From where I sit, I can hear the sound of fireworks. It’s Independence Day, and I’ve been thinking about our nation’s heritage, what we offer the world.
Grandson is about to enter a new grade; the new curriculum will include more history than he’s studied before. Significantly, he will be studying American history. I wonder how different what he will study will be than what I studied. My earliest exposure to American history was designed to impart one message: “America is the greatest land of all.” That phrase, admittedly borrowed from a Chevy commercial popular during my school days, pretty much summed up the nation’s self-view. Or, at least, the self-view of anyone who counted in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. But times were changing. Professors and other intellectuals began telling us how bad we were. American self-contempt only increased as the decades rolled on. There were attempts to revive the old patriotism (Reagan comes to mind), but nothing could break the grip of the revisionist historians. There were even attempts to turn the slogan “Make America Great Again” on its head, using it as evidence the nation was no longer great, if it ever was.
Doubtless, Grandson will learn about a different America than I did.
Will Grandson be given a balanced view of the nation’s history? I hope so. No nation is perfect. And we Americans haven’t even done a particularly good job of hiding the fact. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly to expose the brutality of American slavery. About twenty years later, Helen Hunt Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor (nonfiction) and Ramona (a novel) to expose the mistreatment of Native Americans. Both the novels became bestsellers. The nineteenth century ended with the rise of the “muckrakers.” In 1890, Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives to expose the poverty of big city slums. Sixteen years later Joseph Spargo’s The Bitter Cry of Children revealed the exploitation of children working in sweatshops. In 1892, Ida B. Wells, a black journalist, wrote The Free Speech in which she investigated legal structures allowing the lynching epidemic. Less famous than these writers, Katharine Bushnell revealed the forced prostitution in Wisconsin’s lumber camps and Michigan’s mining area.
Again, you don’t have to dig deeply to find evidence of American misdeeds. But my great concern is that, just as my generation seldom heard the dark side of American history, Grandson will not hear the evidence of what makes American great.
Will he understand that the very admission of our national guilt is evidence of our greatness? In an essay on the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks Philip Yancey tells of a panel convened to discuss why so many people in the world hate the US. Most panelists were critical of the nation, but Yancey writes that the only Pakistani on the panel actually defended the nation. He said, “Only Americans would even convene a panel like this. Look at what the French and British empires did. When their subjects criticized them, they imprisoned or shot them. Wherever I go Americans are . . . critically examining their own country. It amazes me.” (Finding God in Unexpected Places, Waterbrook Press) Despite our penchant for jingoism, Americans are usually ready to try to be better. That we often succeed is demonstrated by the thousands around the world who want to be here.
Will Grandson be told that America the so-called Christian nation has never been anything but hypocritical? The shocking support of Donald Trump by American evangelicals has encouraged some to pen obituaries for our Christian heritage, or at least to insist Christians have forfeited their right to be heard. (Grandson might not hear that in elementary school, but college would be a different matter.) Should he be inclined to ask his church historian grandfather about it, I would tell him America never was a “Christian” nation, was never intended to be. But I would tell him that Christianity has had greater influence on the nation than any worldview—other than materialism, of course. The Christian ethic is foundational for our notions of equality, brotherhood, and fair play.
In the end, in the interests of honesty, I would hope he keeps two truths in mind.
Despite the influence of Christianity, America has not been as good as it should have been.
Because of the influence of Christianity, America has been better than it might have been.
I can smell cordite in the air. Some of the fireworks are quite close. I don’t hear sirens. The police appear willing to let people have their fun, knowing the popular community fireworks displays have been canceled and we all need some kind of break from the monotony of the lockdown. I hope Grandson has fun tonight. I hope someone will remind him what we are celebrating.
