"You need to understand the historical context"

“You need to understand the historical context.”  I would like to consider and scrutinize this sentiment as it relates to our current conversation on race, especially the debate concerning figures from our past.  Should we hate George Washington because he was a slave-owner who helped construct a document that allowed for the legal sale of human persons?

There are two extreme positions on this statement.  First, there is the outright rejection of this statement in any shape or form.  In short, racism is racism, no matter the time period.  People who adopt this view see the statement in question as an insidious means of justifying terrible people and terrible things, often in service of upholding a tradition that is rooted in oppression.

The other extreme is essentially the position the former is rejecting.  Those who adopt this position might not consider themselves as justifying racism or prejudice, but they are less likely to be “offended” by prejudices from the past because, well, back then everyone was racist, so why would we expect anything else?  A more nuanced iteration of this position would consider our contemporary beliefs on equality as simply beyond the moral horizon of those in the past.

I’d like to respond to both sides with the same argument, or really just a set of observations.  The initial thrust of my demonstration will be against the limitations of the former argument ─ those who outright reject the statement in question ─ although it will eventually respond to what I take to be some of the limitations of the latter.  In short, I find that the common but ahistorical rejection of context undermines the very process that accounts for and makes possible any progress in our perception of equality or civil rights.

To distance oneself completely from all those who said racist things or were deeply prejudiced is to completely overlook the historical distinctions of a time period, distinctions that highlight the actual progress of civil rights.  For example, it is imperative to make a distinction between Mark Twain and defenders of Jim Crow south, even if we decide Twain himself was racist.  Why?  Because Twain was one of the most outspoken critics of Jim Crow south, using his fiction and nonfiction alike to searingly satirize the evils of racism.  Is it possible to consider Twain himself racist, or at least problematically prejudiced?  Yes.  I’ve taught his Huckleberry Finn many times, and I always like us to consider the characterization of the slave Jim, who, while being deeply human and the moral center of the novel, is also stitched from many of the racist stereotypes of the time, some of these stereotypes (like Jim’s stupidity) being quite offensive.  But to ignore the distinction between Twain’s racism and the violent and political racism of the Jim Crow south is dangerous and blinding.  When we refuse to see Twain “in his times,” we miss out on the movement Twain helped instigate, or at least that he was a wonderful representative of: a movement that marked an enormously important step in the civil rights conversation in America.

I’ll take up a topic closer to my own heart: Flannery O’Connor, whose alleged racism has received a lot of attention recently.  I won’t take up the heart of Paul Elie’s article which was very influential in this recent reconsideration of the southern writer ─ but I will simply say that he provides no context for quotations from O’Connor’s letters that he cherrypicks and simply mischaracterizes.  Additionally, Elie makes some uncharacteristically inane literary interpretations that completely misread the basic thrust of some of O’Connor’s stories, e.g. “Revelation.”  But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that O’Connor held racist and prejudiced views. Like with the ahistorical conflating of Twain with supporters of Jim Crow, conflating O’Connor with, say, Senator Bilbo, is willfully ignoring how the civil rights movement developed ─ and this eventually blinds us from seeing how the conversation is presently developing.  

Let me take up her wonderful “All That Rises Must Converge.”  In this story, O’Connor satirizes both Julian’s mother, a prejudiced old lady who, when a black man with a briefcase steps into the bus she and her son are riding, whispers to Julian: “Now you see why I won't ride on these buses by myself.”  But the real bulk of the satire is focused on Julian, a progressive college-educated young man, who sees himself as so enlightened but who ultimately is unable to rise much beyond the deep-seated prejudice of the south: “He began to imagine various unlikely ways by which he could teach her [his mother] a lesson. He might make friends with some distinguished Negro professor or lawyer and bring him home to spend the evening.”  In his imagination, where he lives most of his life, he imagines further ways of “educating” his mother:

“He brought home a beautiful suspiciously Negroid woman. Prepare yourself, he said.

There is nothing you can do about it. This is the woman I've chosen. She’s intelligent,

dignified, even good, and she’s suffered and she hasn’t thought it fun. Now persecute us, go ahead and persecute us. Drive her out of here, but remember, you’re driving me too. His eyes were narrowed and through the indignation he had generated, he saw his mother.”

O’Connor, while taking humorous and obvious potshots at the overt racism of Julian’s mother, gives more attention to the progressive white liberal, whose beliefs in equality are simply virtue-signalling, self-congratulatory, and/or a justification for condescension ─ especially since these beliefs are unconnected to black people as people, and especially not to helping out the actual plight of the black person in America.  

So while one might validly hold O’Connor as prejudiced or even racist, her perception and representation of the disingenuous liberal call for civil rights amongst white people is a clever and complex addition to the conversation about race in the middle of the twentieth century. (Personally, I see some self-deprecation in O’Connor’s depiction of Julian, and other characters like him throughout her fiction, as if she understood that her rejection of her own mother’s overt racism didn’t free her from the prejudices of the south or align her with those fighting for real racial equality. But that’s beside the point.) My real point here regards the conflation of O’Connor as racist (if we accept the fact) with the racism of Senator Bilbo, who said on the floor of Congress in an argument against an anti-lynching bill in 1938:

“If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.”

