(I don't have a subscription to that rightwing apparatus but the audio is available). At any rate, I will publish my short response here and on some other platforms, just for the record:
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Sam Negus has published a rejoinder in The National Review to my piece in Christianity Today, arguing that John Brown is a model for white Christians. Of course, he's preaching to the choir. Of course, also, Negus is greatly mistaken in both his argument and his assessment of Brown. Certainly, his argument is only theoretical as to what was accessible to Brown vis-a-vis the Constitution. In reality--contra Negus--the South was already contemplating secession and was not accepting of the so-called "middle course" that Negus suggests. Brown knew that if the Dems did not win the '60 election, they were going to secede and take 4 million victims with them and then expand slavery, which was their real agenda. The other problem is that Negus' reading of Pottawatomie is unsurprisingly flawed. The five men killed were aiding proslavery terrorists & the "bogus court" (historians agree it was foisted upon Kansas) was using the law and proslavery thugs to enforce it. The Browns, targeted and without protection as abolitionists, struck first. Negus’ ignorance of the real politics of Kansas, reliance upon hackneyed readings of Brown, and his glorification of antebellum Republican moderates are flawed. Negus salutes Fred. Douglass, and yet Douglass' own assessment of Brown contradicts his questionable reading. He clearly knew nothing of Negus' malign and mistaken assessment. And mirrored in Negus' treatment, too, is Douglass' own contention that Lincoln was primarily driven by white people's interests.--LD
