THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN: CULTURAL GENOCIDE AND A THEOLOGY OF RESURRECTION. BY JAMES MADISON
INTRODUCTION
This paper will be written for the benefit of those of Black, White, and mixed blood lines whose families have lived to understand what it means to be called a Southerner. My attempt in this work is to bring forth or display a pattern of cultural genocide used against the South and her people by the outside world. My hope is not to enlighten those who relish in this genocide but to stimulate a consciencization process inside of the South itself. Secondly, the aim is to supply a theology that will promote this process and give meaning to the struggle against the oppressive nature of the aforementioned genocide. In concluding I shall suggest some actions that will allow the Southerner to use his or her own cultural persuasions and a theology of resurrection in a dynamic combination that should assist Southerners and even those who have succumbed to the whims of the oppressor (commonly called “scallywags”) to take notice—the South is rising again.
Writing this paper is a struggle and story in and of itself. Liberation theologies began in South America by Catholic theologians as a reaction to abject poverty. These contextual theologies soon spread to North America where feminism, homosexual, Hispanic/Latino, Black, handicapped, and womanist (Black women’s context) movements rapidly picked up the ball and began to run with it. The academic world of theology relishes in these writings as visions of contexts and voices never heard before. Although there is much merit in these writings, seldom does any of them speak to the Southerner. In fact, to my knowledge, none of them do. In other words, the idea of a theology of liberation for Southerners is out of the question. The South should stay silent and sit on its “stool of everlasting repentance” forever. To this I had to say no! As I have spent many hours reading of the oppression suffered by the groups mentioned above my inner thoughts have been relating to my own people—Southerners. In all of the academic classrooms I have been privileged to sit in, other than the occasional Black student from Georgia, I have been the only Southerner. Latinos and bleeding heart liberal Northerners whose viewpoint and rhetoric either have no thought of the historical oppression suffered by our people, or do not care to know, have been the dominating voices. Even my suggestion that I write this paper drew a round of laughter from the crowd. By the grace of God, Sister Gloria Schaab PhD. and Father Jorge Presmanes D.Minn. who are the instructors for the course in which I am writing this work for, approved my proposal. Needless to say this approval, quickly quieted the grumbling.
With a B.A. in Theology and Philosophy and a Master’s Degree in Practical Theology from a liberal arts university in Southern Florida, I have certainly had more than my share of cultural diversity and liberation theologies. Therefore, I decided to use the same categories and styles I am accustomed to reading. I shall follow a praxis-theory-praxis methodology (see-judge-act) and use the works of famous liberation theologians. Gustavo Gutierrez will supply us a working definition of the consciencization process while Virgilio Elizondo will give us the categories in which to work through. This section will be written in an inside and outside hermeneutic in the attempt to display the cultural oppression. Section two will use James Cone’s “Black Christ” as a model while speaking to the South through the voice of Jon Sobrino’s concept of solidarity. Finally, section three, our final praxis, will synthesize our two previous sections into a singular plan of action.
SECTION I : CONTEXT
a) Personal
“You boys come inside and eat now, and leave Jim alone.” My aunt Eve shouted from the doorway. I spent the next five minutes taking the boxing gloves off before following my two cousins and their friend into my uncles’ house in Northern Ohio. This mid-summer boxing match that my mother had condemned me to had lasted almost a month now. I was twelve and my mother decided I should spend the summer in Ohio with her brother and sister in law having fun, rather than hanging around my father’s junk cars and running through the woods of my home in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. With my lip bleeding and my stomach aching from the continuous blows of my opponents I lumbered into the house. My older cousin Marty had struck the death blow to my honor by forcing the blood loss from my lip while the cousin of my same age and his friend made sure that I was sufficiently worn down enough to be labeled beaten. It had only been a week before when the family had taken me on a fishing trip to Lake Erie when a storm hit that threatened to capsize my uncle’s cabin cruiser. Everyone was given a life jacket in the panic except me—hillbillys can swim of course. The only joy of the entire trip was to see my cousin’s hand split wide open from mishandling a catfish. A hillbilly would never make that mistake.