To ignore the obvious distinctions between O’Connor and Bilbo is to misunderstand how the conversations of race in the south developed.  O’Connor expresses a nuanced opinion on race that helps us understand the development of white beliefs on race during the first half of the twentieth century.

I’ll quickly address the ahistoricism of the opposing extreme, those who accept wholesale the quotation in question.  The argument that “everyone was racist back then, so why would we expect otherwise?” equally ignores the distinctions (and messiness) of our historical perspectives on race.  For example, this type of defense of George Washington misses out on the fact that other founding fathers viewed slavery not just as a necessary evil, but as an evil to be eradicated.  John Adams famously said that the American Revolution wouldn't be complete until the slaves were free.  Many religious speakers of the times spoke at length and eloquently about the great injustice of slavery ─ and all this during a time that people mischaracterize as a point in history when racial equality wasn’t an idea yet. 

Both extreme positions on the topic miss out on how ideas develop, even moral ideas that seem so clear cut.  Ideas develop through education, family, reading and experience ─ but they develop oddly, often slowly, and circuitously.  To call a developmental position on race prejudiced or racist ─ as in the case of Twain ─ isn’t incorrect, and I might even say it’s important to.  But equally important is understanding its position in the larger development, otherwise we don’t understand how our own time period, like every other time period, is simply one part of the larger development as well.  To ignore history is to ignore how humanity actually moves forward in these areas (the former position’s limitation) ─ and to simplify history is to veer dangerously close to ignoring moral culpability (the latter position’s limitation).  

Holy Week & Tolkien

Last year I shared how Tolkien's motif of the long defeat helped me to see from a new angle the Easter mystery.

This Lent, I was struck by another point as we heard again the three great apocalyptic encounters in John's gospel, which are read for catechumens preparing for baptism on the three Sundays preceding Passion/Palm Sunday and Holy Week. In each of them, the spiritual healing of the woman at the well, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus, more and more of the answer to the driving question of John's gospel is given, the question addressed to the Lord Jesus: Who are you, where do you come from?

In the recounting of the raising of Lazarus, which has long been one of the singular passages in all the Bible which comes back to me over and over again and never fails to blow me away, and rarely fails to move me to tears--in this recounting, I was struck more by the background narrative of the gospel as a story, and another part of Tolkien's story got me to meditating.

In the gospel, Jesus's friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary live in Bethany, very close to Jerusalem. At this point, Jesus has aroused such hatred in the leaders at Jerusalem that it is dangerous for him even to show his face there. So when he decides to visit his friends in Bethany, his companions realize this may mean death for him. "Let us also go," says Thomas, "that we may die with him." Immediately after the raising, John writes, "Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand." Jesus has come to Jerusalem for the last time, for him to be glorified.

For some reason I recalled the arrival of Aragorn at Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. In that story, Aragorn was king by rights of the kingdom of Gondor and one with the right to sit on the throne at Minas Tirith--the real throne, not the chair that stewards had ruled from for many years as a sign of the absence of the kings. However, Aragorn chooses not to enter openly as ruler until Sauron has been overthrown, if that indeed can possibly happen. (I suppose this serious self-mastery reveals Aragorn's dignity--he does not shrink from the power and authority that comes with kingship, but neither does he seek domination over others as its own end. Rather his kingship will only be in service of a just peace, and only gained by the conquest of the threat of annihilation of that peace).

But as we remember, Aragorn does in fact enter the city after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, before the campaign against the gates of Mordor. He enters at night, unannounced and unrecognized, and goes about tending the wounded and dying, who were struck down in defense of his keep. He brings with him the healing herb of the Numenorean lords, and brings back from death's door many who were near death. All night he labors, and leaves the city at dawn to attend his council of war.

Of course, aside from the overlap of the arrival of the king, the plots of the two stories are different. When Jesus actually enters Jerusalem, he is recognized and hailed as king. And it is not a triumphant arrival that will establish a political regime. Instead of course, before the week's end, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, condemned in two trials--under the religious law and under the imperial law--tortured, and put to death.

Yet is there not a way in which the story Tolkien that tells openly in his romance is a hidden reality in the gospel history? This carpenter's son from Nazareth may have stirred up the people but he was quickly, easily, and utterly crushed by the powers that rule in Jerusalem. Yet John professes over and over again, here it comes, the hour of Jesus, when he will be lifted up, this is it: God is glorifying him. Jesus was, in fact, king. Not only the Son of God, holding authority over all things as their author, but within the history of the Davidic kingdom as well, Jesus was king. "God has raised up for us a mighty savior / born of the house of his servant David" (Lk 1:69). Furthermore, within the broader human story, the procurator who will judge him in the name of the imperium of Rome only holds his power "from above." By his death and resurrection, Jesus will win the scepter of rule over every earthly power, and even over every cosmic power. ("Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be cast out" - Jn 12:31). He will have authority from the top down and from the bottom up, as it were.

