December 12, 2010:

Ponderings of a Pilgrim PASTOR

“Bring Us Together”

Carl Sandburg, American poet and Lincoln biographer, once observed that the American Civil War was waged over a verb! Before the Civil War, government documents said: “The United States are.” After the War it became “The United States is.” 2011 will mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of that bloody conflict in which my own great-great grandfather died. For the Union, I might add.

Now it seems that some groups in the old Confederacy plan to celebrate the glory days of secession. They also want to challenge the notion that the war had something to do with slavery. “All we wanted was to be left alone to govern ourselves,” says a television ad from the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

“We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be known,” said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons, explaining the reason for the ads. While there were many causes for the war, he said, “our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence.”

Are these people serious?! “I can only imagine what kind of celebration they would have if they had won,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP. He said he was dumbfounded by “all of this glamorization and sanitization of what really happened.” When (some) Southerners refer to states’ rights, “they are really talking about their idea of one right — to buy and sell human beings.”

From where I sit it would seem that the great unanswered question of America — race — is still a problem for many people. It all comes down to this: who is truly and fully included in the American dream? Are African Americans? ?Are women? Are gays and lesbians? Are Hispanic immigrants? The list goes on and on.

President Lincoln said the Civil War was ultimately about the right of all people living in this nation to be free. While one can grant the courage of those who fought and died for the Confederacy, the fact remains that they fought and died for an immoral cause. And 100 years of segregation only made the matter worse.

What we need are celebrations of the Civil War that reconcile us and not re-open the wounds of division. That’s what my great-great grandfather died for, a re-United States of America.

Love,
Pastor Dave