The Freedom to Oppress

After my first reading of Samuel Wells, "The world's two stories," I was overjoyed that finally someone had destroyed the false American freedom fantasy---that a free people, free from tyranny, could and would solve their social problems.  

But Wells' superficial solution---grace--- caused me to rethink the issue discussed.  If biblical grace is combined with justice and love, as it should be, this is O.K.  But in Christian America, grace is restricted to personal salvation; it does not include kingdom justice.

This is the false American freedom story, according to Wells: "Once upon a time we lived in a class-ridden, race-dominated, gender-constrained society."   Slowly but surely this free people largely dismantled the demons of "power, privilege, and prejudice."

But this reading of history is not accurate.  The founding fathers enshrined rich, white, male power, privilege, and prejudice in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Rich, white male power, privilege and prejudice from 1776 to 2017.

The Declaration of Independence from British tyranny unfortunately included the right for American tyrants to engage in Indian genocide and African enslavement, unchecked and unchallenged.  Indian genocide and African enslavement was a form of tyranny far worse than British tyranny.  Hypocrisy!  "The neglect of justice and the love of God." (Luke 11:42).

The Declaration and Constitution did not enshrine the biblical principles of the OT Sabbatical/Jubilee laws: free slaves every seven years, cancel debts every seven years, and restore/return land every 50 years.  Anything less than this permits systems of oppression to continue for generations; this is the freedom to oppress.  This is the real and tragic story of American history.

The Declaration of Independence should be renamed the Declaration of Democratic Oppression.  Ethnocentrism and oppression were legalized for rich, white, Anglo-Saxon males.  Freed from British tyranny so America tyrants could run wild:  women could not vote so they were treated as second-class citizens; the poor couldn't vote, they had no property.  Of course, since Indians were savages, they were barely human.  The same with black slaves who were inferior in the eyes of whites.

Even today, in 2017, though women can now vote, they still are not treated as fully equal..  In 2017, the poor are grudgingly given charity and welfare, seldom justice; they are regarded as defective, inferior.

Freedom to oppress is not consistent with all are created equal.  The majority of rich, white, males don't see this deep contradiction, or they don't care.

Without specific laws/amendments to protect the poor, women, Asians, Mexicans, Blacks and Indians, the Declaration and the Constitution are only a license for the freedom to oppress.  Freedom could be coupled with justice to release the oppressed.  In America, the oppressed seldom get even fragments of justice.