"Set our hearts at liberty"

My friend and fellow historian, Thomas Kidd, wrote earlier this week about his "top five forgotten Founders," a timely and topical post to be sure, since the United States celebrated the 238th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th.  And though I was on vacation (and doing a little research for my next book project), I was thinking about writing about one of my favorite forgotten founders, Francis Hopkinson--signer of the Declaration from New Jersey, member of Christ Church Episcopal in Philadelphia, lawyer, writer, and first federal judge of what became the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.




His story is an interesting one.  His home was raided by British troops (but an officer, or so the story goes, refused to allow it to be burned to the ground because of Hopkinson's impressive library), he was an advocate of the Constitution, and though he died shortly after assuming the federal bench, his son Joseph Hopkinson was later appointed to the same position, and enjoyed a long tenure as a district court judge.

But, I changed my mind.  Perhaps it was because our vacation had taken us to Walt Disney World (where there was little time and even less inclination, to write a blog post).  It was not as though we lacked for patriotic stimulus, Disney has maybe the best fireworks displays for the Fourth of July (which tops their usual fireworks) you will ever see and hear.



It was very special to get to experience it with my family.  But it was also fun to get to witness it along side with thousands of others, not just from the United States, but from around the world.  And that got me thinking about the patriotic message that Disney was proclaiming and what it meant not just to me, but to all those other people--in particular for those who were not American citizens.  What did they make of all our red, white, and blue patriotism? 

I don't have an answer for that question, but I was pondering it a bit this morning while waiting for church to start.  While flipping to the first hymn, I paused for a moment on Charles Wesley's "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," where I came upon the line that offered up the title for this post: "set our hearts at liberty."  And that got me thinking about what those Founding Fathers (whether forgotten or not) meant by "liberty."  It does not have the same meaning as "equality" (the great buzz word of both modern America and the French Revolution) not even akin to "equality under the law" since they knew laws might change.  It does not have the same meaning as "freedom,"with notions of doing whatever one wants.  No, I think when the Founders spoke of liberty I think more often than not they meant it was the ability (indeed the responsibility) to do what was right.  It came with a set of implied moral precepts that today we either to often take for granted or don't even recognize.

It is true, of course, that Americans don't always live up to the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that Hopkinson signed.  It is good to recall them, and not just on July 4th.  We can only hope that God will continue and continually "set our hearts at liberty," while also offering up the prayer included in Katharine Lee Bates hymn "America the Beautiful," may "God mend thine every flaw."

A Word (or Two) from Our Top Two Presidents

Today in the United States, we officially celebrated George Washington's birthday.  Of course, as many posts today have pointed out, it isn't actually Washington's birthday, nor is it really "President's Day" (which is largely a marketing ploy, or sloppiness amongst officials, depending on how you look at it).  Indeed, the holiday wasn't designed to honor all of our presidents, or even all the presidents born in February, it was to be Washington's Day.  But with a birthday that changed with a revamped calendar, coupled with the desire to give federal employees three day weekends, Washington is now coupled another February-born president, Abraham Lincoln, to give some of us a day off from work and school, and historians an opportunity to bring out fun facts or plum the depths of their presidential souls to give us some new insight on the American experience (among the best I read today was from Thomas Kidd, about the faith of both men).

But the two men, so often ranked as our two best presidents (I can't fathom the justification for not putting them in those slots) are worth reading in their own words.  So, tonight, I give you some quotes that are worth pondering. The first, is from George Washington:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

I love that last part:  "...forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."  As I sketch out future book ideas (one, in particular, about American Christianity and culture) that line strikes quite the chord.  Washington of course, as he often was, was thinking of the future, but he was also crafting these lines in the midst of the French Revolution--when totalitarianism, perhaps for the first time, seemed on the verge of overwhelming liberty.  It would not be the last time, but it is still striking how timely Washington's words remain.  Coming from a man who had rejected empire for revolution, rejected his farm and home for his national duty, who had not just fought a war to gain independence, but also helped craft a government to keep the republic free, perhaps we'd do well to ponder what he has to say on more things.

And now, for a quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."  

 Context of course is always important.  Lincoln wrote these words not as the Civil War approached, but rather in 1838.  In some respects, it looks prophetic, knowing what we know would soon happen.  But they are words worth pondering today as well.  Having come through my college years at a time when there was (and to degree, there still is) raging academic debate over American exceptionalism, I think you are hard pressed not to conclude that Lincoln thought it was a pretty special place.  A nation that had, as it's national father, George Washington, a nation that was worth preserving, worth making better, worth fighting for (both in political rhetoric and then eventually--sadly--on the battlefield).

