May 18, 2014
Sins Of the Fathers
5-19-14
A report from Colorado — Estes Park YMCA Conference Center, surrounded by late snows, young deer and elk, hundreds of professional and aspiring writers at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference. I have been on faculty, and critiquing the work of creative people yearning to Write His Answer, in the words of the conference motto.
In keynotes and session speeches, in prayer circles, the topics were many, but — as in other years, and without human direction or agenda — a matter of concern kept asserting itself: children. The crisis with children. Poverty here; AIDS in Africa; child sex trafficking in Asia; schools, orphanages, corruption in Swaziland; forced prostitution of young girls — children — in Thailand.
And when children are not parts of the headlines, they are parts of the story, the subtexts.
To speak about decline in morals and the media… we recognize that children are prime targets.
To speak about human trafficking… children are the victims.
To speak about the AIDs crisis in Africa… children suffer as the infected AND as orphans.
To speak about the persecuted church worldwide… children are the battleground of cultures suppressing Christianity.
In America – drugs: children. Education: children. Pornography: children. Poverty: children. Homelessness: children. Broken homes: children. Abortion: children.
It is a cliché to say that children are our future. But clichés are clichés because they are, first of all, true. However, children do not HAVE to be the first-in-line victims of a culture in decline. But they are. They cannot defend themselves; they believe what the culture tells them; they are the most vulnerable.
When I talk about headlines, it is literally the case. Recently 300-500 girls were kidnapped by a radical Islamist group in Nigeria. The kidnapper’s leader has gone public, blatantly threatening horrific fates, hinting of swaps of the innocent children for his fellow monsters in local jails.
Almost lost in the media coverage, and clearly a subordinate concern of the US government, is the little detail: the children are Christians.
If it is not becoming acceptable in the eyes of our media and government, it is at least a reflection of the frequency — almost to the point of boring triviality — that children, and Christians, and Christian children, are persecuted, brutalized, raped, jailed, and driven from their homelands.
In 1904 an American citizen was kidnapped in Africa. The businessman, Ion Pedecaris, was a pawn in the factional rivalries of the Pasha Raisuli and his Arabian government. A little history lesson: the First Lady of the United States did NOT pose for a photograph with a sign (as Michelle Obama did this week with the handwritten Twitter hashtag and “Bring Back the Children”). No, her husband, President Theodore Roosevelt, sent a message to that African government: “Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead.”
The man was freed.
I know it is a fantasy, but I got to thinking, this week in Colorado, if Mrs Obama — I would settle for a cartoon of Uncle Sam — could hold a sign that said: #Bring back our sense of proportion… or justice… or honor… or respect for children… or defense of Christianity. As I said, I am afraid this is a fantasy.
Let us remember the children – care for them, protect them, cleanse their environment. If our generation has messed up, maybe the best thing we can do – not the only thing, but surely the FIRST thing – is to beg their forgiveness. And God’s.
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Here is a tender lullaby Slumber My Darling, written more than 150 years ago by a man I am increasingly persuaded was America’s greatest composer, Stephen Foster. It is performed by Alison Kraus, (amazing) vocals; and YoYo Ma; Mark O’Connor; Joshua Bell; and Edgar Meyer. The images are by the amazing Beanscot Channel.
So true Rick and such a beautiful song. Thank you for sharing.
So true Rick – I am one child still healing from long ago. Mostly because God’s love became entangled with the abuse…and so He has spent these 22 years of my life untangling truth from lie. If we do not, as what is left of the church in America, begin to understand the journey of the wounded than we stand no chance in being effective in our message of hope.
We seem willing to #hashtag a trend on twitter but how many conversations with the wounded happen within the walls of the church? Long ago we relegated “those” conversations to be appropriate only in front of a mental health provider and not the sister or brother sitting across the aisle or next to you in a small group meeting.
When we can become comfortable in walking the long road to healing for those within the church…then maybe we can offer the true hope of healing for the countless victims our cultures (around the world) create.
Don’t get me wrong…fight like #$%!! to stop the victimization of children in any form and in any location.
But CHURCH let’s get honest about our faith.
We are much more comfortable with #hashtags and cash than we are with personal conversations.
If Theodore Roosevelt faced Boko Haram’s crimes he would have . . . done nothing at all. How do we know this? Though he risked war to save Pedecaris, he did little to challenge Leopold II’s genocidal rule in the Congo Free State, where millions (including, yes, Christian children) died to keep the Belgian king rich in rubber. Those who did not gather enough rubber had their hands cut off (the photos can be found on the web, or go to Wikipedia’s article on Congo’s history).
As Adam Hochschild wrote in King Leopold’s Ghost, European and American political leaders stood by for years before taking action. TR contemptuously characterized the campaign to aid Congolese “tomfoolery” and called Leopold’s massacres “imbecile rather than noxious.” TR had a well-developed sense of US national interest, and considered international stability essential to protecting that interest. But help African children? Hardly.
You seem sure that Theodore Roosevelt would have done nothing at all. Among my credentials are the facts that I have written two books on TR, and am on the Advisory Board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Yet I am not sure what TR would have done; I am not as certain as you. What I do know is that you are writing about the Congo, not Nigeria; and the Pedecaris Affair occurred in Morocco, not central Africa. The Sultan Raisuli was locked in a fight with his government, and was determined to show the world how in effective the Moroccan government was. Nothing about rubber or Leopold or cutting off hands. My only point in raising the historical incident was that a) once upon a time the people and government of the US could be indignant about such things; and b) that once upon a time, the word and threat from the US was taken to be sincere and could be trusted — threats were no bluffs. Which means that we CANNOT characterize his actions as “risking war.”
I am sympathetic to Wikipedia-sourced wrestling with 1900-era colonial policies, but my plea is to look at today’s headlines. And for us — not Friday Ladies to whom a lot of people surrender their action-agendas — to face and try to affect in some way. Live children concern me more than dead kings.