In
the wake of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church massacre in
Charleston, the South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of
the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds in Columbia. Although controversy
remains, the national tide seems to favor Haley’s position. Wal-Mart, Sears, Target,
EBay, and Amazon.com have announced that they will remove all Confederate flags
from their product lines. In Mississippi, Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn
has stated that the Confederate battle emblem is offensive and needs to be
removed from the state flag. “We must always remember our past, but that does
not mean we must let it define us,” Gunn said.
Despite
these signs of appeasement, lowering the Confederate flag for good may be a
long struggle. The flag was first raised on the South Carolina capitol grounds
in 1962 as a recalcitrant reaction to advances in civil rights. In 2001
Mississippi voters insisted by a two-to-one margin that the Confederate battle
emblem remain flying. A 2015 CNN poll reported that 75% of Southern whites
described the flag as a symbol of pride, while only 18% identified it as a
symbol of racism. (Not surprisingly, those numbers were reversed for black
Southerners.)
The
South needs to be awakened.
Of
course such controversies are not limited to Dixie.
In
1968 I graduated from Northwest Nazarene College (now University) in Nampa,
Idaho. We called ourselves “The Crusaders.”
When that name was chosen, I’m sure the board of trustees was thinking
about devotion to God. They probably did not consider that the Crusades ended
in the slaughter of Moslems, Jews, and even Eastern Orthodox Christians. Despite
such blasphemy, the Crusader mascot still stands to this day.
Northwest
Nazarene University needs to be awakened.
A
society becomes mindful of prejudices through spiritual evolution—when it
realizes that we are all connected, that when one suffers we all suffer.
Richland, Washington is the nearest community to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where plutonium was manufactured during World War II. On August 9, 1945 that plutonium was used in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. Today many of the people in Richland remain proud of that heritage.
In
1965 the atomic mushroom cloud was depicted on the coat of arms for Richland’s
Columbia High School. In the 1970s the cloud was adopted as a logo on the
school’s football uniforms. Then, on June 14, 1988 a Japanese delegation
arrived at the renamed Richland High School to speak with students, teachers,
and the World War II veteran principal Gus Nash. Two of the delegation members—Sakae
Itoh and Hiroshi Hara—were survivors of the atomic bomb. They wanted to express
their horror of nuclear warfare and, by extension, their angst over the mushroom
cloud logo that was so proudly emblazoned on, among other regalia, Richland
High School lettermen jackets.
The
discussion did not end well. “We can go back to history and recall a lot of
things about the war,” Nash said late in the meeting. “I could say some things
here that would be very disruptive to you people, but I’m not about to do this.
I’m going to say one thing, and you should remember this. We did not start that
war, and I think that should end it.” With that Nash walked out of the room to
the applause of local attendees. Later 1,300 students overwhelmingly approved the
mushroom cloud as the school’s logo.
In
all these cases—in Charleston, Nampa, and Richland—I am persuaded that the most
powerful determinant of behavior is mores, the unspoken moral standards of the
community. The French philosopher, Emile Durkheim, once said, “When mores are
sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are
unenforceable.”
What
does that mean? It means that our moral
standards are more powerful than any law, any mandate, any declaration. In
other words, our actions are the natural fruit of our mores.
Regarding
Richland, forget the fact that 550,000 Japanese civilians were killed during World War II. That makes no difference
if—and only if—the mores of the day hold
ancient grudges or devalue other races. Forget that the high school logo of the
atomic cloud would be tantamount to a Japanese school touting a logo of the capsized
USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Can you image Americans tolerating that? Still,
that logic makes no difference if the community’s mores are marinated in
rebellious and chauvinistic bravado.
When
mores are deficient we are driven not by moral standards, but by the survival
instinct of fight or flight. We are driven not by forgiveness, but by fear,
arrogance, and revenge.
Every
individual who has clawed his or her way out of moral decay has endured a daunting
journey of spiritual evolution. They are like the noble families of the historic
Charleston church—like Nadine Collier, daughter of victim Ethel Lance, who tearfully
said to the 21-year-old shooter, “You took something very precious away from me.
I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But
I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”
Nadine
Collier is one whose mores incorporate forgiveness and redemption. I am
inspired by such a model of compassion. She teaches me that in a crowd of booming,
arrogant voices, of lethal belligerence, of youthful swagger and self-importance,
there are still those who, in the words of Martin Luther King, “Look to a day
when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content
of their character.”
During
the First World War an anonymous Peace Prayer (erroneously attributed to St.
Francis) passed from soldier to soldier in the mud trenches of France. That
beautiful prayer captures what it means to be committed to a higher calling,
where mores are sufficient and laws are unnecessary—where a society is awakened
not by ego, but by spirit.
The Peace Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Now that’s an awesome “coat of arms”—worthy of our highest aspirations.
