NEWS PROVIDED BY
Aspire Christian Community
June 20, 2019

DODGE CITY, Kan., June 20, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Rev. CJ Conner:

The Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, said in a U.S. House Committee hearing on Wednesday:

"When I'm talking about reparations, I'm talking about those left behind. But I'm actually talking to my white brothers and sisters. You need this more than we do. You need this for your soul. You need this to be able to look black people in the eye and say I acknowledge the mistake and I want to be part of the solution to repair that damage."

Bishop Sutton isn't the first Christian leader to support reparations. The confiscation of land and murder of white farmers, first in Zimbabwe and now today in South Africa, was not publicly opposed by liberation theologists and social justice warriors like Bishop Sutton. We heard little if any condemnation from American Bishops when Zimbabwe instituted their bloody reparation scheme in the 1990's, and today American Bishops deny the white genocide happening in South Africa.

In fact, Christians as a whole are largely silent on the issue as they follow "leaders" like Bishop Sutton.

There is only one correct Christian position on the topic of reparations.

No.

And we have the example of Saint Paul who writes to slave master Philemon to request the freedom of their brother in Christ, Onesimus. This tiny letter in the New Testament completely rejects reparations.

First, in requesting Onesimus to be freed, Paul says that he does not want Philemon's goodness to be out of compulsion, but of his own accord.

Second, Paul expects Onesimus to be freed without cost. Paul offers, without compulsion and out of his own faithfulness to Christ's example, to accept and pay any financial losses Philemon might incur on his own account. Paul who is in prison and will never be able to pay slyly offers this caveat, "I will repay it- to say nothing of you owing me even yourself. Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my Heart."

The modern concept of reparations doesn't meet the Christian standard of justice. Democrats, and the Good Bishop, and even the weak Danny Glover with crocodile tears in his eyes, want to compel Whites who never owned slaves to pay Blacks who have never been slaves. The discussion of reparations is one of vengeful compulsion and outside the bounds of what it means to be Christian.

Bishop Sutton's conception of reparations, as a means of salvation that whites can use to keep from going to hell, is a cost that nobody is expected to bear in Christ.

Paul owes nothing, Onesimus owes nothing, and the "evil" slave master Philemon owes nothing.

The Christian position on reparations must simply be, "Whites owe nothing."

The Christian understanding of reparation is simply freedom. In this country we freed the slaves in 1861 and joined Britain in ending the Muslim slave trade all over the world. Millions of whites gave their lives to end slavery. Slavery exacted a price from Blacks, true, but whites paid heavily in blood.

The races are forever equal and even.

And maybe it's time to have a real conversation about reparations.

Americans have been paying reparations to Blacks for 60 years. Food Stamps, Department of Children and Families cash assistance, Medicaid, Section 8, local public housing, HUD, the creation of the Department of Education, urban opportunity zones, childcare subsidies, workforce development programs, and most recently, Obamacare were all created with the noble goal in mind to help Blacks improve their earthly estate by a White-to-Black wealth transfer. These programs and their legacy have been a disaster at worse and a total failure at best in improving the condition of Black people. In fact, the reparations Americans have already been paying the last 60 years have worsened the Black condition by destroying the Black family and the Black man.

So let's end all of these reparations and reject the ungodly calls from impious Bishops to add more.

Reparations don't work.

Freedom in Christ does.

SOURCE Aspire Christian Community

CONTACT: Rev. CJ Conner, 620-255-9597