“Lets go downstairs and watch TV. Maybe the briar hopper will stay up here tonight.” My cousin shouted with glee as he and his friend ran down into the basement. Needless to say, I could not wait to get back to K.Y. and leave all the “fun” my mother had sent me off to have in the North. This was my first experience of cultural differentiation. As Father Presmanes says it, I was, “the other” or “other than.”
I was born in Middlesboro Kentucky, a mining town in the extreme corner of the state two miles from the Virginia border and across the way from Cumberland Gap Tennessee. My mother was also born there as well as all of her 12 siblings except one who arrived during my grandparents homesteading expedition to Arkansas in the early 20th century. Both of my Mother’s parents were born in the area as were their parents and their parents before them back to a single descendent Robert Mason who arrived in 1757 in Virginia and fought in the Revolutionary war. My sir name is Madison but I have not yet been able to trace my father’s lineage beyond the Tennessee area. He was born in Knoxville in the early 20th century as was his parents. It is commonly known among genealogy buffs looking for linkage to the famous president that two sets of Madisons arrived in the new world in the early 1600s.
Middlesboro is known for many things. One of which is that it is “one of only a tiny handful of towns in the entire world to be built within the crater of a meteorite.” Founded by Alexander Arthur (a Scotsman) in the late 1800s it was originally planned out to be a metropolis of the coal, iron ore and timber business. The iron ore turned out not to be of the best quality and the English investors eventually abandoned the project. Although the town revived some during the 1940s due to gambling, drinking, prostitution and general all around debauchery, eventually it became nothing more than a stop along the wilderness trail for anyone who might happen to be in the area. When I grew up there it had five street lights, a truck stop and a population of about eight thousand who were mostly miners and mountain people whose families knew no other area. This was the largest town for 150 miles to the North (Lexington) and 60 miles to the South (Knoxville).
Our house or houses were all located within a few hundred yards of each other on the outskirts of town in an area called the Beltline. My Mother’s parents owned a small farm with chickens and an a couple of acres of corn, potatoes, melons and tomatoes growing. My grandmother was stern and extremely healthy up into her late 70s. The household went to bed at dark and rose at daylight. No one dared argue with Sarah Patterson Mason (Maw Mason), least they suffer the dreaded hillbilly switching or for those a bit older—a broom stick to the head. My grandfather was a Baptist minister who at one time was the pastor of the neighborhood church. Needless to say there would be no hint of alcohol in the home at anytime. On the other hand, my father’s mother (a widow) lived in a small shack with an outhouse about a mile away from the farm up the side of a mountain. Molly Madison and her sister Honolulu Canada moved there from Knoxville Tennessee in the mid 1940s to join their sister who was ill at the time. At least that is the excuse they always gave for being there. In later years my sister and I found out that both Molly and Hon were exiled from the state of Tennessee for running a house of ill repute (gambling and bootlegging). Apparently, Molly had had enough of Hon’s husband’s complaints and ended them with a 32 caliber pistol shot to the head. I still have the pistol. Therefore with Molly finding suitable working conditions for an individual with her particular talents in the Middleboro of the 1940s. She stayed. With the end of WWII her son, my father, came to visit and met my mother. The rest is history.
