The Myth of Innocence & Southern Churches of Christ

Richard Hughes writes,

"A profound sense of innocence characterized the American experience for much of the twentieth century, especially between World War I and the 1960s. Some periods were exceptions to that generalization, of course. The Great Depression, for example, generated enormous doubt and despair, not only among blacks and other minorities, but also among whites."

"Still, in the mainstream of American life, most had no doubt about the ultimate meaning of their nation: America stood for good against evil, right against wrong, democracy against tyranny, and virtue against vice. What can account for this extraordinary sense of innocence that many in years later would view as profoundly naive?"

"Robert Bellah has suggested that at least one source for America's conviction of its own innocence was the Arminian worldview that accompanied the American revivals, especially the Second Great Awakening. Prior to the revivals, Calvinism dominated the religious climate in the colonies, and Calvinism taught that human beings are far from innocent. Instead, they are fundamentally sinful, through and through. The revivalists of the nineteenth century turned the Calvinist vision upside down. If one sought virtue and innocence, they preached, one only had to will that change and make a determined effort to reform one's life. The Arminian worldview that controlled so much of American Protestantism in the nineteenth century provided a context in which a cult of innocence could flourish in American life in later years. Two other factors are even more critical:"

"First, America really did face great evil in the twentieth century, especially during World War II. When one faces an enemy who is thoroughly evil, it is all too easy to imagine that one is thoroughly righteous and fundamentally innocent. This is precisely the posture that America assumed during and after World War II. Second, the myths of a Chosen Nation, Nature's Nation, Christian Nation, and Millennial Nation contributed enormously to America's sense of innocence in the twentieth century."

FIVE MYTHS AMERICA LIVES BY

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"Contrary to colloquial usage, a myth is not a story that is patently untrue. A myth is a story that speaks of meaning and purpose, and for that reason it speaks truth to those who take it seriously. An American myth, therefore, is a story that conveys commonly shared convictions on the purposes and meaning of the nation. Our national myths, then, are the stories that explain why we love our country and why we have faith in the nation's purposes. Put another way, our national myths are the means by which we affirm the meaning of the United States."

"There are five myths. Each is rooted in a religious understanding of reality, and each has emerged in a particular period of American history. If we understand these myths, we will understand much about the historic periods that produced them. At the same time, all these myths flourish to varying degrees today, and often in combination with one another. Most of these myths hold great potential for good. Yet Americans have often absolutized these myths in ways that undermine the virtues that otherwise stood at their respective cores. This is the irony of American history. The ironic tendency of virtues to turn into vices when too complacently relied upon. Moreover, it is precisely when powerful people absolutize their virtues that the interest of the poor and marginalized are most at risk."

"The first myth--the myth of the Chosen People--emerged among the Puritans in the colonial period of American history. In its original form "chosenness" meant "chosen for the good of the neighbor." In time, however, Americans would absolutize this myth and claim that God chose the American people for special blessings and privileges in the world. At the very least, many still believe today that, in some mysterious way, God chose the American people for a special, redeeming role on the stage of world history."

"The second myth--the myth of Nature's Nation-- was a construction of the Enlightenment and emerged in the Revolutionary Era. This myth affirmed the American Creed (all men created eaqual, right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness), for it grounded the rights of humankind in "nature," that is the way things were meant to be. In order to justify the oppressive dimensions of American culture in the 19th century, some Americans absolutized this myth, as well. They would argue that "nature" had "decreed" the removal of Native Americans and the enslavement of African Americans. The myth of Nature's Nation contributed significantly to American myopia. To this day, our particular versions of democracy and capitalism seem so "natural" that many Americans cannot imagine that there might be viable alternatives."

"The third myth--the myth of the Christian Nation--was a byproduct of the Second Great Awakening and emerged in the early national period. It summoned Americans to embrace behavior in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. Ironically, however, this myth married itself rather quickly to the myth of the Chosen People and the myth of Nature's Nation. In this way, Americans absolutized this myth, and the notion of a Christian Nation became a badge of cultural superiority, not an incentive to extend compassion to the poor and oppressed. In due time, therefore, many came to believe that God had chosen America for special privilege in the world, precisely because America was thought to be a Christian nation."

"The fourth myth--the myth of the Millennial Nation--also emerged in the early national period. Struck with the wonders of the American system of government, and especially with the newness of American freedoms, many believed that the U.S. would usher in a millennial age of freedom that would eventually bless all people's of the earth. Americans have absolutized this myth and have sometimes been willing to force others to be free, as was the case with the Spanish-American War. More often, Americans imagined they would liberate the world through sheer force of their example. Thus, when communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, President George Bush attributed that collapse to the compelling power of the American presence in the world. Here was another step toward the millennial dawn."

"The absolutized versions of these myths--Chosen Nation, Nature's Nation, Christian Nation, and Millennial Nation--came together in the 19th century to define the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny is an outgrowth of the absolutized versions of the earlier myths. Manifest Destiny completely undermined the promise of the U.S., especially for Native Americans, Mexicans, and African Americans."

