Providence Today: 12 Score & 3 Years Ago

Peter Lillback:
Welcome to Providence Today. We’re here at Valley Forge. We remember how, when Washington came here he had to clear the land and build all those huts for his men. In the same way our friends at Mercury One are clearing the land so that America will relearn the story of American history and the powerful role of faith and providence in the formation of our nation. They recently created a popup museum in Dallas at the studios of Las Colinas. This is entitled 12 Score & 3 Years Ago. The Providence Forum has a special relationship with Glen Beck and the Liberty Tree. We are dedicating three separate video blogs to tell this story. So let’s go out to Dallas and learn more about 12 Score & 3 Years Ago.

Dave Barton:
Hey guys, I’m Dave Barton. Welcome to a little popup museum we have, it’s called 12 Score & 3: The Unfinished Promise of Unity. Goes back to the fact that our founding father set forth the promise that all men are created equal. We haven’t quite got there yet but we’re working on it. So what we do in this museum we have a number of artifacts that go back to the 1600s up through today. We actually track slavery and what’s happen with it and show that it’s really a human problem. In America we often consider the white on black problem. I’m sorry, it’s not. Every race has been enslaved and every race is enslaved others. And it’s still going to date.

Caitlyn McQuillen:
It’s really important to acknowledge that we’re taught that slavery has very deep racial based issues. The prime reason for slavery is racism and that’s certainly not true. Far and wide through history political conquest has been the major motive. We can see that all the way back to Rome and all the way through the Bible. It’s really important not to see slavery as just a race issue, because then you can easily dismiss yourself as not being a part of the issue, if you’re not a part of that race. But every civilization and history has either been slaves themselves or own slaves. So it really does not make it a race issue, it’s a mankind issue. We’ve all fallen short of the glory of God and we’re all susceptible to the evil of slavery. And we can’t dismiss ourselves as not being a part of the problem. But it all comes back to one way or another more or less the economic principle of slavery, because you are not a person, you are a disposable labor. You’re disposable means of whatever I want from you.

Peter Lillback:
So we look at even slavery, and 350 years of the African slave trade, 12.7 million were taken involuntarily out of Africa. They came to other nations. Now America received 2.5% of those slaves, 46% went to Brazil, 26% went to Great Britain, 10% went to Jamaica. We nearly only hear about the 2.5% in America, but it was all over the world.

Jonathan Richie:
The purpose Of 12 Score & 3 Years Ago is to activate today to the problem that often we consign to history. So we think about slavery and we think about the founding fathers and that era. But the thing is, back in 1853 it was estimated that there were 7.5 million slaves worldwide. Today, right now there’s 40 million. So the question is, if we’re going to look back in anger on history and say, those guys didn’t do enough. Well, what are we doing today to solve the same problem? So this museum is all about learning about the past so that we can affect tomorrow. So we can break the chains of the captors free and become modern day abolitionists because it’s still a problem. History is today and tomorrow will look back on us and ask, did we do enough?

Marvin Bond:
The message of this museum is that, it’s a message of, if we work together, unity is better than divisiveness. We don’t ever want this to happen again. And that’s why I think it’s so important that we know and learn our history.

Peter Lillback:
So what can you do? One thing you certainly can do to help the cause is to go to the Mercury One website and determined to give toward this modern day effort to abolish slavery on the global stage. What an important act that could be. Another thing you could do is to come and donate to the Providence Forum. You can do it online to providenceforum.org. All of us working together can make an extraordinary impact. Remember the widow’s mite, small it seems, but Jesus used it as the model of giving, a kind of giving to changes the world. So share with us in our work. We really appreciate it. This is Providence Today.