On Sundays, I’ve been attending a small rural church in western Wisconsin. The Prince of Peace Covenant Church of Mondovi has only about thirty regulars. Many of the women are widowed. Most of the men are gray or bald. It’s a step back in time, fashion, and values.
Sunday School at Prince of Peace is like a talking circle on all things geriatric. Norma has to turn down Meals on Wheels because of all the salt they put in the mac and cheese. And don’t forget to pray for Phil. He has surgery coming up.
In a lot of ways, life here is fairly isolated from the hot-button issues of the day, such as the growing visibility of the LGBT community and what to do with the influx of Muslim immigrants.
Ministers are still made in God’s white male image around here. That is, if a church can afford one, they are. However, due to limited finances, Prince of Peace had to hire a Puerto Rican female pastor.
In Sunday school on this day, the discussion turned to the rewriting of history in our public schools. Ron, a landscape business owner nearing retirement and grandfather of two, is concerned about what they’re teaching kids these days. In this time of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, where the white man is being called out for abusing his privilege and power, why must they assassinate the characters of everyone from former “Prairie Home Companion” host Garrison Keillor to, of all people, Christopher Columbus?
“Now, they’re going after the man who discovered America,” Ron said, fidgeting with his wrinkled hands. “They're bringing up all this bad stuff about him.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Ron that many of his pastor’s ancestors were captured as slaves, chained, and dragged along on continued conquests by the explorer to be used as dog food.
Growing up, I remember how we sang about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492. What a time that must have been! It was not until sometime in the 1980s that I realized this “God of discovery,” whose diaries are still cherished today, also penned the book on indigenous genocide.
I claim no immunity from bias. The convictions, values, and beliefs that were so ingrained in me as a youngster have become tough to recognize, and even tougher to let go. I still cringe when I hear a woman preach. And during the late 1970s in health class, our teacher asked how we felt about homosexuals. “I don’t have a problem with them as long as they stay away from me” was the overwhelming reaction. It seemed reasonable to me.
But now, how uncanny and unexpected this younger generation has become—so much more open-minded and embracing of diversity in our world.
How uncanny and unexpected this younger generation has become—so much more open-minded and embracing of diversity in our world.
In December, North Park University suspended its campus pastor, Judy Peterson. The Evangelical Covenant Church of America had taken away her credentials for presiding over the marriage ceremony of two men. Nearly 100 students came out to protest her suspension and 4,400 signed a petition against it.
I remember how, in the 1950s, the Reverend Billy Graham refused to preach in the South if the congregation was separated by race—black on one side and white on the other. Many southern ministers protested Graham’s crusades by carrying signs bearing Old Testament verses that they claimed supported the separation of the races.
The Bible, as we know, has been used tragically, to justify war as well as the subjugation and murder of women and non-white races. Even Christopher Columbus, in all his exploits, believed he was on a holy mission from God.
Yet knowing the Covenant Church as I do, I believe it will not be long before same-sex marriage is not only accepted but blessed. Those thousands of students defending Pastor Peterson at North Park are the future of their church. Without them, the institution would crumble.
My former Covenant pastor, Stephen, now in his late 70s, is a regular at Prince of Peace. Stephen is a lifelong Republican. He won’t admit it, but I know he voted for Trump. An avid consumer of Fox News, he routinely asks why the liberal news media, those purveyors of fake news, refuse to report on all the good Trump has done for this country. Like my nonresponse to Ron the landscaper, I don’t have the heart to tell him this is no longer his world. It is his grandchildren’s.
I feel for those old folks facing the shock of social paradigm shift.
I feel for those old folks facing the shock of social paradigm shift. The shifting extends to my Indianness. My own mother gave up her Chippewa Indian language. She refused to teach us any words except “gaween,” which means no.
“Why do you want to learn that language for?” she’d ask. “It’ll do you no good. This is a white man’s world and you have to live in it.” I agreed. It took me years to realize what a loss it was to not know my mother’s tongue. And her generation never used the term Native American. They were simply Indians. I struggle with that as well. Like many, I still prefer to say Indian.
What I most feel for the older generation is their despair over the trampling of their Christian values. And yet, when I ask what unique values Christians hold, I only get two: opposition to same sex marriage and abortion. My old pastor, Stephen, asked me why a baker cannot refuse to decorate a wedding cake for two gay men on the grounds that it violates his Christian values. I responded: “Stephen? You’re not talking Christian values now. You’re talking capitalism.”
But Stephen is not always off-base. And that’s important to recognize because in this whirlwind of stormy change, there are still some things worth preserving, some things we can still learn from the old folks. For instance, Stephen likes to ask me if I know who the first Democrat was. I always say I don’t know.
“Why it was Christopher Columbus, of course!” he exclaims. “He didn’t know where he was going and he did it all on borrowed money.”
Of course.
Mark Anthony Rolo
Mark Anthony Rolo of the author of the memoir My Mother Is Now Earth. He contributes regularly to The Progressive, including for his column, “Going Native.”