A Reflection - “The Vital Importance of Constructive Remembering”
Last week I found myself quite irritated with religion. Not
all religion. But with the type of Christianity loosely called fundamentalism.
The seeming inability of fundamentalists to agree to differ, because each
fundamentalist version is certain that it has read the mind of God with
total accuracy, seems intellectually one-dimensional. This religious outlook
is not unique to right-wing Protestantism; it is found in varying degrees
within Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. As a retired
philosophy professor and priest, I am particularly saddened when I run into
militant certainty. I am convinced that we human beings can only arrive
at “schools of thought” – never to be sure that any represent
the absolute Truths in the mind of our Creator.
However, even this was not at the center of what was irritating
me. Instead, it is the way that a one-dimensional Christianity is entering
into public policy. Appeals to this religion (which certainly does not represent
me or millions of other citizens) appears to have a disproportionate place
in American life – for the first time in our history.
I e-mailed a long-time friend and scholar of United States
history and discovered that I was wrong about the uniqueness of this period.
I had failed to remember that Anglican priest George Whitfield was a driving
force in the Great Awakening from 1740 to 1780. The next generation, which
produced our Constitution (1787), reacted to it with deism – a belief
in God as the long-gone, primary architect of the universe, but neither
in the Bible in any sense as revealed, nor the biblical God who acts in
history; Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were major figures at this
time.
Another surge in religious enthusiasm occurred around 1820,
lasting for a generation. This was a much more progressive movement during
which Unitarianism found favor among many. Nearly a century later we need
to remember a more modern example of the impact of Fundamentalism on public
policy, that is, the passage and subsequent repeal of Prohibition (1920-1933).
Though the ebb and flow of religious fervor is not new to American history,
we can learn from a more accurate remembering that Fundamentalism has been
around before, and its effects can be minimized in the next cycle. It would
be more accurate to say that in matters of religious fervor influencing
public policy and life in general, there has been an active period, followed
by reaction, since the 17th c. Puritans. A vacillation has been characteristic
of the impact of religion (including Fundamentalism) on American history.
Just this week, Jim Wallis, a distinguished conservative
and evangelical in the best sense, commented that he has recently witnessed
throughout the country “a new movement of moderate and progressive
religious voices challenging the monologue of the Religious Right.” It
is no longer the case that an extremely narrow and aggressively partisan
expression of right-wing Republican religion is controlling the debate on
faith and politics in the public square...” Rather, notes Wallis, “… there
are visible signs that the Religious Right does not speak for all Christians,
even all evangelical Christians. What I hear, from one end of this country
to the other, is how tired we are of ideological religion and how hungry
we are for prophetic faith.” I hope that The White House and Congress
as well as Governors and state legislatures pay attention to the implications
of Mr. Wallis’s observations.
With a corrected memory, I am more hopeful about the future – even
though I am puzzled by what might be the components of an effective Anglican-based
Christian ministry today. One might say that for understanding the present,
including one’s own life, one must have an accurate grasp of past
essentials. This will vary for different peoples. For example, Jews, Gypsies,
and Gay people should remember the Holocaust and their horrific victimization,
so that nothing like that will happen again. On Monday we observe a national
holiday that has evolved over the years; Americans remember the debt of
gratitude we owe to our veterans who gave their lives for our country. On
this important day, communities across our Nation stop to remember and to
honor the great sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform.
Hear three short observations about remembering, about history. “Not
to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue always a
child.” - (Cicero) “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned
to repeat it.” - (Santayana) “A nation which does not know what
it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying
to do.” - (Woodrow Wilson) Of course, there’s a downside: “Peoples
and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles
deducible from it.” (G.W.F. Hegel) One suspects that Hegel’s
comment applies to so many, many contemporary political leaders today!
An Old Testament scholar has written, "Memory is one of humanity's
supreme endowments. Each of us acts today and hopes for tomorrow in the
light of past experiences that have been woven into a life-story. When we
want to know someone, we ask that person to tell us something about his
or her life, for in this way personal identity is disclosed. To be a self
is to have a personal history. This is what defines one's uniqueness."
[1]
A primary reason that you and I gather for worship is neither
to prod the Creator to do what we should be doing ourselves nor to satisfy
an imagined need on God's part for kneeling creatures. Rather, we are here
to a large extent to remember constructively, positively, and helpfully.
Through what is heard again from our holy writings, through what is said
and sung, by noticing depictions in stained glass, through what is provided
in consecrated water, bread, wine, and touch, our collective memory and
individual recollections reach back over the centuries to God's unremitting
search for human faithfulness, and to numerous Divine self-disclosures,
especially His Word manifest in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, each of us is
reminded repeatedly who we basically are: unique, named children of God "born
from above" through our baptisms.
The memories we share here are not indifferent recollections
of ancient doctrines, historic ceremonies, and legendary personalities -
all past and absent - now to be viewed as museum exhibits. Rather what we
do here is intended to make present to us, in the realm of the here and
now, God's Word made flesh.
Remembering who we are, you and I may leave here as sensitive
and resourceful participants in God's own community. We may go from this
Service, having relived, having called to heart and mind a bit of our sacred
history. We may depart touched by God's Grace, deepened by His presence,
and inspired by his Spirit. We may leave strengthened by memories and enlivened
in a renewed bond.
"Thanks for the memories ..." sang Bob Hope. Indeed! Thanks be to God!
[1] Bernard W. Anderson,
Understanding the Old Testament, Abridged 4th ed. (1998),
1.