Keeping alive the voices of decency
Photograph by Erika Giraud via Unsplash
Rev. John Zehring
In Dan Brown’s novel “Origin” (Doubleday, 2017), the aging Spanish king speaks for the last time with his son, Prince Julian, soon to become the nation’s king. The setting is the Valley of the Fallen, a Spanish memorial site in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives during the Spanish Civil War. The memorial was constructed by order of the Nationalist dictator Francisco Franco, and was the site of Franco’s burial place. Because of Franco’s tomb, honoring a leader who tortured and killed thousands of Spaniards in the name of fascism, the site is likely the most controversial and hated monument in Spain. Franco’s body was disinterred and his coffin reburied after the novel’s timeline.
In Brown’s novel, the king knows that his son will be petitioned daily to destroy what he calls a shameful place. He begs his son not to yield to the calls to blow up the symbol of Franco’s despotism, because that would erase a part of their history as if it never happened. The king predicted it could and would happen again. He reminded his son of the words of their nation’s own George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Nationalism and intolerance will, he predicted, give rise to leaders who do evil, even in places no one expects.
It could happen again! It could happen in our own country. Therefore, it is urgently important that our children not be shielded from the evils of tyranny.
As I reflect upon my career as a pastor, I think that perhaps one of the most important things I did was to influence the values, attitudes, and beliefs of children and youth. The Children’s Sermon, week after week, exposed the children to messages about Jesus’ encouragement to love, to forgive, and to treat all people well. I found myself increasingly underlining the word all so that the children would learn to love and respect people of all colors, races, abilities, sexual orientations, and national heritages. I started to resent having to always emphasize that God’s love extends to all, “red and yellow, black and white, they are equal in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Why shouldn’t it be enough to simply encourage love, forgiveness, justice, and treating people well? Why does all always have to be spelled out? Because, there are people who call themselves Christian who use the word some instead of all. They believe in an exclusive God rather than an inclusive God. Inclusivity is God-like. Exclusivity is not God-like. Jesus said: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). All is one of the Bible’s favorite words, as it applies to God’s love, grace, welcome, and acceptance to all. God’s table is spread for all. Is that not the roots of justice, kindness, and walking humbly with God?
What can be encouraged, created, or built to keep alive the unified voices of empathy, tolerance, and compassion, so that our children and youth remember the past and are not condemned to repeat it?
Many of the best children’s messages were not from the pastor, but from others I invited to lead. I remember involving teenagers, surgeons, police officers, teachers, engineers, an astrophysicist, and even a former cowboy to share their faith with the children. Imagine the impact on children of hearing from one adult after another about their faith and how it applies to treating people well. Church school classes, intergenerational social activities, holiday programs, and other opportunities reinforced to the children that God’s world is meant to be good, and that people are called to be honorable, honest, just, kind and decent. Sadly, fewer children are exposed to these values, attitudes, and beliefs today. As our world becomes polarized and more complicated, they have fewer resources to draw upon when it comes to making sense of their world.
Dan Brown’s novel brilliantly captured the importance of using the dark periods of a nation’s experience to illuminate the minds of our future generations, especially the children. In “Origin,” the king recalled that his beloved country endured dark periods in its history but emerged into democracy and tolerance. It could, he knew, change back. He charged his son to convert the shameful place from a tourist spectacle into a living museum where children witness the light of tolerance in place of the horrors of tyranny and the cruelties of oppression, so that they will never be complacent. Let the children learn that tyranny and oppression are no match for compassion, he said to his son, so that the “fanatical shouts of the bullies of the world are invariably silenced by the unified voices of decency that rise up to meet them.”
It can happen again, which is why there must be living testimonies to how it happened in the past, so the fanatical shouts of the bullies of the world are not forgotten. I witnessed that kind of testimony when I visited Berlin and took a bus tour of the city. There is so much to this world-class city, but people seemed most obsessed with Hitler, with places where he burned books, ordered killing, or came to power, and with the Berlin wall. Remnants of the wall serve as a living museum, amplified by a line of double bricks around the city marking where the wall stood. Generations have passed since those days of massive evil, yet people remain infatuated with the bad. It made me wonder, what will be people’s future infatuation with America? Will they too be obsessed with the remnants of our evil leaders, or with our best? What can be encouraged, created, or built to keep alive the unified voices of empathy, tolerance, and compassion, so that our children and youth remember the past and are not condemned to repeat it? Perhaps the most important thing we can do today is to keep alive the voices of decency.
Rev. John Zehring worked in higher education for a couple decades and then served United Church of Christ congregations as a pastor in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine. He is the author of dozens of books. His most recent book from Judson Press is “Get Your Church Ready to Grow: A Guide to Building Attendance and Participation.”
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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