{"id":709,"date":"2021-08-30T11:10:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T10:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thechristiancommunity.co.uk\/PVS-test\/?p=709"},"modified":"2021-08-30T11:10:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T10:10:08","slug":"chains-of-earthly-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thechristiancommunity.co.uk\/PVS-test\/chains-of-earthly-slavery\/","title":{"rendered":"Chains of Earthly Slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>New issue for September-November, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Editorial<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Slavery has been much in the news recently. The passionate\nprotests unleashed by the death of George Floyd last year seemed to release a dammed-up\nreservoir of feeling about our world. Whatever we may think of the forms that\nprotest took, we surely must rejoice that sections of society whose experience\nhas been hidden, ignored and denied have found their voice. One discovery that\nI made as I started to research the phenomenon of slavery is that it is by no\nmeans limited to any particular nation or race, nor to any particular\nhistorical period. Just as much as human beings have striven to create\nsocieties whose members can thrive, they have enslaved other groups. And even if\nthose slaves were \u2013 are \u2013 kept far out of sight, this makes no difference to\nthe fact that the economic system rests on the exploitation of others. This\ncame out very clearly for me in the anguished debates that took place in Boston,\nwhen it became clear that the fledgling colony, founded by Puritans to be an\nimage of a better world, would not survive without servicing the plantation\neconomy that rested on slavery. (cp tinyurl.com\/PVSslavery)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I imagine that many readers of Perspectives do not have\nfirst hand experiences of slavery. For this reason, we easily think of slavery\nas a metaphor for every kind of entrapment. It can seem as if our western,\nfirst-world societies have exchanged outer conditions of near-slavery for a\nvoluntary enslavement. This being so, it is important to recognise that slavery\nis an inner state, one which I can change through inner transformation, even if\nthose outer forces that seem to have me in their grip do not change. The\narticles in this issue, which is based on the stirring promise from our\nMichaelmas Epistle, that Michael seeks to release us from chains of earthly\nslavery, may help us to find that inner place of freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As much as it is important to discover again and again our\nagency in the face of even the severest repression, it is important to\nrecognise the power of systemic wrong. Here, the study of slavery and the\nideologies that sustained it can be helpful for us when we encounter more\nsubtle chains. Frederick Douglass was a slave who escaped the American South\nand became an author and orator in the cause of emancipation. He steadfastly\nrefused to debate the rights and wrongs of slavery, because he saw it as beyond\ndebate what Kant had stated years before: no human being has the right to make\nanother into the instrument of his will \u2013 the \u2018means\u2019; the only way to be\ntogether is to recognise the unique and sovereign will of the other, so that\nthey become our \u2018end\u2019 or purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As much as the Michaelmas Epistle addresses us in our inner\nsituation, we can also hear it echoing in the struggle to overcome every kind\nof domination system. In the end, freedom which rests on enslaving others is\nitself a kind of enslavement. Reading accounts of the life of the slave-owners\nin the American South, it is striking how visceral their terror of rebellion\nwas. A quotation by Douglass shows how inner and outer enslavement are\nintertwined: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cNo man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.\u201d<\/p><cite> \u2015 Frederick Douglass, speech at Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, DC, 22 October 1883 <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Tom Ravetz<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the Table of Contents, please follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechristiancommunity.co.uk\/PVS-test\/portfolio-items\/chains-earthly-slavery-september-november-2021\/\">this link<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New issue for September-November, 2021 Editorial Slavery has been much in the news recently. The passionate protests unleashed by the death of George Floyd last year seemed to release a dammed-up reservoir of feeling about our world. Whatever we may think of the forms that protest took, we surely must rejoice that sections of society [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Chains of Earthly Slavery - Perspectives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thechristiancommunity.co.uk\/PVS-test\/chains-of-earthly-slavery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chains of Earthly Slavery - Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New issue for September-November, 2021 Editorial Slavery has been much in the news recently. 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