In Search of a Sense of Place. July 10, 2007.

In Search of a Sense of Place
RAH from Washington

July 10, 2007


Martin Luther, American.

Martin Luther was one of the greats, whose preaching and writing has made a huge impression on the United States of America.

No, I did not leave off the last name. Martin Luther King indeed had a great impact on America, but it is his namesake that inspires this particular meditation on the city of Washington and the United States of America this Fourth of July week.

What makes America America? Or, generally, what makes a place a place?

Significant geography, geology, physical characteristics: location, location, location.

Also significant historical events, important people, people in general; what people do here and have done here. What people think about here.

A book has come out comparing the United States and its capital to Rome. The history and thought of Greece, Rome, Israel and Europe all have exerted their influence on the United States. This influence is easily discovered, not to mention that of Africa, Asia and countless other histories and thought-forms. America is a melting pot, a salad-bowl, a crucible. And, unquestionably, America is a free country.

Today let me give Luther his due. Without him, there would be no United States, or Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King speaking about freedom from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Luther’s understanding of Freedom and Love, in brief, are what transformed the medieval world and more than any other ideas, or forces, led to all of us in America being here and now, July of 2007, with a capital on the banks of the Potomac. Let me trace this trajectory by means of a picture and a story.

Two years ago I was asked to lecture at the State Department School of Foreign Service on the history of religion in America because our press and cultural affairs officers were getting a lot of questions on this topic. I could think of no better way to begin than by showing the cover of the paperback edition of Perry Miller’s Errand into the Wilderness. The cover shows a parting of the clouds and a pilgrim in classic garb in the palm of God’s hand. It is a simple, crude, even childlike, yet almost breathtaking drawing for it well conveys a sense of America as God’s chosen land and Americans as God’s chosen people.

In the introduction to the book, Miller tells how he got interested in the New England Mind and its continuing influence on America and the world: “To bring into conjunction a minute event in the history of historiography with a great one: it was given to Edward Gibbon to sit disconsolate amid the ruins of the Capitol at Rome, and to have thrust upon him the ‘laborious work ‘of The Decline and Fall while listening to barefooted friars chanting responses in the former temple of Jupiter.”

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) served in the British Army and was in Rome around the time of what the Europeans call the Seven Years and Americans call the French and Indian War (1760-something). After this experience he wrote the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in which, in short, he blamed Christianity for the fall of the Rome. As Christianity became the official religion of the Empire, the best and the brightest became leaders of the church rather than going into the military or into the government and the ancient Roman virtues and martial spirit fell away, or so he argued.

“It was given to me,” continues Miller, “equally disconsolate on the edge of a jungle of central Africa, to have thrust upon me the mission of expounding what I took to be the innermost propulsion of the United States, while supervising, in that barbaric tropic, the unloading of drums of case oil flowing out of the inexhaustible wilderness of America. . . . What I believe caught my imagination, among the fuel drums, was a realization of the uniqueness of the American experience; even then I could dimly make out the portent for the future of the world, looking upon these tangible symbols of the republic’s appalling power. I could see no way of coping with the problem except by going to the beginning. . . . The beginning I sought was inevitably – being located in the 17th century – theological.”

He wrote this in 1956 of an experience that had taken place thirty years earlier, in 1926. There is much irony, of which Miller was certainly aware, in this juxtaposition of Gibbon blaming Christianity for the fall of Rome and Miller, a self-avowed atheist, crediting Christianity for the rise of America, for providing the innermost propulsion for the Republic’s appalling power.

What was the result of Perry Miller’s quest? What did provide the innermost propulsion? I believe the answer in brief is these two words, much meditated upon by Paul, Luther, Calvin and the Reformers, and ultimately Abraham Lincoln and every living American: freedom and love, especially freedom. The quest for freedom is what America has been about from the very beginning and it is what Christianity was about from the very beginning. I know this sounds rather audacious, but try it on for size.

Admittedly, Jesus did not use the word “freedom” very much, just twice, once in Matthew and once in John, for five uses of the Greek word “eleutheros” altogether. “Eleutheros,” by the way, has become a botanical term which reveals the meaning of this word: It means, simply, “wild, “ as in eleuthero ginseng, wild ginseng, which grows all over the northeastern United States. It’s the best ginseng root in the world, I might add.

But it is no exaggeration to say that freedom was of utmost importance for Paul. Paul uses the word “freedom” in his writings over twenty times and it is a key concept in his letters to the Romans, Corinthians and Galatians. In Paul’s understanding Jesus sets us free from sin, free from the fear of death, free from death itself. If Paul were here to be questioned on the matter he might say that Jesus did not talk about freedom much, but He WAS freedom, and love, and a lot of other qualities besides. He embodied freedom and love and made it possible for us to exercise both. There is some speculation that his preaching about freedom is what landed Paul in jail and eventually got him executed. For freedom has not always and everywhere been viewed as positively as we Americans do. Freedom is often confused with license and this confusion can lead to dangerous consequences.