This area where my Southern Context begins is referred to as Appalachia. Americans seem to be fascinated and confounded by it, and “no other region has been so misrepresented by the mass media.” Four particular images of the area have tended to be portrayed: 1. A pristine Appalachia with unspoiled mountains along the Appalachian trail. This view has disregarded centuries of warfare and the destruction of the forests by the timber industry, 2. backwater Appalachia as displayed in stories, novels, movies, radio and television programs as an area of “peculiar people”, does not notice the production of the important writers, artists, politicians, business people and scientists from the area. 3. Anglo-Saxon Appalachia full of “white natives” forgets the area’s role as a “crossroads of indigenous cultures and vast immigrant and African American migrations for centuries” and 4. pitiful Appalachia the “poster region of welfare and privation” shown by Charles Kuralt in the early 1960s that sees nothing but the impoverished. In other words, “untouched wilderness, poor white backward hillbillies.” According to a Yale sociologist, the Appalachian culture, “helps breed a social order without philosophy or art or even the rudest form of letters. It brings out whatever capacity for superstition and credulity a people come endowed with, and it encourages an almost reckless individualism.”
Appalachians are pictured by the media as, “backward, unintelligent, fatalistic and quiescent people who are complicit in their own oppression”, “among the most vicious and violent people in the United States” as well as “gun-happy, illiterate bumpkins who are culturally incapable of rational resistance to unjust conditions.” The media is not the only artist who paints these pictures. Missionaries, social workers, industrialists and academicians “have in their own ways and for their own reasons portrayed Appalachia as an isolated, underdeveloped area of inferior and dependent people.” Literary critic H.L. Mencken even went so far as to openly discuss reducing the birthrate of these “inferior orders.” Therefore since Appalachian history “is full of rebellions and rebels” it is perfectly understandable why I would identify myself as a Southerner.
b) The South.
When we speak of the South we mean the states of the Confederacy, but one could include Missouri, Oklahoma, Maryland and even West Virginia for these states share similar cultures with the Confederacy. Be that as it may, Southerners know another Southerner when they meet one.
At this point I think it proper to discuss the major event that has defined what it means to be a Southerner—the war for Southern independence. This event that is so deeply imbedded into the Southern mindset has served to establish not only a particular hermeneutic or lens from which all Southern people view their lives but also provides a buttress or lever that is used as a weapon for a system of cultural genocide against The South and its people.
As I stated previously, my goal is to stimulate a consciencization process inside of the South itself. Gutierrez defines this process as “beginning to organize themselves in the defense of their right to life, in the struggle for dignity and social justice, and in a commitment to their own liberation.” This is how The Southern people saw themselves before the war for independence. This is how I wish them to see themselves now. Virgilio Elizondo supplies us the categories of identity/public image, and group heroes/symbols in which to display The South and its people through. In order to bring to light the cultural oppression against The South, I shall show an inside and outside viewpoint from these categories.
c) A consciencization process.
Identity/Public Image:
Inside Fort Sumter rests on an island four miles from Charleston South Carolina. In December of 1860 it was unmanned. Eighty soldiers of the U.S. garrison were stationed at Ft. Moultrie across the bay from Sumter on another island. With officials of the state of South Carolina in Washington negotiating the transfer of the two forts, Major Robert Anderson moved his troops under the cover of darkness to fort Sumter against his orders. When Lincoln refused to hand over Fort Sumter to the people of South Carolina, in effect he began what we call the war for Southern Independence.
The previous paragraph is an overview of an event in history given from a Southern perspective, but there an inside to the story that few outside of the South know—Major Robert Anderson was a Southerner (Kentucky) who had served thirty-five years in the U.S. military. When asked by the Governor of South Carolina to return to Fort Moultrie he replied: "In this controversy between the North and the South, my sympathies are entirely with the South"; but that a sense of duty to his trust was first.”
My point here is not to argue about the causes of the War for Southern Independence. For Southerners the issue is already settled. It is often referred to as “the war of Northern aggression” for obvious reasons but the point is to highlight Major Anderson’s cultural nuances. His actions reflected what he felt was his “duty” even though his “sympathies” were with the South. A major part of the Southern Identity is the sense of honor and duty to friends, country, family and above all—God.
