Faith, Context and Blindness

The other night my 8 year old son was reading his “Pathway Reader” a really effective book published by the Anabaptists for the purpose of teaching reading to younger children. My wife, being a professional educator and a reading specialist, chose these books simply because their approach to teaching reading is excellent. We use them in addition to what our kids are learning at school and between them and my wife’s hard work, my sons are both reading at least three years ahead of their grade level. Yes, I’m proud of that…

But I digress…

My son was reading the 8th grade book, which includes a great deal of Christian history and specifically Anabaptist history which, as you may know, is full of stories of martyrdom at the hands of other Christians in Europe back in the 16th and 17th Centuries. He said to me, “Dad, I thought Martin Luther was saved!” I said that he was… or is.

“Why do you ask?” I asked.

He was reading about how there was organized Protestant persecution of the Anabaptists (from an Anabaptist perspective, obviously) and Martin Luther was not being painted in a very positive light.

It raised a very poignant question: How could Christians kill other Christians? Was one group not really saved? Were they both good illustrations of why religion is a problem? Was it an issue of blindness or blind spots? It reminded me of my own, similar questions regarding the execution by drowning of Felix Manz at the hands of Ulrich Zwingli…

I considered Zwingli a great reformer and almost certainly regenerate. And then I read my Christian History book. But does his role in the death of another Christian negate all he did for the Kingdom? Maybe it does…

This very paradigm brings me to today’s post. Essentially, if a Christian or someone else from history who was famous for great things is found to have done something we now see is horrible, do we dismiss that person completely? Does the bad not only outweigh the good as far as our historical assessment, but does it cancel it out completely?

I thought of this in relation to another historical figure of enormous proportion – Stonewall Jackson. Considered a hero by many, both north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line, Jackson owned slaves. White people cannot fathom how painful it is for African-Americans to sit in school and hear about heroes like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc. knowing that these men, on their best day, saw Black people as less than human and as mere property.

So do we discard these men – the Founding Fathers? Do we discard men like Jackson, who by all accounts was a devout Christian?

Consider these accounts:

"Stonewall" Jackson (1824-1863)

Both in faith and in battle, he would not be moved.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/holidays/memorial/features/33h034.html
Thomas Jonathan Jackson was as thorough a Christian as he was a soldier. One writer described him: "He lives by the New Testament and fights by the Old." Orphaned at age 6, Jackson grew up poor and uneducated in foster homes. He entered West Point near the bottom of his class, but he graduated seventeenth. The second lieutenant then served in the Mexican-American war. Following the war, while Jackson was in the occupation force, his superior challenged him to study Christianity. He did, all the while struggling with intestinal problems. He wrote his sister that his digestive problems "were decreed by Heaven's sovereign, as a punishment for my offenses against his Holy Laws and have probably been the instrument of turning me from the path of eternal death, to that of everlasting life." He was baptized at age 25.

Five years later, his young wife and unborn child died, which devastated him but ultimately strengthened his faith. He remarried, and his second wife, Mary Anna Morrison, lived until 1915. Though baptized an Episcopalian, Jackson became a Presbyterian, and he was a noted tither to his home church. The Jackson family held prayers at seven A.M., and even servants were required to attend. Jackson never waited for anyone, not even his wife, to begin prayers. Following breakfast, Jackson would leave for his teaching duties at Virginia Military Institute (where his students called him "Tom Fool Jackson"). Jackson would return home for Bible study, which he did using a commentary.

Jackson believed that slavery was ordained of God. Strict but kind with his own slaves, he asked his wife to teach two slave boys to read. He even organized a Sabbath school for African-Americans in Lexington and taught a class for five or six years. "My Heavenly Father has condescended to use me as an instrument in getting up a large Sabbath school for the Negroes here," he wrote. "He has greatly blessed it."

In April 1861, Jackson prayed with his wife and his cadets, and then left for Richmond to assume his command. At the Battle of Manassas in July 1861, he took a green infantry brigade and turned the tide of the battle. During the fighting, Brigadier General Barnard E. Bee instructed his men: "There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!" The name stuck, and "Stonewall" Jackson soon became Lee's right arm in battle. He daringly moved large numbers of men quickly (some say too recklessly). In one sixty-day period, his troops marched over six hundred miles and fought five major battles and numerous skirmishes.

His military prowess earned him the fear of northerners, who regarded him as "a species of demon," "a fallen angel," and "a cold-blooded rascal." But Jackson never forgot where his abilities came from. After Lee commended his performance at Chancellorsville, Stonewall replied: "General Lee is very kind, but he should give the praise to God." On the battlefield, Stonewall Jackson maintained his devotional life. According to historian John W. Schildt, "His men saw him stumbling and falling over trees and rocks. They almost thought he had too much to drink. That was not the problem. He was praying with his eyes closed while he walked." Following every victory, Jackson ordered his chaplains to hold thanksgiving services. He was known to ride through the camps distributing tracts to his soldiers, and he often took part in his troops' religious meetings. Wrote Henry Kyd Douglas in I Rode with Stonewall: "And when he had reached the place of prayer, lo, the camp was there. Bowed heads, bent knees, hats off, silence! Stonewall Jackson was kneeling to the Lord of Hosts, in prayer for his people!"

