Unraveling the Current Cultural Crisis, Part I

These recent days have been rough. Our country has always had divisions over one thing or another, but of late the divisions seem to be highly emphasized and particularly vicious. As a lover of history and student of it for many years, it’s been particularly trying to observe the swirl of arguments and protests, of people speaking (or yelling) past each other instead of listening and engaging in a civil and reasoned give-and-take.

I’m reminded of the Tom Toro cartoon that is captioned, “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” Such is my life, it seems.

The current climate, especially since the events in Charlottesville, is just like any other period in history in that it is multi-faceted and incredibly complex. In many ways, it’s been a struggle to perceive what exactly the issues are. Statues? The Civil War? Nazism? Racism? It seems as if the 1850s-60s and 1930s-40s have both rushed from the annals of history and mingled into this amorphous blob with 21st-century social media and self-appointed pundits. So few appear to be serious students of our past, able to perceive its nuanced reality with all of its complexities.

And it’s into this blob that I attempt to tread, not being content to sit helplessly by. I hesitate, though, in writing because it’s such a volatile blob, and the potential for my words to be misconstrued is high, especially given the woeful inability to separate passion from reason that our current society seems to have. Nonetheless, I think it is vital that we try to maintain (or regain) that ability to take an issue, recognize its messiness and complexity, lift it up and turn it around and examine it from every angle, find the nuggets of truth and goodness that should be embraced and the lumps of falsehood and evil that should be rejected, and act accordingly.

So I'm choosing to believe that, if anyone to whom the following critiques apply reads this, they will be able to take a little bit of hard love and will gird up the loins of their minds for some self-reflection and productive analysis of the past and the present.

Ready? *deep breath* Let’s do this.

I grew up in southwestern Virginia, but it wasn't until I moved to Memphis that I saw the ugliness of racism first hand. And, unlike I had been led to believe, I found out quickly that racism is a vice not particular to people with light skin. The seeds of racism are in all of us, because we all are sinful at our core. Without a new core—a heart transplant, if you will—we will succumb to prejudice. And prejudice, when left to fester, turns into the ugly vice of racism.

To be completely honest, it has always been so obvious to me that belief in racial superiority is wrong that I find it hard to believe that it even has to be spoken against. In my worldview, founded on biblical Christianity, racial supremacy is so antithetical to goodness and truth that the fact that it’s even a question is astounding. But, the reemergence of white supremacy on our national stage has made it apparent that it does, in fact, need to be expressly called out. So to avoid all ambiguity, here are some fundamentals that are true:

1. All people are created in God’s image and thus have inherent value.

2. No ethnicity is more or less valuable than another, and there is nothing good or right about asserting that one ethnicity is somehow better or more deserving than another.

3. God judges us based on the condition of our heart (either dead in sin or alive in Christ), not on our skin color or DNA.

4. Racism is a sin.

Now that we’ve laid those truths as our foundation, let’s tackle the next piece of this blob—the Civil War.

Growing up, as I was first learning about the Civil War, I thought it was clear-cut:  South—slavery—bad; North—anti-slavery—good. As I continued to study, though, I was faced with the reality that this war was anything but clear-cut. I learned of the atrocities committed by Union soldiers and of the character of Confederate men like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. I began to see that there was good and bad on both sides and that it would be nigh impossible to give either side unadulterated commendation.  

Once again, let’s lay down some fundamentals. Only this time, I’ll point out some statements that are purely false:

1. Every white person in the 19th-century South was a racist.

2. Every white person in the 19th-century North was not a racist.

3. Every Confederate general and soldier was fighting to defend slavery.

4. Every Union general and soldier was fighting to abolish slavery.

5. The Civil War was fought only about slavery.

6. The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.

7. The Civil War was fought only about states’ rights/federalism.

8. The Civil War had nothing to do with states’ rights/federalism.

So what does all of this mean? For one, it means that we must recognize that of the Union, the Confederacy, and each person that fought for either side—none of them are all good or all bad. We must remember that, as I wrote about earlier, people are not black-and-white. They are neither demons nor gods. They are humans with accompanying capacity for good and evil. This should give us pause when we try to lump people, regions, or eras into a generalized mass—and when we try to make a case that something should or should not be removed.

Which brings me to the next part of our amorphous blob, the statues.  

And with that, I’ll leave you hanging and say, “Tune in tomorrow” for the rest…