"After the Civil War, laissez-faire capitalism flourished in the U.S. Capitalism was a doctrine grounded in the earlier myths, as well. Capitalism promoted hard work and individual effort and therefore held great potential for good, however, it also had the potential to nurture greed and exploitation of the economically deprived. This is precisely what happened when Americans of the late 19th century began to promote capitalism, self-interest, and greed as fundamentally natural, as inherently Christian, as the handmaid to American chosenness, and as the presupposition for the dawn of the final golden age. These assumptions about American capitalism sustained the Gospel of Wealth at home and economic imperialism abroad in the waning years of the 19th century, and they helped crush the poor in many corners of the world, including our own. Yet because the mythic dimensions of American capitalism seemed so self-evident, many Americans could never see the ways in which capitalism helped to undermine the American Creed of all men being created equal and the unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."

"The fifth and final myth--the myth of the Innocent Nation--emerged in the 20th century and draws its strengths from all the other myths that have defined American life in previous periods. The myth of innocence is therefore, in many ways, the most powerful myth of all. Yet this myth alone seems without redemptive value. It tells no meaningful story, because it is finally grounded in self-delusion. The emergence of this myth depended to a great extent on America's participation in two world wars. World War II was especially important in this regard, for it allowed Americans to imagine that because they faced great evil, they themselves, were altogether righteous in both intent and behavior and therefore innocent in the world. Even though America's involvement in the Vietnam War made the claim to innocence highly questionable, the forces that wished to maintain the myth of innocent and righteous America finally prevailed."

EFFECTS OF THE FIVE MYTHS

"In the aftermath of the attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC and in the midst of a war against terrorism, the myth of innocence resurfaced with extraordinary power in 2001. In that context, most Americans could not even begin to hear answers to the question, "Why do they hate us?" Even the President seemed bewildered when he told reporters, "I'm amazed that there is such a misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us...like most Americans, I just can't believe it, because I know how good we are. And we've got to do a better job of making our case."

"It should be noted that these myths function at an unconscious level for most Americans. This means that these myths are invisible and must remain invisible unless we name them, bring them to consciousness, and explore the way they have functioned --and continue to function--in American culture."

"During the twentieth century, the myth of the Chosen Nation was still a vibrant, dynamic theme in American life and culture. As Lawrence Wright notes in his memoir, "America had a mission--we thought it was a divine mission--to spread freedom, and freedom meant democracy, and democracy meant capitalism, and all that meant the American way of life." Would God choose America for such a mission if America lacked the qualities of goodness, virtue, and innocence?" In my judgement [Richard Hughes, sp], however, the two most important myths sustaining America's sense of innocence in the early twentieth century were the myths of Nature's Nation and the Millennial Nation."

"The notion of Nature's Nation pointed Americans to a mythic time when the world first began and all was good and right and true--the time of Eden before the fall. It was easy to imagine that the United States was a virtual re-creation of this golden age, an age that stood on the front end--and therefore outside the boundaries--of human history. At the same time, the notion of the Millennial Nation pointed Americans to another golden age that would conclude the human saga. Because the millennium was also characterized by perfection, it too, stood outside the boundaries of human history, this time on the back end. By restoring the virtues of the first perfect age, Americans imagined they would usher in the second perfect age and thereby bless the world. By identifying itself so completely with these mythic periods of perfection, America lifted itself, as it were, above the plane of ordinary human history where evil, suffering, and death dominated the drama of human existence. In effect, America had removed itself from the power of human history with all the ambiguity that history inevitably bears. In this way, America emerged, as it were, as an innocent child among the nations of the world, without spot or wrinkle, unmarred and unblemished by the finite dimensions of human history."

"Indeed, the starting point for the American illusion of innocence lies in the way Americans typically deal with history and its contents. Henry Ford perhaps put it best when he said flatly "History is bunk." If Americans wish to say that someone is irrelevant to a particular situation, we often say to that person, "You're history." American students typically avoid history, believing that history is irrelevant. We bulldoze buildings of any age at all in order to create something that is bright, shining, and new. These are just some of the ways that Americans routinely reject the reality of history. The truth is that many Americans live their lives in the eternal present, a present informed and shaped not by history but by those two golden epochs that bracket human time. Because many Americans so often reject history, they also reject the most fundamental contents of history, especially finitude, suffering, and death. While many cultures cope with death by embracing it--by handling the corpse, for example--Americans have adopted funeral practices that effectively mask the reality of death so that it never intrudes on the perfect world they seek to create."

"Americans often deal with suffering in the very same way, as the patterns of our neighborhoods abundantly attest. Indeed, one could easily argue that racial segregation has always had more to do with economics than with color. In this scenario, black people were despised because black skin became in the United States a powerful symbol of the grinding poverty that no one wanted and with which no one wished to come into contact. And so we segregate poor people into neighborhoods far removed from the manicured lawns and the beautiful homes of the privileged. At the same time, the marvels of modern medicine enable many Americans to banish suffering and death so that they seldom impinge on what we call the "American way of life." Americans are committed to creating for themselves a perfect world in a golden age that has little to do with the messy contents of human history with which so many people in so many other parts of the world must deal every day, especially the realities of tragedy, suffering, and death."

