery? Or we don't mind because maybe some of us enjoy this secretly!
What about International Bankers selling debts of nations for profit? Or charging them with higher interests knowing they desperately need money? They don't look to the race. They rob and kill people of all color and races.
I think this race staff is used to attack White people and/or Whiteness and I find it unfair. My grandparents had to leave their home city (Prizren behind). Even though they were Slavic, they were killed and expelled from their land. 3 millions muslims (regardless of their ethnicity) were killed and other 3 million were forced to leave their lands in the 19th century.
As someone from a suffered family I think these reparation staff is open to abuse. History is history.

 

I asked a question and you did not answer, but instead asked a question. If you want to continue to sidestep, here is another question for you. Why?

As the verses I posted demonstrate, reparations are unbiblical.

Some unstudied voices say "visiting the iniquities" to the fourth Generation supports holding children accountable. Not what the phrase means. The consequence of sin can adversely affect others in subsequent Generations. But the solution is not to fan class or race warfare, rather it is to forgive and remember no more forever.

Pay no attention to false doctrine from false teachers.

Deuteronomy 24:16 ESV
“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

Exodus 34:7 ESV
Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Ezekiel 18:19-20 ESV
“Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

John 9:1-3 ESV
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

 

I know that this is a repetition but the fact is that the Jews were not paid full reparations with the rebuilding of the temple because the second temple could not compare to the first temple:

Haggai 2:3 (KJV) Who [is] left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? [is it] not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?

 

I know Islam teaches that slavery is okay, including sexual slavery.

And one can be a love slave of Jesus.

The Jews were not given reparations because the second temple could not hold a candle to the first. It is unlikely that the third temple will be much better than the second due to lack of money.

 

There's no Scripture saying we owe reparations for what our ancestors did. However, it IS the CHRISTIAN thing to do of WE cheated someone outta something, or stole from someone in our BC days. An example is Zacchaeus telling Jesus he would more-than-repay those whom he overcharged for taxes (which was a common practice among publicans, the Roman tax collectors who had authority to charge what they chose over & above the required Roman govt. tax,having authority to arrest anyone who didn't comply.)

I dunno if my ancestors owned any slaves or participated in any "Indian wars" or not; all I know is that one great-grandpa was a Civil War Union soldier who never saw combat, & that one great-great-grandparent was a full-blooded Ute Indian. I don't owe anyone anything for anything they did.

 

I would be glad to give the liberals California and the NE down to almost NYC and Wisconsin, Philly and Balt.

Then we can build a wall to keep them away!

 

Not a single racist post in this thread