Was John Wesley Right in Opposing the American Revolution?

Was John Wesley Right in Opposing the American Revolution?

1.  From the August 2, 2017 issue of Christian Century:

"Although many American evangelicals consider John Wesley a hero of the faith, they'd be chagrined to know he opposed the American Revolution, says historian David Swartz.  Wesley, the founder of Methodism, considered it hypocritical for the colonists to protest against what they considered to be subservience to the [tyrannical] King of England while they approved of [the tyranny] of owning slaves."

2.  From the August 2, 2017 issue of Christian Century; a review of A Colony in a Nation.

"Everyone knows the United States has a broken justice system when it comes to race, right?  Wrong, says MSNBC journalist Chris Hayes. . . .  We have TWO justice systems---one for the [black] colony and one for the [white] nation---and they're both broken.  Our colony is not in some land far away: it exists within the nation.  We have two classes of people, one with the rights of citizens and the other at the mercy of the whims of the state.  And the lines are most clearly drawn along race. [Read The New Jim Crow]."  Or the lines are drawn by tyranny/oppression.

"Hayes thinks the inequities in our country are nothing new.  We are living out a pattern that began BEFORE we were a nation, and we drag our old colonial wounds and abuses into the present day with us.  When America became a nation, revolutionaries made a colony of the slaves and their descendants, establishing a two-tiered justice system that continues to this day."

In other words, the deep problems we have haunting America's past and present are much more than a few bad apples---cops or a president.  Our deep problems are because of planned imperialism, tyranny, systems of oppression, not just the results of a few accidents of history.  Our political and economic systems are rigged by the rich to favor the rich and exploit the poor.  James two is a blunt and sharp warning for the church not to do the same.

The oppressed black colony within the white oppressor nation is in bad shape---dysfunctional, but not because of the inferiority of blacks as is commonly supposed by most whites.  The tyranny of the rich, white, male American elite is far worse than the tyranny by the British elites against the colonies.  Bacon's Rebellion, 1676, was more justified morally than the American Revolution.  Though part of Bacon's Rebellion was unjustified, the attack against Indians, the "alliance between [white] indentured servants and African [slaves] disturbed the ruling class [white elites] who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races."  Rich white landowners who grew tobacco as a lucrative cash crop badly needed cheap labor to grow and harvest labor-intensive tobacco.  This is how America's slave system was created.

3.  From the August 2, 2017 Christian Century; a review of The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel, reviewed by Walter Brueggemann:

"The book's title, The Beginning of Politics, recognizes Samuel as a new kind of literature within the Bible.  Here human agents are primary, in contrast to the antecedent books in which God is decisive."

"Halbertal and Holmes show how both kings come to power in order to protect their people but soon display their willingness to abuse their people for the sake of maintaining power.  Focusing on Saul's frenzied massacre at Nob (1 Sam. 22) and David's murder of Uriah (2 Sam. 11), the authors probe the violence that marks both kings---so much that I could almost hear the theme music from The Godfather sounding in the background.  While Saul's violence is undisciplined and paranoid, David's violence is shrewd and calculating in the service of his bold self-indulgence."

The behavior of the American tyrannical rich, white, male elite seems to resemble the misuse of power by Samuel and David.  So why do so many white evangelicals so easily sanctify this evil behavior, past and present?

4.  From an interview with black lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, in the SPU Response magazine:

"We know why there are kids that are struggling.  And I think it has to do with an EPIDEMIC OF TRAUMA (emphasis added).  We've got too many kids that are born into violent families.  They live in violent neighborhoods.  They go to violent schools.  By the time these kids are 4 and 5 years of age they have trauma disorder [PTSD or PTSS]."

Could this epidemic of trauma be traced way to the 1600s when a tyrannical white elite established slavery in this budding nation?