This king arrived in the royal city a week before his Passion (just as the high priest was required to arrive and live in the Temple a week before the Day of Atonement), and a lot of his teachings in the synoptic gospels come from this week: the cleansing of the temple, the parable of the tenants with the highlighting of the prophecy in Ps 118 about the stone rejected by the builders (which we read every week on the Lord's Day in the Liturgy of the Hours), the question about the resurrection, about David's son, and the Greatest Commandment, plus his prophecy of the destruction of the Temple.

He entered his city in a way like Aragorn, unrecognized for his true authority; but he brought his healing herb to save many from dying. And at weeks end, he revealed his power and dignity and authority in casting down the ancient foe:

Death and life have contended

in that combat stupendous;

the prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.

Words

What with the subject of my study, which involves controversy among French Catholics in the late eighteenth century, I've been thinking more than I've ever had to before about basic elements of Christianity.

One approached the subject with a certain vague picture already in one's mind, in which (a) the French Revolution is caused by Modern Ideas (tm) such as the social contract, human rights, the link between liberty and democratic forms of government, a vague link between both of those and social, technical, and moral progress, etc. Thus (b) Rousseau, Locke, Diderot, and Montesquieu are the important thinkers who provided the main motive ideas driving the Revolution. And so (c) it is natural that the Revolution inaugurated the worst persecution of Christians since Diocletian and attacked the Catholic Church.

But while this vague interpretation contains important truths, one found in reading the sources close-up and in context, the interpretation is quite inadequate. It leaves out a very important part of the story, in which believing Catholics who fall across the spectrum in terms of their attitude towards what we would call "The Enlightenment" (and what they referred to as philosophie) embraced the Revolution and helped carry out some of the leading attacks on the Catholic Church as it then existed in France. And all the while, these men (including some clergy and canon lawyers) claimed not to be in schism and only to be making changes to things falling outside of the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical power.

All of which raise numerous questions : what exactly is "the Church"? What is "religion"? What is worship, and what is its connection to the Church? Is the Church a thing that preaches or a thing that worships?

Which preamble leads me to discuss today's important terms. Because I am a reader who thinks in English, studying a culture that thought and wrote in French, I run up against certain issues of translation: the French use the word eglise (from Latin ecclesia, from Greek ἐκκλησία, = assembly) for both the church building and for the universal Church (l'Eglise catholique) and for local churches* ( l'eglise d'Alexandrie ). They also used temple for the buildings, and they use culte where we would use "religion" or "denomination." Temple is funny, because we never use that, so it contains connotations of pre-Christian Jewish sacrificial worship or of pagan religion. One can get over the false cognate of "cult" quickly enough, and remember Latin cultus as worship or a particular form of worship, as for the specific prayers and rites used for a certain god, patron saint, or festival ("the cult of x").
* Another difficult term -- remember that exchange between Kasper and Ratzinger on the relationship between local churches and the universal church?

So what does "church" connect to? Interestingly enough, I learn from the Oxford English Dictionary that church, though it comes to us from Germanic languages, reached them from Greek-speaking Christian groups. The Christians used the term "the house of the Lord," κυριακὸν δῶμα, which got shortened to just κυριακόν. ("We're going to the Lord's [house] this Sunday"). This word kyriakon spread among German-speaking groups and gradually became something like "kirk" (still this way in Scotland). As with lots of Germanic words (cattle, carta, castle, frank) the hard "c" softened into our "ch" sound (chattel, chart/er, chateau, french/franchise), leaving us with "church." As the dictionary stateth:

According to most modern views, the word was probably borrowed early into West Germanic from the ecclesiastical usage of the Christian communities of the colonial cities of the Rhine area. The Greek noun is well attested in eastern sources during the early 4th cent., and was probably current also in the use of the early Christian church in the Rhine area, where Greek models were influential. As a word for a very basic part of the material culture of the Christian faith it was probably well known even to pagan Germanic peoples bordering the imperial frontiers, and to those encountering Christian peoples in both the Roman and post-Roman periods.

...  

In each of the West Germanic languages the word probably originally denoted a church as physical building (as in Greek), but was early extended to denote also the church as an institution and as a body of worshippers, probably after the range of meanings of post-classical Latin ecclesia and its etymon ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (as used in Hellenistic Greek). Application to the holy buildings of other faiths is also found in various other early Germanic languages. 

So church did really derive from the building, although for Christians holding the doctrine of Sts. Peter and Paul, the building is also the body whose head is Christ, while other parts of the (non-Semitic speaking) Christian world spoke of the Assembly or the whole body of those called together.

Doesn't necessarily solve all my issues with l'Eglise constitutionnelle in revolutionary France, but it is fascinating, so I share.