This Independence Day, I’m thinking about our national myth. That is, the vision of the United States of America as a glorious democracy, colonized by those seeking religious freedom, born of revolution by noble heroes who believed that all men were created equal against a tyrannical king, and purged of the sin of slavery by a leader who sought true equality. A close reading of history reveals most of that preceding sentence to be false, exaggerated, or at least selective memory.
I’m currently listening to an audiobook about Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. First the Pilgrims came to Plymouth, who sought to establish a new theocracy, separate from the Church of England. Next came the Massachusetts Bay Company, founded by Puritans who saw themselves as still a part of the Church of England but with differences of opinion over the “right” way to worship and believe. In both cases, there was a pervasive connection between church and state, with compulsory church attendance (punished by fines), voting rights tied to church membership, and government legitimacy deriving from divine favor, not the consent of the governed. Williams’s compact governing Providence was the first in the New World—whether in English, Dutch, Spanish, or Portuguese territory—omitting reference to God. Williams himself was thoroughly religious, but believed that civil government had no authority regarding the “first table” of the Ten Commandments, that is, the first four Commandments dictating Christian duty to God. This was a revolutionary concept, and fairly unique in the colonies. Our First Amendment separation of church and state was primarily a way to accommodate Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, Quaker, and other Christian sects, each of which would have preferred to see their denomination raised to dominance over the others.
The public conversation these days is reckoning with the mixed record of our forefathers on racial equity. Let’s set aside the Confederate monuments, which memorialize people who were traitors, losers, and opposed to our supposed belief in equality before our Creator. Let’s talk instead about people like Washington, Jefferson, and even Lincoln, who have more mixed legacies. Washington and Jefferson led the creation of a nation that had far more freedom than its predecessors, while at the same time owning slaves and participating in all the worst aspects of slavery, including rape (e.g. Sally Hemings, a product and victim of white owners’ exploitation of their Black slaves). Lincoln’s primary motive was to save the Union, and he ultimately realized that the only way to do so was to end slavery.
The question these days is whether to literally put these men on a pedestal, that is, to honor them with statues, monuments, state and city names, etc. For answers, let’s look at the history of Israel as recorded in the Bible.
Genesis 12-50 is devoted to Israel’s ancestral history, from Abraham down to the Israelites first moving to Egypt. These are the men and women who founded a great people, the equivalent of our patriotic forefathers. The account as we currently have it was assembled centuries after the fact by redactors who combined a variety of stories into a cohesive account. The overarching message is that Israel is a chosen people, specially blessed by God. So one might think that the patriarchs would be described in glowing terms. But that’s not what we read.
Abram twice tried to pass off his wife, Sarai, as his sister. Even after God entered a covenant with him, renamed him Abraham, and promised him a son by Sarah, he did not trust in God and concocted a scheme that ended with him sending his slave, Hagar, and her son, Ishmael, into the wilderness and near-certain death in order to protect Sarah and her son, Isaac. Isaac’s son Jacob, who was renamed Israel and whose sons defined the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel, is a particularly deceitful character. He cheats his brother, Esau, out of his inheritance, and his father-in-law, Laban, out of a disproportionate share of his flock. His favoritism to two of his sons resulted in Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph is at times deceitful himself, perhaps taking revenge on his brothers over their mistreatment of him.
These are not impeccable, glorious heroes. These are just men who are trying to make their way in the world. The women in these stories are no better—Sarah was the one who conceived of the plans regarding Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac’s wife Rebekah helped Jacob steal Esau’s inheritance, and Jacob’s wife Rachel stole her father’s household idols. What makes them all worthy of honor are their roles in founding a nation devoted to God.
People are complicated. Only one person in all of history lived a spotless life, Jesus. The rest of us have our good days and bad days. Some of us are able to rise above our sins against God and neighbor to help their community or nation more nearly approach the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr., described.
Speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr., he was another complicated person with his own failings, a fact often pointed out by those who would defend America’s Founding Fathers with whataboutism. But a person should be judged by the totality of their life, the totality of their legacy. MLK was a powerful force for racial justice and equality, a man unfortunately lost before his vision was realized. Lincoln saved the Union and ended slavery. Jefferson was, on the whole, an excellent statesman, from his authorship of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence through his presidency. Washington was possibly the only man who could have been an effective President at the time he was chosen, and was a good enough general to defeat our British opponents.
Let us celebrate the good that these men did, not by ignoring the bad parts of their lives, but by acknowledging that they were humans like the rest of us who were able to rise above their sins to produce the flawed, but promising, nation we have.
Your Grandmother Kimball would have loved your comments. And so do I 🥰💞🙏