After the fall of Fort Sumter Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 militiamen to “put down the insurrection”. His gamble of forcing the South to strike the first blow in hopes that it would galvanize Southern unionists to reject the Confederacy failed miserably. The Governor of Kentucky replied that the state would “furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states.” Tennessee said it “will not furnish a single man for the purpose of coercion…but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers.” North Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia sent similar replies. Missouri stated that this “requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman…Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any such unholy crusade.” Maryland and Delaware did not reply. Apparently Lincoln, although a Southerner himself, did not understand what duty and honor meant to the Southern culture.
Without covering the entire history of the Southern sense of duty, let me display for you another little known fact outside of the South: The South is over represented among military recruits. It provided 42.2 percent of 1999 recruits and 41.0 percent of 2003 recruits but contained just 35.6 percent of the population ages 18-24. In addition to confirming the strong Southern military tradition, we also found an exceptional tendency for lower than average military participation in New England. One might expect the states where the attacks took place to respond with higher enlistment proportions. On the contrary, New York’s enlistment proportion ratio was 0.86 in 1999 and 0.79 in 2003.
Notice the term “tradition.” This is an integral part of the Southern sense of duty. This sense is not limited to race, creed, color or religion. It is a Southern sense that goes beyond ethnic lines because of the Southern culture. As Edward Smith once said, "to admit that blacks actually fought for a cause which in the minds of many 20th century Americans now stands exclusively for slavery and oppression is unacceptable to many in the country concerned with only politics and not with the realities of historical record." To press the point even further, Dr. Leonard Haynes, an African-American professor at Southern University, stated, "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South." If this is not enough, Judah P. Benjamin, was the first Jew to be elected to high office in the U.S as a Louisiana senator and later served in the Confederate cabinet. Finally, in closing this point, Jefferson Davis was educated by the Dominican order.
Up to now we have displayed what it means to be a Southerner. A sense of honor and duty prevail in the culture that transcends ethnic, religious, political and even geographic lines. Southerners do not cease to be Southron when outside of the South. This point I shall bring to light now.
War may be hell, but here in the South, there's a special appreciation for it, and for warriors. The largest pro-war rallies were said to be held in southern cities; by one account Houston's topped the chart with 10,000 celebrants. More to the point, many southerners assume they are considered first among equals when it comes time to draw the sabers. When it comes to war, and indeed all things military, they enjoy heightened respect.
Besides the sense of honor and duty, our language is another aspect of our Southern Culture. “While some national trends are apparent, regional speech differences not only thrive, in some places they are becoming more distinctive. Local differences, pride, and identity with place are asserting themselves strongly, perhaps as instinctive resistance to the homogenizing forces of globalization.” One prevalent shift is that Southerners are pronouncing the R at the ends of their words (FatheR). This “advancing R” is what linguists call, “inward Southern.” It derives from Appalachia. Interesting to note is the fact , "that more Americans now speak some variety of Southern than any other dialect” and "in time, we should expect 'r-full' southern to become accepted as standard American speech."" This particular form of speech is even considered an asset in regards to military service. One reason for this is the Southern military tradition of honor and duty. Another reason is that the South is full of old battlefields. According to Shiflett, "The South is like a big military theme park."
Peter Appleborne tells us, I can travel from Durham, North Carolina, to Jackson, Mississippi, which is a distance of 800 miles, and find that people are still speaking almost exactly the same dialect that I have grown up with and known all my life, whereas I can go from Durham, North Carolina, to Philadelphia, a distance of 400 miles, and find them speaking an utterly different dialect. . . . So it's not so much a matter of geographical distance as it is of a prevailing tradition over a large part of the country.
Once again notice the term “tradition” used by Appleborne. For Ayers and Mittendorf, the South is a living tradition, "a society unfolding in time." For Cash, “not quite a nation within a nation.” In which one distinguishing feature is the sense of “rootedness and community.” According to a University of Virginia survey, "black southerners were even more likely than white southerners to take pride in their southern background." More to the point, “Nearly every distinctive aspect of southern life—from speech and food to music and the storytelling tradition to the style and spirit of southern Protestantism to the very word “Dixie”—developed from the interchange of the two races.” Scholars generally agree that even the courtesy of manners which reflect a Southern upbringing, are “the product of the fusion of black and white attitudes.”
