Has There Ever Been So Much Polarization, Violence, And Insanity In Our Country?

Are we about to experience another era of national chaos
and violence?

We often hear the word "unprecedented" used to describe current levels of delusional thinking, polarizing propaganda, conspiracy theories and rampant violence in our country. Examples:

Millions of members of the party that lost the 2020 presidential election continue to insist the election was stolen.

Many evangelical Christians believe Donald Trump is "anointed by God" to save the nation from a totally evil Democratic administration.

A majority of progressives and conservatives alike continue to believe the nation needs to keep pouring billions of dollars in the military "defense" of Ukraine and Israel in spite of the mounting and monstrous numbers of casualties inflicted.

In spite of the growing number of multiple mass shootings, efforts at limiting unfettered access to deadly military-style weapons are being met with little or no success.

Multiple conspiracy theories go viral on social media.

But is this kind of instability and insanity "unprecedented"? 

Two books I've  read recently suggest the answer may be No.

The Pre-Civil War Period

The first book, David S. Reynold's John Brown, Abolitionist, The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War and Seeded Civil Rights, describes the chaos and polarization in the era that led up to the Civil War. I was particularly astounded by the prevalence of violence in territories like my native Kansas, where pro-slavery and Abolitionist groups repeatedly attacked each other with impunity. John Brown's first murderous raids, where under his leadership some of his pro-slavery foes were hacked to death and had their horses and other possessions stolen, took place in that state, earning Brown a larger-than-life reputation as a formidable force in the anti-slavery movement. Vilified as a crazed murder by some, he was elevated to near sainthood by others, some of whom compared the gallows on which he was hanged to the cross on which Jesus was crucified, according to Reynolds.

On a more positive note, the author also shows how far ahead of his time Brown was in seeing Blacks as equals, and by contrast how racist even most Abolitionists were at that time. For example, one Free State advocate in Kansas stated, "There is a prevailing sentiment against admitting negroes into the Territory at all, slave or free." The first Kansas constitution was introduced with a "Negro Exclusion Clause," and it was ratified by a three fourth majority of the Territory's Free State settlers.

Throughout this era most people, especially in the South, supported the blatant racism of politicians like John Calhoun, who called slavery "a positive good," insisting that it "served whites while it civilized blacks," a sentiment most of us would dismiss as completely irrational and wrong today. And Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, spoke for the majority of his citizens when he stated in his opening address to the Confederate Congress that slavery was a great blessing to blacks: "In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural labors, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of the superior race their labor had been so directed as onlt only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds and thousands of square miles of wilderness lands covered with a prosperous people." p. 440

The Civil War that followed resulted in the horrifying and brutal deaths of more American combatants than any war in history.

The Jim Crow and KKK Era

Another book I read recently was Florence Mars' Witness in Philadelphia, An eyewitness account of the troubled summer of 1964, when three young civil rights workers were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

That was the year, 1964, when I graduated from college and Alma Jean and I were married. While we were aware of many of the events of that summer and of much of the violence and oppression of African Americans in the decades preceding it, I was struck with how recent and how brutal the lynchings and other acts of violence and oppression associated with segregation really were. 

As an example of delusional beliefs associated with that time period, 101 southern senators and congressmen created and signed a blatantly racist "Declaration of Constitutional Principles" known as the "Southern Manifesto, published after the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Mississippi Senator James Eastland, who owned five thousand acres of rich Delta land worked by descendants of slaves, addressed the state convention of the racist Citizens' Council as follows:

The Supreme Court of the United States, in the false name of law and justice, has perpetrated a monstrous crime. It presents a clear and present danger, not only to the law, traditions, customs and racial integrity of the Southern people, but also to the foundation of our Republican form of Government.

