Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
The slavery of colonial and antebellum America was tragic but there is nothing we can do to change that history. The present is a different matter. That is our responsibility. No amount of indignant finger-pointing at the world of three hundred years ago will cleanse us of our present-day complicity.

Winston Churchill famously quipped that history would be kind to him, for he intended to write it. That line came to mind last week when I saw a tweet about America’s slave-owning past. It pointed out the rather obvious fact that Jonathan Edwards was only able to study as long and hard each day as he did because he had slaves to do the drudge work necessary for the material maintenance of his household. Whether this comment was intended to prove that Edwards’s theology was fundamentally unsound, or to demonstrate that Edwards (like me and, presumably, the author of the tweet) was morally flawed, or merely to point out that Edwards lived in the eighteenth century rather than the twenty-first was unclear.
The transatlantic slave trade was an evil. And it did enable men like Edwards to enjoy the leisure from physical work that then allowed them to study. But it was—and is—not the only evil that enables one class of people to enjoy life at the expense of another. Early critical theorist Walter Benjamin, using the idea of the spoils of war to reflect upon history, memorably commented:
[Cultural treasures] owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Benjamin’s point is simple: The things we admire in culture are often built on the back of exploitation. And one does not need to be a Marxist to see that there is much truth in this claim.
Take, for example, companies currently involved with China—companies whose products we all use and that make our hi-tech lives, including those of the tweeting class, possible. In 2020 the Australian Strategic Policy Institute produced a report on the forced labor of Uighurs under the Chinese government and identified 82 companies that potentially benefit, directly or indirectly, from this. That list included Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung. Apple was among the companies that did not respond to the report. Last year, the New York Times reported on the efforts of American companies, including Apple and Nike, to weaken the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would ban imported goods made with forced labor from the Xinjiang region of China. In May of this year, Business Insider reported that seven Apple suppliers had links to forced labor programs in China, including those that abused Uighur Muslims. In short, if you walk to work in Nike trainers or use a smartphone or computer, you can probably only do so because somebody in China has been enslaved and exploited. And that is before any consideration of how buying Chinese products in general supports a nation engaged in genocide and racially profiled forced sterilization, all enabled via a system of government concentration camps.
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This is a landmark day for the Pro-Life movement and our entire nation. After staining the moral fabric of our country for nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade is no more.

The last remaining abortion business in Mississippi will finally close down tomorrow [July 7, 2022] when the state’s new abortion ban officially takes effect.
As LifeNews reported, Mississippi was one of 10 states to ban abortions following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Thanks to a state judge who denied a request from Mississippi’s last remaining abortion business to stay open, the new ban protecting babies will take effect tomorrow.
In accordance with the provisions governing Section 41-41-45 of the Mississippi Code, Attorney General Lynn Fitch published the required certification to Mississippi’s Administrative Bulletin for what is known as the State’s trigger law. That meant abortions are now banned and babies are legally protected from conception for the first time since 1973. The law protects babies from conception and bans abortions except in the case of a formal charge of rape or for the preservation of the mother’s life.
But the Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion company challenged the ban in a last ditch effort to stay open. Yesterday, Special Chancellor Debbra K. Halford denied its request to block the law while its lawsuit continues.
As a result, the JWHO abortion business will close down tomorrow, according to the Washington Post.
“Without any further action, today will be the last day that Jackson Women’s Health can provide abortion care,” said Hillary Schneller, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights who represents the abortion center.
Robert McDuff, another attorney for the clinic, said that the legal team is considering next steps, including a possible appeal in the coming days, but the clinic will not be able to continue offering services while the case winds its way through the courts.
“As for now, the prospects for reopening the clinic are not very good,” McDuff said.
JWHO claims a 1998 Mississippi Supreme Court opinion, Pro Choice Mississippi v. Fordice, ruled the Mississippi Constitution contains a right to privacy that “includes an implied right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.”
But Halford noted that the judges in that case relied on Roe and Casey for their decision. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned both, neither of those cases are precedent on abortion.
“Since Roe and Casey are no longer the law of the land, reliance upon Fordice will almost certainly not be well founded when pursuing this case at the (Mississippi) Supreme Court,” Halford wrote.
JWHO will now close, babies will be saved, and women will find better alternatives.
Owner Diane Derzis says she plans to reopen the abortion business under the name “The Pink House West” in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where abortions are legal up to birth.
Under Mississippi’s trigger law, Attorney General Lynn Fitch is required to publish her determination (1) that the United States Supreme Court has overruled the decision of Roe v. Wade and (2) that it is reasonably probable that Mississippi’s trigger law would be upheld by the Court as constitutional.
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Written by Guy M. Richard |
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Sorrow is restorative. It not only prompts us to meditate on the circumstances of our lives and our faith in Christ, but it is also the means whereby we experience restoration and healing. That seems to be the point of Ecclesiastes 7:3, which says: “for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.” Sadness, in other words, is the means by which the heart is made glad or, we could put it this way, sadness is unto gladness. Sorrow is never an end in itself for God’s people but always a means to an end. In this case, we need to be reminded that it is a means to the end of restoration and healing.