In concluding this sub-section of a view of The South from an inside hermeneutic/lens, my references have used terms such as honor and duty, rootedness and community, Southern upbringing and manners, of which all of these make up a tradition that crosses ethnic, political and religious lines.
Identity/Public Image: Outside
Up to now in this work my friends I have been writing the words any Southerner would love to hear. To use a Southern analogy—I have been preaching to the choir. Therefore I ask you now to take a moment and pause. Reflect upon what you know about yourselves and our culture, and then steady the mind to hear the flip-side of the coin.
The surrender at Appomattox “occasioned one of the most joyous and enthusiastic celebrations many Americans had ever experienced. An estimated 100,000 people paraded through the streets of Chicago in celebration of the Union victory, and in cities and villages throughout the North there were festive processions, musical offerings, impromptu speech-making, and candlelight illuminations.” Unfortunately for these same Americans, Lincoln was assassinated five days later. Some believed there was a conspiracy among the leaders of the rebellion to murder Mr. Lincoln, so a cry ensued that the Southern leaders should be punished. Even though the New York Tribune’s writers were not convinced of a conspiracy they nonetheless encouraged guilt upon the Southern leadership for having provoked “a violence and bitterness of speech” among “the ignorant Southern rank and file.”
The North’s attack on the Southern culture and leadership began with the Southern concept of Chivalry. “The pomp and pride of Southern chivalry," claimed one Union soldier in New Orleans in the post-Appomattox days, "has no Charms for me." Others sought to expose this "chivalry" as lazy, idle, and generally useless.” These “pretenders” to chivalry must now suffer the consequences of rebellion as well as the murder of the president. At the center of this attack on chivalry was an attitude about gender. The Northern Victorian notions of gender behavior quickly pointed out the ways in which The South deviated from the norm. Southern men became “weak and undisciplined parodies of manhood” while Southern women were labeled “aggressive creatures who stepped way beyond the bounds of appropriate femininity.” General Butler even "likened their feminine intransigence to flagrant prostitution"
These references to Southern culture were only the beginning. As for Black Southerners, Northern Journalist Sydney Andrews thought they were dedicated and displayed a “superior capacity for hard work” but because of being slaves had “little conception of right and wrong” as well as being “improvident to the last degree of childishness.” Finally, “the Negro was no model of virtue or manliness.”
An outside view of the South and Southerners continued to be formed during the reconstruction years. “There is not 9 out of 10 of the so-called 'Whiped' [sic] traitors that I would trust until I saw the rope applied to their Necks, [and] then I would only have Faith in the quality of the rope” exclaimed one Northerner. “They hate us and despise us and all belonging to us” cried the Nation's southern correspondent, John Dennett. According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, “the Southern gentlemen generally were an arrogant crew who knew nothing of the ideas that make the life of the few thousands that may be called civilized."
These of course are early post-bellum views of The South and Southerners. Contemporary viewpoints vary, but terms like “Redneck”, “Hillbilly”, and “Nigger” are common in media portrayals. Some examples would be The Dukes of Hazard (1979-85) and of course The Beverly Hillbillies ( 1962-71), shows that have pictured Southerners as lazy, ignorant, and violent. Rap music relishes in the use of the term “Nigger” even though according to Black America's Political Action Committee (BAMPAC) sixty percent of Blacks favored censoring its “explicit lyrics.”
Group Heroes/Symbols: Inside
William I. Sauser refers to the South as a “cultural Nation” and says that, “Civil War battlegrounds throughout the South are revered as sacred lands, and Southern heroes such as Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson - whose figures are carved into the side of Georgia's Stone Mountain - are esteemed as the epitome of Southern manhood.”