"Any exploration of the history of the myth of innocence almost invariably reveals that it finally transforms itself into its opposite. Indeed, it typically encourages those who march under its banner to repress those they regard as corrupted or defiled. Paradoxically, then, the innocent become guilty along with the rest of the human race, though, the myths they have embraced prevent them from discerning their guilt."

THE MYTH OF INNOCENCE & CHURCHES OF CHRIST

"The dynamics of this paradox are illumined by two new religious traditions that emerged in the early nineteenth century when the country was still young and when the myths of Nature's Nation and the Millennial Nation gripped the American imagination. Those two traditions are the Latter-day Saints (Mormons, LDS) and the movement variously known as Disciples of Christ, Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ, which I will refer to as D/CoC. While historians have paid substantial attention to the LDS over the years, they have seldom explored the history and meaning of the D/CoC in the context of American culture. That is a shame, since these two traditions stand at the very heart of America's mythic past. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a single religious tradition in American life that embodies and reflects more fully than these the inner dynamics of the two myths that frame this discussion--Nature's Nation and the Millennial Nation. Though very different from one another in significant ways, Mormons and D/CoC had one thing in common: Both built their core identities around the effort to restore a golden age of the past as a means to introduce the golden age of the future."

"In the first place, both defined themselves as "restoration movements." By using the term restoration, they meant to suggest that the church had fallen from its original purity. In the early nineteenth century, therefore, both Mormons and D/CoC leapfrogged over 1,800 years of Christian history in order to restore the purity that characterized the earliest Christians. It must be obvious that this commitment implicitly suggested that no one in Christian history, from the close of the founding age to the dawn of the nineteenth century, had maintained the purity of the faith. [While certainly noble in its endeavor, sp], here one finds a rejection of history fully as pronounced as the rejection of history that characterized the larger nation."

"While Mormons and D/CoC shared a common commitment to the goal of restoration, they differed significantly in what they hoped to restore. Mormons sought to restore a golden age when God communicated directly with humankind, just as He had with Adam, Moses, and Jesus. Accordingly, they thought that God had spoken directly to their prophet Joseph Smith. [While rejecting direct revelation, and seeking to restore the ancient church as they saw it outlined in the Bible, sp]--like the Mormons--D/CoC built their core identity by seeking to restore the golden age of the past (primitive church) as a means to usher in the golden age of the future (the millenium). As Alexander Campbell proclaimed in 1825, "just in so far as the ancient order of things, or the religion of the New Testament, is restored, just so far has the Millennium commenced." So enchanted was Campbell with his vision that for a third of a century, beginning in 1830, he edited a journal that he called the Millennial Harbinger."

"It is important to understand that in spite of the rejection of history that his theology inevitably fostered, Campbell nurtured in himself a profoundly ecumenical spirit. It was perhaps inevitable, however, that among his followers, attitudes toward other Christians would not be so amiable. In fact, some of Campbells followers rather quickly concluded that they, and they alone, had restored the ancient church. It followed, then, that other so-called Christians were simply beyond the pale. By the early twentieth century, the Churches of Christ--the southern wing of the movement--had come to a parting of the ways with the larger Campbell tradition. Though they would never exhibit much interest in the millennial themes after that division, the Churches of Christ nonetheless committed themselves to the restoration of the primitive church and made that committment central to their identity and self-understanding."

"Because they were so occupied with the ancient church, they rejected Christian history almost entirely, claiming that they owed no debt to the past except to the earliest Christian communities, which they imagined, they had faithfully replicated."

*[I have shown already in this blog that the western hierarchy/oligarchy, mandatory collection, position of gospel preacher, and forbidding of the Lord's Supper as part of a full meal prove that churches of Christ in America do not replicate the early churches practices. My disappointment with churches of Christ comes from a seeming lack of integrity concerning these issues, especially, in light of the noble claim of seeking to restore the ancient order, sp].

Hughes concludes,

"Augustine, for them, was of no consequence. Neither was Martin Luther or Jean Calvin or Ulrich Zwingli or John Wesley or any other significant figure in Christian history. In fact, Churches of Christ often rejected their own history, claiming that if they acknowledged a human history with human leaders, they would thereby become a denomination among other denominations and fall into the guilt of history along with everyone else. So, for most of the twentieth century, they steadfastly identified themselves only with the ancient church of the apostolic age. In this way they could preserve their innocence. It goes without saying that by separating themselves from the common lot of humankind on the grounds that they and they alone had restored the ancient Christian faith, Churches of Christ maintained a strongly heteronymous stance [using different words for things, but behaving essentially the same as all denominations, sp]. In fact, they commonly taught that they were the only legitimate Christians. Others who claimed to follow Christ were only pretenders."

"Like the Mormons, members of Churches of Christ claimed innocence on the grounds that they had fully replicated the perfections of the first age. As it turned out, however, those who claimed innocence on these grounds fell into the guilt of history in spite of themselves. The innocence they presumed prompted an arrogance they could not admit, for the myth of innocence shielded them from their sins."

--R. Hughes (edited)