I find there is so much significance and difficulty in changing a name. One of the most tedious and annoying tasks of this past year has been working with Athena to change her name on things like her drivers license, social security card, Insurance forms etc. It seems like it never ends. We have been married for 5 months now and just yesterday we had to do another name change thing for taxes. UGH. But its worth it, because she has a new identity. She commented to me the other day that a co-worker of hers is never going to know her as “Athena Zuill” but only “Athena Balcombe”. Those who knew her previously may still get confused and think of her with her old name, but that will fade with time. Those who are just meeting her will never know and probably never care to know her old name. The same principle applies to FD. No one has ever heard of Frederick Bailey, no one cares about him. His slave masters that knew him by that name have been buried for 150 years. His friends and family who knew him by that name are equally as dead. Frederick Baily doesn’t exist, but Frederick Douglass helped change the world. Frederick Douglass is a legend. Athena Zuill? Don’t know her. Athena Balcombe, most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world.

This is a beautiful truth that can apply to everyone of us.

“if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.” II Corinthians 5:17

“to him who overcomes… I will give a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” Revelation 2:17

“I will give them an everlasting name” Isaiah 36:5

“The nations will see your righteousness and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow” Isaiah 62:2

“Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.” Revelation 3:12

Hallelujah! Come Lord Jesus!

Thats one big lesson that Frederick Douglass makes in his book. When it comes to the chapter where you expect him to reveal how he escaped to the north you find no details, no names, no secret passageways or underground railroads. No way. He certainly would have nothing to do with that. Frederick Douglass was a wise man. The intent of his book was to bring to light the atrocities that the slaves were living under, not to put a greater burden on them. He realized that even the slightest revelation of his escape would jeopardize the future escape plans of many others. I wonder if such a thing can be paralleled into the church dynamic. Jesus sent out his disciples telling them to be “shrewd as snakes” (Matthew 10:16). Certainly anyone who has studied the preterit interpretation of the book of revelation understands the allegorical style of the book and the reason for such style. I wonder how much the church, in our effort to deliver people from the slavery to sin, jeopardizes their escape by publicizing our plans. The church in China has been thriving for the past 50 years all while being persecuted and forced underground. many would say the opposite has happened to the highly public and politically influential church in America. I wonder if Satan “reads our mail” so to speak. I am fairly certain that satan/demons have no ability to read our minds, so they in essence, can’t prevent or deter something they are unaware of. Clearly the general public knows how to “read our mail”. I saw a book at the book store the other day and for some reason I can’t remember the title, but it was written by a liberal woman who was describing the “dangerous” movement of teenagers coming to Christ and abandoning the liberalism of the 60’s and 70’s. It was really interesting, the girl had followed some type of Christian music concert and interacted with all the teens and was was afraid that their “radical” ideals would ruin all the hard work secular humanism had been doing in the universities. If anyone knows the book please let me know. But the point is she, like the rest of anti-christian proponents only benefits from the public Christian concerts, displays, activities etc, because she learns how to fight against it. I’m not drawing any conclusions in this comment, just thinking out loud (oops).

(Ok my updates are way outdated because I am pretty much finished with the book but I wanted to periodically let my blog readers know of interesting points. If I made them all at once it probably wouldn’t be as interesting so I try to space them.)

One of the incredible themes of the book is the negative impact that is made, not only on the life of the slave, but on that of the slave holders as well. His main subject to prove this is Mrs Hugh. He was the first slave owned by Mrs Hugh and she was unaccustomed to owning a slave. She didn’t know how to treat him so she treated him as if he were another human being. FD’s initial evaluation of her character was as follows; “a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when i first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another…. She was a pious, warm and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach.” She was beginning to teach him to read..

This all changed….

“Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under it’s influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamb-like disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.”

He believes the downward spiral to have begun when her husband demanded of her to not teach little FD. Her husband reasoned with her that, “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell (that is a unit of measurement approx 45 inches). A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master-to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now if you teach that nigger how to to read, there would be no keeping him. it would be unfit for him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.”

Consequently Mrs. Hugh bought this and became a cruel woman.

i think sin works the same way. It lies to us, convinces us that faith in Christ will make us discontented and unhappy. It hardens our heart until it is stony and impenetrable. All the while making us believe that our hard hearted state is beneficial to us, pleasing to us, even necessary for our survival (all things that the slave owners believed). The reality is the the thing we thing we have control over (sin) actually becomes our master.

hahaha

Haha, just kidding, Echo.

His description of Mr. Severe (an overseer of the slaves) went like this…

“Mr. Severe was rightly named: he was a cruel man… He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity. Added to his cruelty, he was a profane swearer. it was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk. Scarce a sentence escaped him but that was commenced or concluded by some horrid oath… From the rising till the going down of the sun he was cursing, raving, cutting, and slashing among the field, in the most frightful manner.”

Thus far every villainous slaver owner or task master has been characterized by their vulgar and profane language. Why is this so significant to me? 2 reasons, first of all I hate cussing. I admit to letting words slip in my anger that are neither wholesome nor tolerable, but I strive to make certain that they do not become commonplace in my vocabulary. I am afraid that this desire is loosing it’s priority in even the Christian community sighting “liberty” as the cause. Secondly when i look to find the most heinous and profane lyrics in todays music and films I will always find it in the hip-hop music genre. This is a sad testimony to the ignorance of those “entertainers”. even sadder still is their predominate skin color happens to be black. If Mr. Douglass were alive today to hear the lyrics of the hip hop community he would certainly be repulsed by their vulgarities as well as violent content and see that the slaves have now taken the tendencies of the slave owners.