When we think of presidents, there is every reason to think of these two men.  And though they lived and died long ago, to use them to measure all the rest who have followed (and aspire to do so) them to the office of president.

"It is for us the living"

I have been lucky enough to travel to Gettysburg twice.  The first time was with my family, when I was about nine years old.  The second time was in Eighth Grade, as part of a school trip to Washington, D.C. (still among my favorite trips ever, thanks Mr. Smith!).  As an historian, I've talked about the Civil War that made Gettysburg world famous nearly every semester of my professional career.  Indeed, I teach an entire class on the Civil War and just today got to the war in my US History survey class.

But today is special.  Today marks the 150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  It is a speech that generations of Americans have memorized (and rightfully so).  It is a speech with a rich history (you can see the various versions, and why there are various versions here).  It is a speech that has been considered both "scripture" and "Gospel" in its use of religious imagery, language and cadence to construct a civil religion (see here).  It is a speech that eclipsed the main speech of the day, which was delivered by Edward Everett.  It is a speech that was panned by many when it was first given (an opinion that has now been overturned).  And it is one that continues to be a touchstone for many, still capable of inspiring Americans and generating news.

None of that is really what I'm interested in today though.  My friend, Thomas Kidd, posted this article today about the Address, in which he focuses on the phrase "new birth of freedom"and how Lincoln's use of familiar religious language not just helped create the aforementioned civil religion, but also perhaps divorced that language from it religious origins.  As Kidd notes, "But what is lost when the new birth becomes tied to a nation’s history, rather than a redeemer’s saving work?"  I think that is a very important question to ask, and one that perhaps academics (including theologians) should ponder.

But Kidds' question is also not one I'm going to attempt to answer, at least not today.  Rather, I'm going to focus on a phrase in the speech that I've been pondering of late, the one that starts the final section of the speech "It is for us the living."  I think it is often easy to overlook that phrase, but it shouldn't be, and not just because of where Lincoln was when he gave the Address.  Of course, he builds to it rhetorically in the speech, which was given in the midst of a battlefield that was rapidly being turned into a cemetery:  Death would have been omnipresent in those surroundings for his listeners.  But I think there is more to it than that.  Ever since visiting the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum a few years ago, I've thought that many scholars, commentators, and folks interested in Lincoln have missed out on how much death was a part of Lincoln's life, and how it shaped him.

Think about it, long before the war related deaths during his presidency, long before there were "great battlefield[s]" to visit, Lincoln's life was never far from death.  His mother's death scarred his childhood. 

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His sister's death was difficult for him as well.  Ann Rutledge (often thought to have been Lincoln's great love before he married Mary Todd) died from typhoid fever (perhaps prompting Lincoln to pen a poem on death and suicide is often attributed to him).  He, along with Mary, buried two of their children (one before his presidency and another during).

Of course, none of these deaths was all that uncommon in nineteenth century America.  Indeed, death was much more "common" in very real ways for people of Lincoln's time than it is for us today.  And yet, each of these death's is also quite "uncommon" or special, because Lincoln to us is so exceptional.  How he reacted to these deaths shaped him as a man, and as a president.  To neglect how much death stalked Lincoln, culminating not just in the wartime deaths of soldiers, but in his own death at the hand's of John Wilkes Booth, we neglect how significant it really was to making him the president we now encounter in all those books.

Which is why that phrase,  "It is for us the living" so sticks out to me.  For all the death he had faced, for all the death that surrounded him, Lincoln never lost sight of the fact that whatever the dead have been able to accomplish before (or because) they died, ultimately it is up to those they left behind to actually finish the work they started, to see it through (or to borrow from St. Paul in Second Timothy 4:7, to "finish the race").  Whatever else the Address may have been at the time or has become; whether or not we now (to flip its words on its head) remember it more than the "honored dead" who fought at Gettysburg, it is good for us to remember Lincoln's charge--the work that needs to be done, is up to the living to actually achieve.

Evidence

I always tell my classes at the start of the semester how, when I went to off to college, I thought I was going to go to law school and become a lawyer.  That didn't happen, for a variety of reasons -- the waning of the influence of "Law and Order" in my life; the realization that I really did love (and wanted to make it my vocation) History; and power of professors in the Indiana University History Department to reshape my thinking.  That being said, I did marry into a legal family (my father-in-law and wife are both members of the bar) and my brother also ended up in law school.  I've done legal history as well, and so the law is never far from me, nor are its precepts.  One of the foundations is the importance of evidence when you make a case, and tonight I came up on further evidence that maybe, just maybe, I was on to something in The Mainline.

