Devon DickCONTROVERSIAL TALK-show host Wilmot 'Mutty' Perkins is reported to have said that, "Slavery was a good thing; we in Jamaica benefited from it" (Gleaner December 3, 2001 p. A3). This doyen of the journalistic trade added that the holocaust brought benefits to Jews because after the slaughter of six million Jews, the state of Israel was created. He made these outlandish claims at a forum put on by the history department of the University of the West Indies (UWI).
One is not sure whom to blame for Perkins thinking. It could the fault of the UWI, which he has often called a ghetto. So by some osmosis his head tek him and he engaged in some ghetto talk. But ghetto people talk sense so one cannot blame the university. The answer probable lies in the fact that Mutty studied at a theological college and he is misrepresenting the gospel and misunderstanding the gospel.
There is a passage in the Bible, which says 'in everything give thanks'. Some persons misunderstand the passage to be saying give thanks for evil things. It is like a girl being raped and she is being told to give thanks after the ordeal. The point of the passage is that in all circumstances no matter how awful there is something else to give thanks for. So this person who has been raped could give thanks that her life was spared.
Based on the gospel according to Mutty if the girl who was raped was impregnated and brought forth a child and that child helps the mother then rape is a good thing. Similarly, if the Don who trades in guns, drugs and murders people protects old women, give pupils money to go to school and prevents young girls from being raped then Donmanship is a good thing. That is flawed reasoning.
The dilemma in Mutty's mind is that he cannot separate a good end from the means to achieving it. The ends do not justify the means. Both the end and the means to obtain the end must be good. One cannot proclaim an act good based only on material end. Otherwise, if a contract killer supports his family by executing others it would be justified.
Mutty's gospel needs a refreshers course in the one true gospel. In Romans chapter eight and verse 28 it states that God can and does work all things for good for those who love the Lord Jesus Christ. God can make good come out of bad but the original thing still remains bad. Mutty is saying that that since good came out of it then it must be good. This is thinking in reverse. A thing is pronounced good retroactively because some material benefit was obtained. God accepts it as awful but he can turn or transform it into something beautiful.
It was terrible that Joseph's brother sold him into slavery but God used that bastardly act to bring deliverance to the Israelites. It was an unjust act to crucify Jesus but God used that opportunity to save people from sin. Slavery was awful. The slaves worked for free. They weeded, planted, harvested and worked in the sugar factories and generally contributed to the productive processes on sugar plantations. Slaves were beaten severely for minor infractions. There was mental, physical, sexual and spiritual abuse of slaves. The women suffered great sexploitation.
Neither the colonial statutes nor the slave codes invested enslaved women with any rights over their own bodies. Dr. Verene Lazarus Shepherd in the Churches Emancipation Lecture 2001 entitled, 'Women in Emancipation' states that Thomas Thistlewood, slave owner of the 18th century, recorded in his journal that he raped 11 enslaved women on 53 occasions. In addition, in 1824 James Wedderburn's son said, 'My father ranged through the whole of his household for his own lewd purposes; for they being his personal property, cost nothing extra (for sexual favours) in short, among his slaves my father was a perfect parish bull; and his pleasure was the greater, because he at the same time increased his profits (when enslaved women became impregnated').
By any stretch of the imagination slavery was a most wicked and inhumane system that should not be wished for even one's most hated enemy. It is insensitive to our forefathers who resisted by violent and non-violent means slavery and helped to liberate us from slavery for it now in a revisionist history to be pronounced good. Based on Mutty's logic Sam Sharpe fought against something that was good and the allies should not have fought against Hitler but instead hail him for the termination of Jews. This false gospel must be repudiated!
The Rev Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St. Andrew.
