Choosing Slavery

This week we visited the slave “castle” in Elmina, Ghana. Situated on a beautiful stretch of West African coastline, this imposing structure, begun by the Portugese in the 15th century, is arguably the oldest extant European structure in Africa.

At the castle, we visited the dungeons where men and women were held for up to three months before they passed through the “point of no return,” a narrow door from where slaves were boarded onto ships. Half of them would die before reaching the foreign slave markets. We heard stories of how the commanding officer took his pick of the captured women, and saw the cannon ball to which those who resisted were chained. We were struck by the irony of the large upper room used as a chapel when the Dutch occupied the fort. The chapel is positioned immediately above the women’s dungeons.

That same day I was listening to a discussion of the problem of human trafficking on a Ghanaian radio station. Thousands of Africans seek a better life abroad by entrusting themselves to these traffickers who promise them passage across the Sahara to North Africa, where they hope to traverse the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. Many die on the journey. Relatively few make it to Europe. Those who do arrive face the difficulty of living as illegal immigrants. the Ghanaian commentator concluded by speculating that, if a slave ship were to arrive at the coast of Ghana today, there would be no problem filling its hold with volunteers wanting to go abroad at whatever the cost.

The spiritual implications of this irony struck me, and those implications form a paradoxical two-edged sword. One edge of the blade cuts against those who choose slavery to unrighteousness – to sex, to drugs, to people, to demons – all the many ways that such slavery manifests itself. the foolishness of such slavery is evident, but that doesn’t stop us from rushing headlong into it.

The opposite edge of the sword cuts against those who choose to be slaves of righteousness. People are slaves to whatever master they serve (Rom. 6:16).. If Jesus is my Master, I must sell myself out to him completely. I must board that ship, risking my life, ready to sail for unknown ports.

Why would anyone choose such a voyage? For much the same reason as the Ghanaians who risk the sands of the Sahara. Because of hope – hope that the ultimate destination will be worth it. Yet for me, this hope is not the unlikely chance taken by the modern-day slaves. It is a “sure and certain hope,” an “anchor that keeps the soul.”

To hope is elpidzo in Greek – “confident expectation,” as my professor repeatedly impressed upon me. In French, it is espérer, a verb that stubbornly refuses to assume the uncertain subjunctive mood.

I hope for a better city, whose Builder and Maker is God (Heb. 11:16). So I have passed the point of no return and I have boarded the ship, and there is no going back.