I just finished reading
1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project by Peter Wood, President of the National Association of Scholars and a professor of History at Duke University. In it Professor Wood suggested that the November, 1620 signing of the Mayflower Compact is as foundational to the United States and its character as was the landing of slaves in Virginia in August of 1619.
1620 is a critique of the historical basis for the claims made in the NYT's "1619 Project" and finds that in almost every case the historical claims made in the Project were exaggerated or simply wrong. This was not simply a matter of interpreting the historical data differently, but of making assertions about the history that are demonstrably wrong.
Professor Wood does not assert that racism has not nor continues to be a problem in the United States, or that the mythology of the United States as somehow the perfect nation was correct. But if we are to totally reframe our understanding of United States History as the authors and sponsors of the "1619 Project" set out to do, at least they could do so on the basis of the actual history of the United States rather than creating their own origin myths based as much or more on ideology than solid historical research.
This has significance for us as Pastors and Church Men and Church Women for several reasons. We are also part of the USA and have a stake in what is being taught not just about our history as a nation, but about who we are as a people. But more than that, when we preach, teach, and talk about race relations we need to do so based not on cleverly devised stories but on the facts. The "1619 Project" seeks to indict the United States and especially its dominate group of people, Whites, of falsifying their history for their own benefit and calls for changes in what we do. But if that indictment is based not on the facts of the case but lies and misrepresentations, can we as Church People countenance and lend our support to that indictment? Do we agree with the legal theory that "well the accused might not actually be guilty of this accusation but we know that he is a guilty of something so this will do."? What would that say of us as a people?
We also have a stake in what passes as history. Christianity is an historically based religion. Throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, a constant refrain is that the God who speaks to His people, who calls for their worship, loyalty, faithfulness and obedience is that God who had
done certain things for them. He is the God who created everything, who rescued them from slavery in Egypt, who fought for them against their enemies, provided for them in need, who became one of them, died for their sins and rose to give them life. Christianity is not primarily about what we need to do to get in good with God, to have a good life, or a good afterlife, but about what God has done, not in theory but in history. History as an accurate recounting of the past is important to us. In 1 Corinthians 15, when St. Paul discusses the resurrection of Jesus he spoke not about the story of the resurrection as comforting or inspiring, or how it should make us feel. He gives a list of witnesses who could testify that it actually happened at a particular time and place. Then he goes on to say that if it had not actually happened but was rather simply an inspiring story the whole Christian enterprise was useless.
If history becomes for ourselves simply stories that we tell ourselves to comfort us, challenge us, or spur us to action, where the story of the patriots risking their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, is no better to inspire us than the Rebel Alliance uniting to fight the Evil Empire of Emperor Palpatine, and stories may simply be switched around to suit the moment, then what of Christianity's
Heilsgeschichte?
The central doctrine in Lutheranism is that of justification by grace. Our salvation is based on what God has done for us, not what we do. But if the stories that we tell and are told of God's actions for us are essentially fungible and any story to obtains the desired result in us "works" then it all depends on us learning to be a good person, authentic person, useful person, fulfilled person, or whatever kind of person our philosophy or therapy seeks. It becomes up to us because our stories have become not what God has done but what we need to hear.
It is this kind of history that the "1619 Project" promotes. History becomes the story we tell to obtain the desired result. At the beginning, when it was published by the New York Times, it had great claims to be telling the true unvarnished history of the United States as it
really happened. It would reframe US history and be the basis for a new and comprehensive curriculum for teaching US history. However, that claim soon wilted in that face of withering criticism from reputable historians of inaccuracies, significant omissions, and misrepresentations. It eventually morphed into a journalistic exercise, not historical, a way to get Americans to think differently about themselves.
People make up myths about themselves all the time, Americans no less than others. We have the Noble Pilgrims, righteous Patriots, Cowboys battling the barbaric Indians and rapacious farmers who sought to fence them in, Washington chopping down the cherry tree and refusing to lie about it, and all the rest. Often times there is some grain of truth behind the myth, but much is made out of whole cloth to satisfy some need or raconteur's itch. They can be useful to inculcate desired behavior or attitudes. The myth of the shining, heroic, all benevolent America whose alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears is a myth, albeit a flattering one. But must we bring that flight of fancy down to earth by creating another myth of an America about which nothing good can be said, inhabited by a race of people who are universally evil?
The reality is that nations and people are complex combinations of good and bad. While it is easier and comforting to pigeonhole people (including ourselves) as good people (practically perfect with just a few easily excusable foibles) and bad people (who are unremittably and irredeemably bad for whom no excuse can be made). The truth is much more complicated than the perfectionist model would hold. Look at St. Paul's torturous self-examination in Romans 7.
We need to preserve history as accounts of what has happened not just useful stories we tell ourselves since our faith is based not on cleverly devised myths (21 Peter 1:16) but what God actually has done for us. We also need to learn to deal with people (ourselves first of all) not as simply good guys and bad guys but as saints and sinners.
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