At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, conservatives accused President Barack Obama of comparing Christianity to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS when he observed that many religions had been used to justify violence throughout history.
"So we're responsible for the Crusades a thousand years ago?" Carlson complained. "Who's 'us' anyway? And by the way, who ended slavery and Jim Crow? Christians. The Rev. Martin Luther King. Christians."
"Christianity is the reason we don't have slavery in the world today," he added. "I mean, talk about ahistorical."
Dear Mr. Carlson:
First of all, please take the time to educate yourself about the practices of modern slavery and human trafficking. A good place to start that education is right here in Cincinnati at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Believe me when I say slavery is very much alive in the world today and is a scourge that ruins millions of lives yearly. There are many activists, lawmakers, and NGO leaders who are working to end modern slavery today. They could use our help.
Secondly, as Eric Loomis points out at Lawyers, Guns & Money:
Good thing none of those slaveholders were Christian. Because there’s no way that Christians would hold slaves or create a Christian doctrine around defending slavery.
Of course, like everything else in Christianity, slaveowners decided for themselves to what extent they would adhere to this ideology, so throwing an old slave out into the swamps to die or beating a slave to death, well, these things just happen. Praise Jesus.
And finally, really awful things are still called for by "Christians" here in America in God's name on a pretty regular basis. Religion as a cover to justify acts ranging from bigotry and discrimination (hello Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum!) to brutality, slavery and genocide is a game as old as religion itself. This was President Obama's point, but you either chose to ignore it, or are too full of your fake outrage to even comprehend it.
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