I’ll start by doing a little namedropping.
A decade or so ago, I wrote a few essays for “Sightings,” a website connected with Martin Marty. One of the pieces pertained to Independence Day.
In case I dropped his name in vain, let me introduce Dr. Marty. As a longtime professor of American church history at the University of Chicago Divinity School, he is highly respected among many Protestant leaders. He wouldn’t remember my name and couldn’t pick me out of a police lineup. But I was honored for some of my writing to appear on his website.
My article on July 3, 2002, was titled, “Revisiting Independence Day, 1971.” The opening sentence said this: “I recently rediscovered notes I had scribbled in church on a bulletin dated ‘Independence Day, 1971.’"
I can reconstruct what I wrote for “Sightings” because they keep an archive, and I found me by typing in my name under the “Author” heading.
At some point, my concern over activities in that 1971 church service caused me to tune out what was being said and sung so I could jot down enough thoughts to fill the back side of the worship order. And the paper was still in a file folder thirty-one years later.
I’m writing this article for Independence Day 2014 for two reasons: First, I think some of what I said in 1971 and 2002 is worth repeating. Then, too, I remember a little flap with the graduate student who edited the “Sightings” materials.
Here’s what I wrote in 1971:
"Going to church on Independence Day proved to be a strange experience. In the service which included patriotic songs and the pledge of allegiance to the nation's flag, I had mixed emotions. My boyhood training of national pride and idealism welled up. But those emotions kept getting tangled with darker feelings. I kept thinking of those whose freedom is abridged in our land -- the blacks who as a people have not known liberty and justice -- and of those in high places who seem to be trying to suppress such basic freedoms as freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We all too readily sing 'My Country, 'tis of Thee' and say the Pledge as if these express realities rather than ideals toward which to strive. In a comfortable, all-white, middle class congregation, we can convince ourselves that these things are so and that God is guiding and blessing America on a predestined course as holy nation---one nation under God."
The young editor was exercising his editorial prerogatives, making changes in my comments from 2002, and I didn’t argue with that. Experienced writers and editors — of whom I am one — need to be edited.
But then, in a phone conversation, he suggested a change or two in that paragraph from 1971. I told him I didn’t want to change anything in that section. Those are the exact words I wrote in 1971, but this young man doing graduate study in church history — of all things — wanted to “improve” the wording of a document from the past.
That paragraph had little historical value. But it said what I was thinking that day in church, and it was said the way I said it in 1971. I’m sure the editor and I could have improved on the wording. But I didn’t — and don’t — think we should have. And we didn’t.
He acquiesced to my stubborn resistance to his effort to make me look better. I don’t even remember what he wanted to change. You probably could edit that paragraph and help me, even now.
To me, this would change history. The piece probably isn’t worth the to-do I’m making twelve years after the fact. But if you’re willing to change an insignificant paragraph from the past by a relatively unknown essayist, where do you draw the line? Do you delete obscene or untrue or undiplomatic words from a past president?
*****
Whatever you make of that little dust-up, I’ll close with further words from 2002. They probably could stand some editing. They still may have relevance for Independence Day 2014:
“As I look back, I am struck by how little things have changed [since 1971]. If all are equal in this land of the free, some are still more equal than others. Today many African-American children attend schools that are separate and unequal. In the past nine months [since September 11, 2001], Arab and Muslim Americans have received governmental and non-governmental scrutiny at odds with Constitutional guarantees and the lessons of American history.
“Another troubling aspect of that 1971 church service is still with us. In many churches on the Sunday closest to Independence Day, it is difficult to tell what, exactly, is being worshipped. Patriotic songs replace Christian hymns, and the Pledge of Allegiance is recited almost as if it is a creed or confession of faith.
“As a Baptist, I am fiercely loyal to both my nation and my church. I am equally dedicated to keeping a respectful distance between them. When my Baptist ancestors in some English colonies refused to pay taxes to support state religion, they were jailed and, in some cases, killed. The principles for which they struggled -- free exercise and disestablishment -- are now codified in the First Amendment of the Constitution, and have long been a hallmark of Baptist groups.”