Have you ever been to the beach on a day when the red flags were flying and tried to swim in the surf only to be knocked down by the first wave that came along and, before you could get up, adjust your swimsuit, and wipe the salt water from your eyes, you were knocked down again by the next wave? If so, then you will know what the Christian life can so often feel like for many of God’s people. Wave after wave of disappointment, failure, and hardship can so frequently overwhelm us and knock us to the ground. And before we have time to get up and reorient ourselves the next wave is bearing down upon us.
I can’t think about this idea without thinking about a couple in my congregation who lost both of their sons and one of their daughters-in-law within a span of a few short years. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for them to deal with losing one child, let alone three in such a short period of time. How does anyone continue to stand in the midst of this kind of devastation as wave after wave after wave knocks us to the ground? How does anyone even put one foot in front of the other much less “rejoice always” and “give thanks in all circumstances,” as Paul calls us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17?
These are questions we will all wrestle with at some point in our lives. We know this is true because the Bible explicitly states that hardship and difficulty are unavoidable for everyone who takes up their cross and follows after Christ. Not only is the Christian life one of incessant cross-bearing, but it is also one in which trials and tribulations are a necessary part of the world in which we live, as Jesus Himself promises in John 16:33: “In the world you will have tribulation.” We are not, therefore, to “take heart” in the absence of trials and tribulations but in the fact that Jesus has already “overcome the world.”
Peter, echoing the words of Jesus, warns us that we ought never to be surprised when the “fiery trial…comes upon” us “as though something strange were happening” to us (1 Pet. 4:12). Hardship and difficulty and grief and pain are exactly what we should expect to experience because we live in a world that has been infected and affected by sin and which is inhabited by people who have themselves been infected and affected by sin. The apostle John, moreover, associates weeping and mourning with death in Revelation 21:4, which clearly implies that until Jesus returns sorrow, grief, and pain will be as unavoidable as death. Not only will we all die; but we will also all experience the death of friends and family members as well. This fact ensures that we will all necessarily go through seasons of sorrow and mourning, sometimes to greater degrees and sometimes to lesser degrees. We will all face heartbreaking disappointments, debilitating setbacks, and demoralizing defeats. Thankfully, we won’t all have to deal with the loss of three children one right after the other; but we will most definitely experience some amount of disappointment, pain, and loss. We will know what it’s like to walk through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4), and sometimes for extended seasons too. And that is something that applies to everyone across the board.
The Bible has a great deal to say about sorrow and pain, besides the fact that they are inevitable. In what remains of this article, therefore, I’d like to look at some of the things that the Bible teaches about sorrow. I will explore the first three ideas in this article and the last two in my next post. My hope is that whenever you may find yourself walking through the valley of the shadow of death you will be helped by these reminders. So, strap in; we are hitting the ground running.
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