Readers will recall that one of the arguments I made in the final chapter was that we needed to think (in order to save the term) of a new make up for the Mainline of the twenty-first century.  I included in that list of denominations or groups Pentecostal Christians (most importantly, the Assemblies of God).    In a recent article for World Magazine, Thomas Kidd (who was kind enough to provide the blurb for the back of my book, in an effort at full disclosure -- another legal rule) makes the argument that Pentecostals (highlighting the Assemblies) are indeed bucking the trend when it comes to membership growth and are a force to be reckoned with on the religious scene of today.  You can read the whole article here.

It isn't, of course, the final verdict in such discussions about the role/importance of denominations in telling American religious history, but it is a pretty good bit of evidence that maybe, just maybe, not every story about denominations has to be about decline.

Head and Heart

One of the fun things about teaching is that oftentimes, students raise questions that I as a professor have not really thought about before.  If you've read some of my earlier posts, you know that The Mainline was largely shaped in the classroom, so there should be little surprise that I've surely been influenced by this trend professionally.  That being said there is one question that has been raised several times by students over the past few years that I have a hard time figuring out, and since writing sometimes leads to answers, I thought I'd devote today's post to the issue, if not the answer.

Here is the basic outline.  While teaching the first half of the US Survey (roughly discovery/colonization through the Civil War/Reconstruction), I always make sure to spend time talking about the First and Second Great Awakenings.  Though there is debate over exact dates (as an aside, it is a pet peeve of mine how often historians get labeled as purveyors of dates, since History is rarely planned out and even when it is, its not as if things "just happen" on a given date or end a certain time), generally the First Great Awakening ran from the 1710s into the 1740s (give or take), and the Second Great Awakening ran from the 1790s into the 1830s (again, give or take).  The FGA was trans-Atlantic in scope, and was marked by the preaching of such divines as Jonathon Edwards, George Whitefield, and the Wesley brothers.  The SGA was more American in focus, and showcased the preaching talents of the Beechers, Charles Finney, Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell.  The FGA is often construed as having saved orthodoxy from the clutches of Deism and reinvigorated a sense of "the Protestant Interest" (to borrow from Thomas Kidd's excellent work on the topic).  For American Historians, the FGA also is a precursor event to the American Revolution (at least in some circles).  The SGA, while starting off as a religious revival (geared towards making sure that churches got planted in the newly opened Western states) eventually morphed into a movement that was also (at least in the Northeast and much of the Midwest) interested in reforming society (including, of course, anti-slavery).

So far, so good.  But then the questions start.  Consistently I have students who "embrace" or "support" the FGA (how can you not like Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?).  But just as consistently, I have students who berate the very idea of the SGA.  Many of those who take on the SGA cite its calls for Christian activism in the public sphere, or with specific reforms that became a part of it.  But probably the most persistent critique is that the SGA appealed not to the "head" but only to the "heart".  That its emotional appeals led to "shallow" conversions, which contributed to later problems in American Christianity.

I admit that the first time this happened in a classroom, I was sort of taken aback.  It was certainly new to me.  I generally point out that the same type of critiques were and could be leveled at the FGA (again, take a look at Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God -- it is pretty scary stuff to think that God's grace is the only thing keeping you from falling into hell, and maybe you should get right with Him before he removes His grace!).  I've also had to counter claims that "nothing like this (ie appeals to emotion) ever happened in the Bible" -- by asking those interested to take a look at Acts Chapter 2 and try not to hear the emotional appeal in it.

When we dig a bit deeper the "head vs. heart" debate eventually gets us into discussion about theology.  Now, I'm not a theologian (and I don't think I've yet had one as a student), but the gist of this animosity towards the SGA in some circles is the belief that it was the start of liberal theology within American Protestantism.  There maybe some truth to that, but I'd also argue that it isn't the whole truth.  Saying that someone like Henry Ward Beecher (whose theology eventually diverged quite a bit from that of his father Lyman -- and both men were standard bearers for the SGA) would be comfortably classified as a liberal today is problematic for several reasons.  Did the SGA get everything "right" (whether theologically or in the manner of reform)?  No.  But then again, I'd argue that most of the people (including one favorite target for some modern theological conservatives, Charles Finney) weren't attempting to forge a coherent theology at all.  For some, but only some (like Washington Gladden) that came later.

In the end (for me at least) talking about the FGA/SGA has prompted some interesting discussions, which I enjoy.  They've made me question assumptions I've had about these events, as well as raise questions for me about how we (including my students) understand them.  Oftentimes, it seems "we know what we know because we know it," my hope is that with some study and reflection we can see that both the FGA and SGA utilized a sort of balanced witness of the Christian faith, of both "head and heart", that it wasn't an "either/or" kind of thing.  If that makes for a more complicated history, so be it.  Because it is also probably more accurate.