As we slip into the evening hours, I thought I’d share with you this observation from one Mike Griffith, the moderator of the Yahoo Discussion Group “civilwardebate”:
Many have wondered why God intervened to help the Patriots defeat the British but did not intervene to help the Confederates beat the Yankees. Why didn’t God help the South win its independence?
My theory is that God knew that America would need the South, that America would be a worse place without the South. Without the South, a great deal of harmful legislation would have been passed by Congress, legislation that was either tabled or blocked because of Southern resistance. Without the South, we would have had Hubert Humphrey, Al Gore, and John Kerry. Etc., etc., etc.
I confess I don’t know where to start with this one, but it brought a smile to my face. For example, what federal legislation was often blocked by southern opposition? Oh, that’s right, legislation protecting African Americans and the civil rights of Americans.
Of course, that suggests that God should have let “the South” (meaning the Confederacy) win in the first place, because that would have meant that there would have been no need to protect black equality given the triumph of the Confederacy.
God sure works in inscrutable ways … at least in Mike’s mind.
Then again, millions of southerners would have believed that if anything, God was on their side, and that Confederate defeat delivered them from slavery and Confederate oppression of white Unionists. That “South” won.
And I thought we had Humphrey, Gore, and Kerry, simply not as president. Humphrey, for example, was a major crusader for civil rights. I never knew God was against that. Must have missed the memo.
Nevertheless, something for all of you to think about this weekend. After all, “many” have wondered about these issues, according to Mike. Are you among the “many”?
Crossroads 