Sundays were generally a day of rest. "Deacon Jackson," as his men sometimes called him, hated doing battle on Sunday. Jackson was rigid and stern, and he fought intensely with his subordinates. Some thought he was insane. But despite the way some writers have portrayed him, Jackson was not a fanatic. It's simply that, in one historian's words, his "primary interests" were "Biblical theology and Christian discipleship." Because of this, he could declare: "My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death." After being accidentally shot by his own forces, he died on Sunday, May 10, 1863. "I always wanted to die on a Sunday," he said.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Jackson
Little as he was known to the white inhabitants of Lexington, Jackson was revered by many of the African-Americans in town, both slaves and free blacks. He was instrumental in the organization in 1855 of Sunday school classes for blacks at the Presbyterian Church. His second wife, Mary Anna Jackson, taught with Jackson, as "he preferred that my labors should be given to the colored children, believing that it was more important and useful to put the strong hand of the Gospel under the ignorant African race, to lift them up." [15]

The pastor, Dr. William Spottswood White, described the relationship between Jackson and his Sunday afternoon students: "In their religious instruction he succeeded wonderfully. His discipline was systematic and firm, but very kind. ... His servants reverenced and loved him, as they would have done a brother or father. ... He was emphatically the black man's friend." He addressed his students by name and they in turn referred to him affectionately as "Marse Major."[16] Jackson's family owned six slaves in the late 1850s. Three (Hetty, Cyrus, and George, a mother and two teenage sons) were received as a wedding present. Another, Albert, requested that Jackson purchase him and allow him to work for his freedom; he was employed as a waiter in one of the Lexington hotels and Jackson rented him to VMI. Amy also requested that Jackson purchase her from a public auction and she served the family as a cook and housekeeper. The sixth, Emma, was a four-year-old orphan with a learning disability, accepted by Jackson from an aged widow and presented to his second wife, Mary Anna, as a welcome-home gift.[17]

After the American Civil War began, he appears to have hired out or sold his slaves. Mary Anna Jackson, in her 1895 memoir, said, "our servants ... without the firm guidance and restraint of their master, the excitement of the times proved so demoralizing to them that he deemed it best for me to provide them with good homes among the permanent residents." [18]

James Robertson wrote about Jackson's view on slavery:[19]
“Jackson neither apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery. He probably opposed the institution. Yet in his mind the Creator had sanctioned slavery, and man had no moral right to challenge its existence. The good Christian slaveholder was one who treated his servants fairly and humanely at all times.”

Let me put it another way: A friend of mine was interacting with me on the issue of abortion during the 2008 campaign and indirectly agreed with me that Abortion is genocide. He stated it this way: “Abortion amounts to genocide.” In other words, the abortion doctor or the pro-choice people are not setting out to kill babies, though that is in fact what happens.

I understood his meaning, and he unknowingly helped me clarify my thoughts on Zwingli, Jackson, and other historical figures. They saw themselves as doing something good, even though in fact it was not something good.

The vast majority of abortionists and pro-choice activists really, truly do not see abortion as murder. That’s why it does not help us to call them “pro-death” any more than it does for them to call us “anti-choice” (or misogynists or bigots or whatever else they like to call us). They truly believe a baby is no more that a piece of tissue. They are wrong. So while they are still murderers in the sense that their direct, intentional actions lead to the death of other human beings, they are not murderers in the same way that Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler were.

But my question is, does their understanding of what they’re doing (or lack of it) mitigate how we assess them? The same principle and question apply to people like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and yes, Stonewall Jackson.

If you view the world through the lenses they had, just like if you view abortion through the abortionist’s lens, it helps you see things a bit clearer. Jackson, for instance, grew up in a world where slavery was a way of life and had been for hundreds of years. It was “normal”. In spite of this, he broke the law to teach his slaves to read and to evangelize them. He loved them and they loved him. How should that impact the way we look at him? Slavery and its long-lingering effects have been beyond horrific. Can there be any "buts"?

Think of Zwingli. His convictions were that the Anabaptists were imperiling the souls of innocent children. He was wrong. But if you could stand in his shoes, in a mindset that was just emerging from Medieval thought where everything was absolutely absolute, might you do the same thing? Or at least feel the same way?

Of course, I’m with the Anabaptists. They got it right – the Bible clearly portrays believer’s baptism if it portrays anything, and the Anabaptists were acting on their biblical convictions. They were truly martyrs. But looking through different lenses helps me see how one Christian could kill another, unjustified as it was. They were blinded by culture, bad theology and Medieval thought.

The list could go on… Luther, Thomas Jefferson, some of the Popes. You see what I mean. I feel we cannot dismiss historical figures because we now see certain things so much clearer.

Did they sin? YES! Will they answer to God? God is both just and impartial. They will certainly answer. But my guess is that the righteous Judge will take things into account that we cannot know. We may be surprised at some verdicts that are handed down on that Day.

Q: What do you think of historical figures that are regarded as heroes by many but got some things inexplicably and terribly wrong? Do we dismiss them in our “superior” moral perspective? Do we blindly praise their accolades while ignoring their evil? How do we process this?