“Adams was encouraging the student-athlete to be more receptive to coaching and referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents, and slaves serving their masters. Adams immediately addressed this with the team and apologized,” the release said.
Prediction: you will see more and more of this. Soon it won’t just be the offensive passages.
If you knew this persecution was likely, and that it would confuse the student, if you used the full verse, would any of you omit the master-servant part? When does it behoove us to be shrewd in what we quote, in other words? To be very clear, I think it’s evil to run someone out of a job for quoting the Bible.
Personally, I’d explain that historic texts, let alone Scripture, are not politically correct, and we become idiots if we expect everything to be spoon fed to us the way we like it. Like an eight-year-old still breastfeeding or a middle-aged woman living on Twinkies. Then I’d say that I was going to quote a Bible verse that makes an important point and is politically incorrect because some people would say it promotes slavery. But it doesn’t. It simply uses a state of existence common at the time to emphasize the importance of submitting to authority. Authority is the thing—not childhood, marriage, or bosses (including owners of slaves). So be men and listen up to this command to submit to authority, You’re not wives or children or slaves. You’re players and I’m your coach, and what is important is that you submit to those of us coaching you. Maybe stuff like that…
What this all highlights is how impossible it has got to have sensible discussions about ethnicity in the American context (and not only the American context). E.g. one key flaw of Critical Race Theory when it is applied in a Christian context, is that it forgets that the oppressed are sinners as well. While it would help for the Black Church to point that out sometimes, I’m not holding my breath that they will.
This is rattling around the news, from my area:
It was always impossible for Christianity and sodomy to share a society.