#History. Emancipation Without Eradication

Humanity shrinks from that which causes pain. Eradication comes from the shrinking or removal of sound doctrines because of pain.

A SPIRITUAL LINEAGE IN MOTION

Lauren Adrian Phinney

1911 Graduation Speech

EMANCIPATION WITHOUT ERADICATION

As far back as history dates, we find people and nations coping with great internal questions.  Nation rises against nation and kingdoms against the Kingdom to settle national disputes.  Though the conflict between right and wrong has continued through the centuries, it is nonetheless severe. Humanity shrinks from that which causes pain.  It prefers to endure wrong rather than pass through the suffering incident to its removal.

These were the opening words of my grandfather’s speech to his fellow seminary graduates. He was addressing a topic that was near and dear to his heart - emancipation. He wrote his speech forty-eight years after Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation. As most readers might know, this mandate ordered enslaved people living in rebellious territories to be released from the bonds of ownership and made free people—their masters.

As the Lord would have it, he became a church reformer. He grew up under the influence of Charles Finney, a theologian, and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He and Grandpa were known for promoting social reforms, such as abolitionism and equal education for women and African Americans.  

Most of my spiritual lineage is rooted in the Quaker Christian group. Grandpa Phinney was among the first to evaluate the problematic issues within their sect. While he was in complete support of their primary doctrine of the inward experience of the Divine (Jesus) within authentic believers, the segregation of women and men within the church services was unacceptable, let alone their beliefs in rejecting black people from joining their fellowships. The early Quakers are known for their testimonies, silent worship, pacifism, and plainness. Thanks to the Lord during the Second Great Awakening, many religious separatism issues changed and revitalized the Bible’s views accordingly.   

My grandfather was not only dogmatic about the emancipation of racial bondage but also was compelled to preach and reform the people within the church under the banner of emancipation from the ideology of the believers needing a church leader to interpret the Word. He believed that all people are capable of directly experiencing the divine nature of God through the indwelling Spirit. He advocated that authentic believers don’t need a priest or any other kind of spiritual intercessor for individualized personal growth. He advocated that spirituality does not come by any ritual. He taught that you need to hear from God by the indwelling Spirit - when Spirit has a message for you to share, you should share it. Thus, my grandfather focused on spiritual emancipation WITHOUT eradicating the life-changing doctrines contained within the Word.

WITHOUT ERADICATION

I come from “good stock,” as they say. Most of us do regarding the Spirit’s work in our lineage. From the days of my grandfather, Jeffery Phinney, who came over on the Mayflower, to my grandfather Lauren Phinney, there is a “red thread” – that of advancing the Life of Christ through the Divine (Jesus). Most readers know this is the primary message in all my writings and media. If I have learned anything about my compelling mission, once the Holy Spirit starts a work, He never lets up until His mission is complete. Our Lord has a supernatural method of reviving His message in the ancestry of each preacher. I am one of those legacy preachers that picks up where my grandfather’s left off.

As my grandpa said, Humanity shrinks from that which causes pain. Eradication comes from the shrinking or removal of sound doctrines because of pain. The challenge with this kind of shrinking thinking is that emancipation becomes elusive under such cases. Pain is a mysterious mistress. Nothing gets our attention like pain and suffering. The Lord’s enemy is inequitable (unjust) in his relentless efforts to use pain to dismiss sound doctrines. Satan has formed a culture that bases the individualized interpretation of “right” and “wrong” on attempts to remove or endure the pain versus passing through the suffering incident to its removal, in most cases, that is by passing from this life to supernaturally engaging in Eternal Life in Heaven. However, there are cases after a believer passes through their earthly pain; the incident that caused the pain is removed by the Lord, which defines the organic meaning of emancipation.  

WITH EMANCIPATION

Emancipation implies a usually permanent removal from whatever binds, confines, entangles, or oppresses. It eradicates a doctrine of confinement, restraint, or a state of pressure or tension, often without the implication of permanent liberation. Authentic emancipation always results in liberty or should. The bottom line is that it manumits (frees) slaves as payment for their freedom.

Here is the key doctrine. No human has the right or privilege to own another human. However, there is a twist to this truth. Because humans are born into the slavery of sin, Satan does possess the twisted right to own humans. Being born into sin places us in the governance of the master of sin – Satan. As soon as we are born, we are bonded as slaves, requiring another master to purchase our freedom. That would be Jesus. Once Jesus paid that price on Calvary’s hill, we are granted a free passageway, with the condition of accepting bond slavery unto our new master, Jesus (1 Peter 2:16).   

Once we receive our purchased freedom through an authentic born-again experience in Christ, we are no longer slaves of the master - Satan. We are emancipated. We now house the Spirit of adoption.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15)

The Abba Father is our original owner. Satan stole the ownership through the choices of Adam and Eve. Jesus came to the earth to pay the price Satan required – death. However, I’m certain Satan didn’t expect Jesus to resurrect after the payment. As Satan quickly learned, Jesus’s payment opened the door for myriads of people to be delivered, emancipated, from the bondage of sin. 

Satan didn’t quit there. He started with the first-generation church to fall to the same manipulation he inflicted on Eve – to choose the yoke of slavery, saved or not.

For freedom, Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

Satan wants emancipation with the eradication of Biblical doctrines. Or he wants eradication without emancipation in Christ. Both provide him with room to play—those who get the message of emancipation without eradication experience the freedom Paul referenced in Galatians.

My grandfather died at the ripe age of 59, way too young in my book. Although, looking through Heaven’s window, if he can, it would be a high honor for him to see he has a grandchild that is determined to carry on his legacy of restoring believers to the immovable doctrines of spiritual emancipation while refusing to submit to the temptation of eradicating the Holy Word of God.

Unless the believer is immovable in the doctrines of their freedom in Christ, slavery will visit their minds, deduce them into a pile of self-propagated slavery, incapable of the actions of freedom until they align themselves with the doctrines of bond slavery unto Christ. In this, emancipation without eradication becomes the actions of Jesus from within.  

Jesus, please tell my grandpa(s) I love them & commit to carrying on their passion for delivering Your Word of Truth to the masses.