Without belaboring the point, let me just abruptly say that the major symbol of Southern Culture is of course the Saint Andrews Cross or as it is commonly called—The Confederate Battle Flag. An entire volume could be written on how this symbol has effected past and contemporary cultural issues and political arguments, but as Joyce Price has it, “The flag is a proud symbol of Southern history and Confederate heroism.”
Group Heroes/Symbols: Outside.
“The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has led a crusade to eliminate the public display of Confederate symbols. In 1991, the NAACP passed a resolution describing the Confederate battle flag as an ‘ugly symbol of idiotic white supremacy’ and ‘an odious blight upon the universe,’ and pledged the organization to "the removal of the Confederate flag from all public properties.’” The flag is an “ignoble symbol” and an “insult to the intelligence of any American citizen.” Its symbolism is a “celebration of slavery.”
One of The South’s most maligned heroes is Nathan Bedford Forrest. He represents both “heritage and hate.” Some even “demand the razing” of his monuments, and “fail to see anything positive in the continued commemoration” of the “butcher of Fort Pillow.” Lastly, concerning The South’s most beloved son, General Robert E. Lee, Richmond City Council member Sa'ad El-Amin, said regarding a mural of the Great General in his neighborhood-- "He is a pariah in my community."
This concludes our first praxis (descriptive phase). I have shown how this cultural context is personal but yet crosses ethnic lines. It is the beginning of an entire conscious raising or consciencization process that I shall elaborate further on later in a more extended work. Let us now proceed to a theology of resurrection.
SECTION II: A THEOLOGY OF RESURRECTION
a) James Cone’s Model: The Southern Christ
Cone tells us that “Christianity is essentially a religion of liberation.” A message that is not liberative is not Christian. Therefore Christ must be “identified with the goals of the oppressed.” Hence, since “Theology is contextual language, that is, “informed by historical and theological traditions” , James Cone’s black militant Christ can inform, explain, understand and even become—The Southern Christ.
Cone delineates three characteristics of the oppressed condition, 1. the tension between life and death, 2, identity crisis and 3. social and political power. In the first characteristic the community must reflect biblically on its condition and see that God has “made a decision” about the situation. We cannot “wait and talk it over,” while the South and its people are being oppressed culturally and politically.
In characteristic two, the identity crisis, one must have a “knowledge of the history of this country” to know what it means to be Southron. This consciousness (consciencization) “is an attempt to recover a past deliberately destroyed.” It is an attempt “to revive old survival symbols and create new ones.” We must “destroy the oppressor’s definition” of us so that “the past may emerge as an instrument” of liberation. We must create a “new way of looking at history independent of the perspective of the oppressor.” Our Southern identity is “the search for God, because God’s identity is revealed in the” struggle for freedom. God acts in history. The same God that “became immanent in Israelite history and incarnate in the man Jesus is also involved” in our history.
The South must begin to combat the oppressive social and political powers that rule over it. It must “affirm that which the oppressor finds degrading” (our language/our flag/our culture). By defining our own “way of behaving” and place in the world “regardless of the consequences” to the oppressor, we should also reject any liberal theologies that say we have been punished for our sins. The South will not accept a God who “inflicts or tolerates” our suffering “for some inscrutable purpose.” If God is not Southron, then he is of no use to us.
Following Cone further, the sources for a Southern Christ must begin with the Southern experience. We must “make sense” of our historical experience by relating “biblical revelation” to the situation and taking “seriously the cultural expressions of the community.” We must “see some correlations between divine salvation” and Southern culture. The Jesus of the gospels “must be the decisive interpretive factor in everything we say about God”, letting the scripture “serve as a weapon against oppressors.” We should ask ourselves: “How is the Christian tradition related” to our oppression?
