Tired of the sanctimonious appropriation of all that is good in American history by the Christian right? Roger Ailes delivers a magnificent denunciation of the WSJ’s attempt to claim the abolitionist movement as a blessedly Christian endeavor by quoting Frederick Douglass.
Revivals in religion, and revivals in the slave trade, go hand in hand together. (Cheers.) The church and the slave prison stand next to each other; the groans and cries of the heartbroken slave are often drowned in the pious devotions of his religious master. (Hear, hear.) The church-going bell and the auctioneer’s bell chime in with each other; the pulpit and the auctioneer’s block stand in the same neighbourhood; while the blood-stained gold goes to support the pulpit, the pulpit covers the infernal business with the garb of Christianity. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support missionaries, and babies sold to buy Bibles and communion services for the churches.
Now that is a fine Sunday sermon.
I fully understand that many individual Christians were active in the abolition and civil rights movements; I assert that their virtues lie in their recognition of the humanity of their fellows, and had absolutely nothing to do with the institution of their religion. Some of our finest moments in history have been those times when people defy the dogma and superstition with which they are smothered from an early age.
(hat tip to Hillary)