The anti-segregation decisions are dishonest decisions. Although tendered by Judges whose sworn duty it is to uphold the law and to protect and preserve the Constitution of the United States, these decisions were dictated by political pressure groups bent upon the destruction of the American system of government, and the mongrelization of the white race. p. 71

A statement issued by the White Knights of the KKK in response to whether they were involved in the case of the three civil rights workers whose bodies were eventually found under 15 feet of dirt in a Neshoba County earthen dam, read, "Only to the extent of doing everything possible to expose the truth about the Communist and political aspects of the case. We are primarily concerned with protecting the good name and integrity of the honest people of the State of Mississippi against the physical and propaganda attacks of the Communist Agitators and Press." Spokesmen for the group warned of a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy" to take over the nation, and that "Communists were training an army of Negroes in Cuba to invade the United States."

Looking back, it's hard to imagine so many Americans embracing this kind of delusional and destructive thinking, and who remained silent about the lynchings of over 4000 people, in both the North and the South between 1882 and 1964,

Looking around, however, we can see ominous signs of the same kind of sickness and irrationality today.

A Torturous Voyage To Philadelphia On The Francis and Elizabeth

Our Yoder forebears crossed the Atlantic
in the voyage described in this historical
novel, available from Masthof Press. 

I just finished reading this book by a descendant of Frau Barbara Fridman, a 41-year-old widow who with her children, age 19, 15, 8 and 6, crossed the Atlantic on the Francis and Elizabeth in 1742 in a grueling voyage of over two months. Packed in this vessel were over 200 other immigrants, including my Amish ancestor, widower  Christian Yoder and his 20-year-old son Christian and 16-year-old Jacob. 

The ancestral home of the Yoders is Steffisburg in Switzerland, but we're not sure just where our immigrant ancestors lived when they left for the New World. The Fridman family were Lutherans from Massenbach, and made their trip on a series of barges up the Necker and Rhine Rivers to Rotterdam, a journey almost as long and trying as the trip across the ocean. The hardships they and their fellow immigrants endured before and during their ocean voyage, along with Mennonite, Amish and other migrants, are almost unimaginable. Think rats, seasickness, chronic illnesses, burials at sea, insufferable heat, unbelievable stench, and having to sleep in stacks of wooden bunks packed next to other passengers night after night.

I wonder if any of us would have been hardy enough, or desperate enough, to have considered taking this kind of risk, but reading this book certainly added to my appreciation of the sheer courage our forefathers and mothers demonstrated in doing so. 

Here's a link to another post about this voyage: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=francis+and+Elizabeth 

Roses And Ashes: Local Marriage And Divorce Numbers For 2023

Flowers can be expensive, but a good
marriage is priceless.

Today, February 14, is both Ash Wednesday, the first Day of Lent, and Valentines Day, a day for celebrating love, roses and romance.

As a pastor and marriage and family counselor I’ve been keeping record of the number of local marriages and divorces each year since 1996. While our Rockingham/Harrisonburg population has grown significantly since then, the number of divorces granted in 2023, 366, remained relatively low, and the number of marriage licenses issued, 961, remained at near the average number of marriages each year since 1996.

While 366 marital breakups is a lower number than most years, it nevertheless means the painful disruption of the lives of 732 partners, along with whatever distress it creates for their children and countless numbers of friends, parents, grandparents and other loved ones. 

Meanwhile, while we have good records of documented marriages in our community, we lack any statistics on the increased number of partners who are living together without registering their de facto marriages. This means we have no record of how many of these undocumented couples also experience undocumented divorces, with equally distressing effects on children and/or other close family members and friends.