For Southerners, the answer to the previous question is obvious—the bible belt. Today’s Southern Christ will face the same pharisaical criticism that the original Christ faced. As the question was asked “can anything good come out of Nazareth”? It will also be asked, “What good can come out of the South”? Even the term “bible belt” was originated by the same Literary critic H.L. Mencken (who wanted to sterilize Appalachians) in reference to the Southern affinity to Christianity as “The old game, I suspect, is beginning to play out in the Bible Belt.” As it was asked, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee does he”? It will be said that Christ cannot be Southron. There is also little doubt that some will even state publicly “see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee. [The South].”
The previous is a warning to Southerners about standing up in defense of your culture and heritage. This warning correlates well with Peter’s argument about going to Jerusalem, but Southerner’s must have faith and say—“Get behind me, Satan!” We do battle not only against our oppressors and the “enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
The Southern Christ must speak. He must preach the gospel of the Kingdom of God. In this sermon on the mount, I propose to use Sobrino’s categories of Churches, Co-responsibility, sin, incarnation and crucified peoples employed in his solidarity model.
The Churches of the South, both black, white and mixed must begin to “set solidarity in motion.” This “higher order” is a “new inspiration in faith.” It should help to discover a Southern identity in “human, ecclesial, and Christian terms and in relationship to God.” This basic solidarity must begin with the South’s poor, for it is the poor South that binds us together in “misery, oppression, and injustice” Therefore this “truth of the poor…requires a response not only with a theoretical judgement but with a practical judgement that sets in motion some form of concrete action.”
Sobrino asks the question, “what constitutes the most basic problem in human history and the most basic division between human beings?” In the South we ask the same question in much simpler language—“What would Jesus do”? “Co-responsibility must be shouldered if human beings are to be fully human.” The South can no longer see its poor brothers and sisters as “others.” The South and its churches share a co-responsibility in the historical sins of racism, division, hatred, as well as the idolatry of becoming scallywags. The Southern Christ must refuse to “undermine an awareness of sin by failing to indicate it in its historical objectification.” This “historical disaster” our oppressors call “the civil war”, says that something is wrong but not how wrong. We must begin to speak of a “crucified peoples.” The cross means death and “when peoples are deprived even of their cultures in order to weaken their identities and make them more defenseless” lack of self-esteem, loss of political power, racism, division, hatred and scallywags are the natural result. According to former NAACP president H.K. Edgerton “When Sherman marched to the sea, he burned black homes as well as white,” he raped black women as well as white ... stole food that would keep a black child from starving as well as a white child.” Let it not be said of us that we have killed the prophets and allowed The South to become a “den of robbers” instead of a “house of prayer.”
It is the poor who make possible in history the synthesis between announcing God’s truth and incarnating God’s kingdom, between announcing Christ and following Jesus, between truth and charity, between proselytism to increase the number of believers and deepen their faith, and work for liberation… When the poor live their poverty with spirit, with gospel values, with courage in persecution, with hope in their struggles, with the kind of love that can sustain martyrdom, what they are offering is simply their faith.
After the War of Northern aggression the entire South was poor. Things have changed some since then for a few individuals but The South as a whole continues to be the poorest region in the U.S. Mississippi is by far the economically worse off state of the current union but displays the Southern Christ well in ranking as “the highest per capita in charitable contributions.” I have tried to bring to light the need for a Southern program of consciencization that through a theology of resurrection based in the Southern Christ, will begin the South’s religious establishments sharing co-responsibility in what Catholic scholars would call a preferential option for the poor. In this case the poor means, not only the economic but culturally oppressed “crucified peoples” of the South.
SECTION III:
A) Final Praxis: Some suggestions.