To go back to the beginning, here is what Paul wrote to the Galatians:
Galatians 5: 1: For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
13: For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.
14: For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

This talk of freedom, and love, did not languish in the Bible unnoticed, but it really achieved salience when a young German monk named Martin Luther studied the letters of Paul intensively and extensively and based his rebellion against the papacy upon it. Quite early in his tumultuous life as a reformer, in the tumultuous year of 1520, Luther penned a letter to Pope entitled:

On the Freedom of a Christian - Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen

In this letter, Luther claimed that as fully forgiven children of God, Christians are no longer compelled to keep God's law, the Old Testament law, or any law; however, they freely and willingly serve God and their neighbors. The core meaning of the Gospel, according to Luther is that Christians are free to love.

The exact two sentences from the German are:
A Christian is a free lord over all things, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all things, subject to all.

This work is very forcefully written (in German; the Latin is surprisingly different) in paragraphs beginning: Firstly. Secondly. Thirdly. And so on, paragraph after paragraph until, finally, ‘Thirtiethly.’ No introduction, no conclusion. It ends with ‘Amen.’ You can imagine Luther’s fist banging on the lectern as he makes his points, one after the other. He also attached to this letter a clever, cheeky, outrageous introduction and, without waiting for a reply – I don’t think he expected one - printed thousands of copies in both Latin and German. It sold like hotcakes. Then, basically, he had to run for his life.

This act – Luther defining Christians as free persons bound to each other by love, not by fear of a sovereign - was the beginning of the modern understanding of human beings as citizens, not subjects. It was rightly considered revolutionary in its time and of course it was and is, still revolutionary, audacious.

Freedom and love, love of freedom, being free to love, are what have provided the innermost propulsion to these United States and the American people. This spirit of reformation transmitted itself through Calvin to the New England Puritans and it soaked into the American soil and it has born a rich harvest with astounding consequences, from our great Civil War to barrels of American oil being unloaded in the Congo in 1926, to Americans landing on beaches from Normandy to Guadalcanal, to American culture recognized, for good or ill, as friend or foe, throughout the world we live in.

This spirit of reformation has been articulated by many Americans, but by no one so well as America’s answer to Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln. It is a commonplace of religious studies that America has produced a lot of religion but not many great theologians, that religion has thrived in America while theology has gone bankrupt. This statement, while clever, is seen as less true when you understand that America’s greatest theologian is disguised as America’s greatest president.

Now I do not claim that Lincoln read Luther – he probably didn’t. But he did read the Bible assiduously, especially as the Civil War dragged on. And while he never joined a church, he did attend one throughout the war, quite regularly, the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church downtown. I do claim that this Reformation understanding of freedom and love had simply soaked into American culture at the time and emerged in Lincoln’s speeches with astounding clarity and power.

At Gettysburg in November of 1863 Lincoln concluded his two minute address with a one-paragraph peroration:
“It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – through love be servants of one another - - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . .”

After a terrible civil war, he promised us a new birth of freedom.

In so doing he reiterated what he had already said in his Second Message to Congress in December of 1862:
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.”

And what he already said in an extemporaneous speech he gave on February 21, 1861 to a crowd gathered at Independence Hall, Philadelphia:
“I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was kept this confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance . . . . “

Freedom for Lincoln and I believe for Americans in general, is somewhat akin to the Hebrew notion of Shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of war or conflict, but the presence of something precious and essential for human life. Likewise freedom is not just the absence of constraints, but the presence of human dignity, a quality that we treasure for ourselves and recommend to all people. Freedom is the prerequisite virtue for all other virtues. Lincoln and so may other Americans essentially secularized the concept of Christian freedom and made it the law of the land and the cornerstone of the American way.

How appropriate then MARTIN LUTHER King arose not long ago to claim freedom for all Americans, his voice ringing like the Liberty Bell from the steps of Lincoln’s Memorial, proclaiming freedom throughout the land.

The short story of American history is that America fights for freedom. Our war memorials all over Washington demonstrate this. Let me just mention one to get us up to date, the most recent one, the World War II Memorial on 17th St. at the heart of the National Mall.

In my opinion this World War II Memorial makes too many statements, yet it is starting to blend into the site and the fountains are quite beautiful. Amidst a number of statements engraved on the walls, we find one that is almost spine-chilling in its resonance:

“We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.”

The author of this terse and tough-minded quotation is none other than George C. Marshall. If we remember that this General Marshall was also the author of the Marshall Plan, we get a sense of what freedom means in America. Freedom is not just absence of conflict or absence of foreign control, but the presence of well-being. Marshall recognized that if we did not help Europe economically, Europe would not remain free.

We cannot read his statement now without being stunned into philosophy, especially if we walk along the reflecting pool to ponder the memorials to Korean and Vietnam War veterans, or read the newspaper. American power is not overwhelming. The wilderness of America is not inexhaustible.

We do not know how the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will turn out. However they do, I think it important to remember at the beginning of this summer that America, the Idea of America and the ideals of America will remain strong. America will remain a free country and we will remain a free people; and a free people working together may not always be overwhelming but are certainly unconquerable; and the love of God will remain inexhaustible.

It was Martin Luther who brought these ideas from Saint Paul to the fore: for freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore in freedom, and with freedom, love.

Martin Luther, American. America would be a far different place without him.

Copyright, 2007
Richard Allen Hyde