Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade -- and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone tells the story of modern slavery through first person accounts of horror and degradation. Oh, that we could all be like Nehemiah! Upon reading these stories, we would sit down, weep and mourn for several days. We would fast, pray and confess our corporate sins; we have not valued human life. We do not view and treat each person as the crowning glory of God's creation -- image bearers. Then we would act.
I chose this book to read during the preparation time for Pesach/Pascha/Easter. I realize that season has come and gone. I am not quite finished with my reading. I put more books on my reading list than I had time to read! I am a Christian who has traded in bunnies, bonnets and dyed eggs for a Passover Seder. During this season of preparation, I chose to focus on slavery. I cannot tell the Passover story without using the word slave. The original Passover is the story of how God heard the afflictions of the Hebrews in bondage in Egypt and miraculously their freedom. The Passover in Jerusalem is the story of how God heard the afflictions of mankind in bondage to sin and death and miraculously freed us.
The ancients understood slavery in a way I do not. Slavery is illegal and hidden. I read this book to better understand what slavery is. Although the author makes reference to several Christian individuals and groups who act as modern abolitionists, the book is mostly secular. Still, this book, more than any of the other books I read, has acted as a catalyst to thinking differently about the Passover story. In each chapter, Batstone tells the story of a slave, their owner and the person or group who is responsible for helping the slave find freedom. It is an excellent book.
As I read through this book in light of Passover, this book opened my eyes to two distinct spiritual truths.
First, the Bible teaches that like the Israelites awaiting the Passover in Egypt, we are born into slavery.
"When the matriarch of the family was asked, where she was from originally, she gave a puzzled look and replied, 'The rice mill.' She explained that her father had been pressed into labor when he was in his twenties, so she had worked in the rice mill her entire life. She raised her own children as laborers in the same mill." (page 92)We are born into slavery and we don't know how to live as free men.
The story of the Passover in Egypt is dramatic and fully reveals the power of God. The story of the Passover in Jerusalem, the death of Christ - the Lamb of God, motivates even nominal Christians to go to church once a year to worship. The stories begin in degradation and end in praise. All of us want to be rescued. Sadly, the Christian community as a whole doesn't value "aftercare" nearly as much. International Justice Mission defines victim aftercare as, "access to material, emotional, and spiritual aid that can help them transition into new lives that they can sustain long into the future." (page 85)
I think God is smart enough to figure this out. Aftercare is what Pentacost, the giving of the Torah and the descent of the Holy Spirit is about. It was what the forty years of desert wandering provided for the Israelites; it taught them to be free. Halakhah, the rules that define our religious traditions are not legalistic. They are designed to spiritualize even the most mundane parts of our day making our life an act of worship and a daily reminder of who we are.
The book mentions other groups involved in the modern abolitionist movement. They are listed here for those interested in learning more about what you can do to fight slavery.