Most of this section will contain my own thoughts and opinions. I do not expect all Southerners to agree to them. I will be glad that they do not. One of my objectives in writing this short work as a precursor to a larger study of the matter is that I hope to make Southerners begin to think about their situation, their culture, faith, history and world view. Not everything said about us is untrue. How often have you used the terms, hillbilly, white trash and nigger to describe other Southerners and in special reference to the poor? Ask yourself, What would the Southern Christ do? Ask yourself how much of a zealot we should become in our future hopes of an independent South away from the claws of an oppressive central government if it means that we ourselves will become the oppressor at home. Black, white and mixed raced Southerners need to band together. We need to reconcile our differences over the Confederate battle flag. Blacks need to emphasize more both inside and outside the house that blacks also fought, died, and cared for Southern whites, during the war for our independence. Southern whites also share a responsibility in allowing hate groups to use the flag as a symbol of racism. As I have hinted at doing here and certainly plan to do in the future, drape a black Jesus in the Confederate flag, I wonder if you will refer to this Southern Christ as a nigger, Ku Klux Klan member, or uncle Tom.
Now that I have given many of you the shock of your life, let me sooth you a bit with some things that are obvious to those who refer to yourselves as Southerners. I have shown you in this paper that across ethnic, religious and political lines we share the same culture. Let me go a bit further—we share the same ethics also. Without doubt The South is overwhelmingly against the sins of abortion, the homosexual agenda of gay marriage (even though we have our share of those that share this inclination), the use of our military to police the world and the massive illegal immigration the globalist agenda has unfurled upon us. Therefore I ask you to continue to vote in the block known as the “solid South” but not for democrats or republicans but for Southerners that are not scallywags. Donnie Kennedy calls this electing “Confederate Freedom Fighters” and a “Southern political revolution.” I am only giving you the basics of where it could start. I would encourage and certainly support, a Southern party candidate but for now I will leave the heavy politics to the professionals. I am only making suggestions at present.
Lastly, I wish to reiterate what in my opinion a Southern Christ would advocate—helping the poor. No one denies that Southern churches reach out to the poor often and in mass, but the failure of the central government in Washington to assist the victims of Katrina in New Orleans is not only a blight on their record but a plague on Southern churches and Southern unity. There needs to be a Southern conglomeration of denominations designed to specifically reach out to the poor. The resources of the South and of these denominations combined into one agency could massively impact the condition of the poor in the South as well as the political and cultural oppression we face as a people. Southerners need to stop sending their money and resources to T.V. evangelists and mega-churches that preach feel good gospels and send folks home believing that their attendance in a building is enough. “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” Hence, I make an appeal to Southern church leaders and religious to create a single agency that is purely Southern in culture, political action and above all---charity.
An agency that raises historical and cultural consciousness by using a theology of Southern resurrection based in a Southern Christ could unite the South again and promote a salvific cultural revival. It could stifle the evil forces of racism, feed the hungry, create new symbols of God’s grace, help fight the oppression and genocide upon our people, promote solidarity among differing denominations, give us political power, and do what God would have us do—become one people—God’s chosen people—Southerners.
CONCLUSION
Basically this paper has said one thing—Southerners know Southerners when they meet one. Since that is the case, I have tried to help these Southerners that know each other to study their history and see that they are one people who share one culture through their ethics (honor/duty) and language. As I said earlier this paper was not an easy write for me. I intended it to be more in-depth than it is, but unfortunately due to time and space regulations I have had to call this a precursor to a larger study. I have shown my audience that I am a Southerner myself and I write from a Southern context making no apologies for doing so. My academic background has allowed me to use the tools of the trade of Latino theologians as well as the militancy of James Cone, a Northern Black theologian. This was done for a purpose. I could have written this paper in a pure Southern apologetic form much the way some of my references have, but I wanted to show the academic world that—what is good for the goose is good for the gander. My theological reflection of the Southern Christ that speaks through the categories of Jon Sobrino will of course appear as a shock to academics as well as being rejected by some in the South. This will not come as a surprise, but let me say, I am coming off “the stool of everlasting repentance.” Like Lee’s army, I am going on the offensive.
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time Then you understand now why you came this way Cause the truth you might be running from is so small But its as big as the promise The promise of a comin day Think about how many times I have fallen Spirits are usin me, larger voices callin What heaven brought you and me Cannot be forgotten.
The South is rising again.
Footnotes to this paper are available on request.
