Dithering Duties.....or why my students think I'm mean...

If you've read this blog for awhile, you're probably somewhat aware of the fact that I teach church history to seminarians. This term, I'm teaching "Church History II: Reformation to the Modern Era." By and large, feedback in the course is usually pretty positive. I try to be engaged with the learning process and create a vibrant and enjoyable course. All that being said, I require a real beast of a midterm paper. Mind you, I think it's an important topic and I've had students who've said they really enjoyed it once they stepped away from it; but I've yet to meet one who enjoys actually doing the paper.

The paper is, admittedly, a bit long and I'm rather stringent in my requirements over grammar, syntax, structure, and formatting. (As you might expect at the graduate-level!) Still, I think it's the topic which is both important and yet painful for most students. 

Let me explain:

At the beginning of the course -when we're knee-deep in the Reformation- I introduce my students to the writings of Martin Luther. No, not the "slightly crazy and full of himself" writings of later-Luther, but the decent early-Luther stuff; particularly his essay "On Temporal Authority."

If you've never read the essay -and  you SHOULD- it discusses how there are, in Luther's eyes, realms which necessitate the work of the church (morality) and realms which necessitate the work of civic governments (legality). The midterm project I ask my students to complete details what happens when one of these institutes shirks its responsibility, only to have it taken-up by the other. 

In this instance, the topic of responsibility revolves around slavery; specifically slavery as it was found in 19th century America. I ask my students to read David Walker's early abolitionist tract "An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World." (Again, on the list of things everyone should read once....) Walker makes a very educated, very impassioned, and very spiritually damning case against slavery, slaveholders, and those who enable them. His writing is very much an admonishment to the church of the time -and its wider membership- to rectify their understandings, denounce slavery, and enable a society where all are seen as the children of God. 

I then ask my students to read Robert Ingersoll's post-Civil War piece: "An Address to the Coloured People." Ingersoll, writing about 2 years after the end of the war, produces a very thorough and interesting case, denouncing slavery in the sight of history and discussing how the march of progress and liberty almost guarantees the end of horrible blights like slavery. 

The question I then ask my students is: "Where was the church in all of this? What do the descriptions in these writings- and the clues they give off - tell us about the roll of the church in wider society at the time?" 

This is, I'll admit, something of a tricky proposition. It requires more than a little background research and some serious time mulling things over and trying to draw propositions together. (But hey, it's seminary...it's not supposed to be easy!) 

The answer is that we find the church at that time being not too different from the one we see today. The church was fractured and fractious over the issue of slavery. Folks were threatening and were also being threatened. 

"If you move against slavery, we'll leave and take our monies and abilities with us!" 

"The Bible is clear that the negro is lesser than we!"

"This is God's ordained order of humanity that whites are supreme and others less! Who are we to challenge God?!?!" 

Making a long story short, the church in America, as a whole, did very very little to correct the blight of slavery. Oh sure, there were those who made quite the effort in the abolitionist movement, but by and large, on a corporate level, the church dithered for decades about the issue. Eventually, as we know, the issue of institutionalised slavery in America was settled in the civic realm, not the spiritual, which, to be honest, has caused a century and a half of problems. 

Slavery, we must remember, was at its root a spiritual illness. That's not to say that civic measures didn't enable slavery and slaveholding to happen, because they certainly did. Instead, what that means is that, at its very heart, slavery was a denigrating of God's creation. It was the absolute epitome of NOT loving your neighbour as yourself. In sum, it was everything contra to the wider work and understanding of the Christian tradition.

Spiritual ills, such as slavery, require spiritual solutions to alleviate them.

Unfortunately, as you are all well aware, this is easier said than done; particularly when those with such illness also hold the ecclesiastic purse-strings. And so, the church dithered. It was well aware of the ills and wrongness of slavery, but rocking the boat would have been very costly and few were willing to do such things.

By the time of Ingersoll's writings, however, we find something of a different situation.Though the church has dithered on its moral responsibilities, civic society has reached a point where it cannot ignore such things -even if the church will not act on them. Slavery has been upended, however, it is not the church, but civic government -or liberty, as Ingersoll calls it- which has made good of this ill. In fact, as far as civic government is widely concerned, the issue is settled and closed! Civic government was not fighting for equal rights and treatments so much as it was fighting to end the institution of slavery. (Though, admittedly, the two camps do tend to bleed over into each other...) With the conclusion of the civil war and the abolition of the slave-trade, the battle was, in civic eyes, quite finished.

This, is where the problem becomes glaring. Civic institutions cannot heal moral illness, just as spiritual institutions cannot change legal inequalities. Slavery, as a profession, might have ended -which was both good and necessary on the part of civic government- but the situations which created slavery -the ills of heart and soul- were far from ended. Thus we had -and still do have- a large and long-running battle with racism, inequality, and injustice.

The moral of the story is this: when the church shrugs her moral responsibilities, society will, eventually, pick them up and try to rectify them in what ways they can. Unfortunately, this is a bit like going to the optometrist to treat kidney stones. They can definitely do a job at alleviating the symptoms and things which might be "on the surface;" however, they cannot deal with the underlying condition. This means that, rather than curing a situation, there will only be more and more problems until the source of the symptoms is properly treated by those who are able to do so. 

If this were an episode in the life of the historic church which had happened, acknowledged, and learned from, it would be one thing. Unfortunately, this seems to be the modus operandi of the church regarding a great number of moral issues in today's world. Honestly, you can really pick your choice of issue. While the issues themselves are greatly important, it's the underlying principle which is more-so: 

Civic society can correct legal inequalities and it can do it very well; however, until the church takes action to mend and heal the hearts and minds which enable those actions.....

Well.....it's like taking aspirin for a broken wrist. The analgesic will certainly help and is a very good idea, but until the break in the bone itself -the source of the pain- is set and mended, there will continue to be pain. Even after the bone is set -which can be considerably painful, in and of itself- there might still continue to be residual and occasional pain, but there is the knowledge that "this is getting better, this is healing, I will be well." 

Is it asking too much that we, who comprise the church, learn a little after a century and a half? 

Ps:.....and now you know why seminarians hate my midterm......