Here are the official numbers as provided by the local Circuit Court:

Year       Marriages     Divorces

1996           873                 387

1997           950                 405

1998           964                 396

1999           932                 405

2000           947                 365

2001          1003                438     (most annual marriages)

2002           976                 421

2003           961                 399

2004           959                 437

2005           889                 381

2006           929                 389

2007           925                 434

2008           950                 405

2009           903                 347 

2010           879                 358     (fewest annual marriages)

2011           933                 433

2012           995                 445

2013           924                 484    

2014           972                 427

2015           955                 474

2016           985                 612     (most annual divorces)

2017           983                 426

2018           935                 476

2019           947                 487

2020           882                 445

2021           994                 466

2022           954                 332     (fewest annual divorces)

2023           961                 366

We should note that the marriage numbers above are based solely on the number of marriage licenses issued, and include those who come here from other localities to get married, whereas divorce numbers include only the official breakups of people who live in the City or County. However, it is reasonable to assume that a roughly equal number of residents from here marry in other jurisdictions as marry here from other communities, so the numbers given should be reasonably valid for comparison purposes.

It should also be noted that we cannot assume a rate of divorce based on any one year's numbers, as in "35% of the first time marriages in our community will end in divorce,” since many of the above couples are marrying or divorcing for a second, third or fourth time. But with numbers like these over a period of years, we can safely conclude that the odds of a given first marriage surviving are well over 50%.

Separations and divorces may certainly be justified in cases of ongoing patterns of abuse, addictions or adultery. But in every way possible, our community is better off supporting ever more marital roses and ever fewer ashes of failed marriages and severed relationships.

Many Established Churches Are On Life Support

This church owned property in Richmond is just one of 
many that are up for sale, this one for a mere $3,800,000.

I attended a memorial service in Staunton Friday for someone who had moved there to teach at Mary Baldwin University and who had a lifelong career working in the criminal justice system. The service for her, held in one of the city's thirteen United Methodist congregations, was attended by fewer than 30 people, but in spite of the small crowd was conducted in the same traditional style as if the auditorium had been filled to capacity. In some ways little has changed, but in other ways everything has.

One of the members I spoke with afterwards lamented the fact that when he joined the church in 1972 it had some 400 members, but that today, on a good Sunday, attendance is down to around 30 or 40 congregants. A two-page directory available in the foyer listed 61 households, but fewer than half consisted of more than a single individual, and only 8 included one or more child or young adult member.

This drastic decline is concerning. Unless congregations have large endowments, they will simply not be able to continue to support a pastor and maintain what has become an oversized facility.

On the following day I attended an all day winter delegate session of our Virginia Mennonite Conference (VMC) held at the Waynesboro Mennonite Church. VMC is a part of Mennonite Church USA, a small denomination which like the much larger United Methodist Church is experiencing a major divide over the issue of accepting and affirming people in same-sex marriage and which has lost over half its membership in the past two decades. VMC has already lost numerous congregations on each side of this divide, and is almost certain to lose even more in the next few years. 

Attendance and membership are also in decline in most MCUSA congregations, including the congregation that hosted the delegate session. According to an old Mennonite Yearbook I have, it had 179 members in 1979, and while I do not know what its attendance numbers were in that year, on the Sunday prior to our meeting it was 61. 

I don't have any easy answers here, but the churches that are growing, unfortunately, tend to be doing so mostly from the numbers of dissatisfied people leaving other congregations rather than those becoming believers for the first time.

Maybe its time for ministers of churches to spend less time preaching from elevated pulpits and more time gathering their flock in holy huddles to do some serious soul searching about whether simply going about business as usual is really meeting their spiritual and belonging needs and those of the people in their communities. 

Maybe we need to gather more frequently in circles rather than in orderly rows, and spend more time in table fellowship and less in formal gatherings where people leave the service week after week without the opportunity to disclose their deepest needs and their daily struggles. 

Maybe we need sell off more of our real estate and/or to convert some of our holdings into places for feeding and housing those who need food and shelter, and for families who need day care and other services. 

Maybe we need to have our weekly meetings be not just about inspirational worship but about the intensive training of the "laos" (laity, the people, including the clergy) for the life-calling and mission of Jesus, that of bringing "good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, the recovery of sight to those who are blind (literally and figuratively), release for the oppressed and of proclaiming the year of God's favor." 

Maybe we should focus less on meeting budgets to maintain our staff and facilities and for outsourcing our help through organizations and agencies, but to be engaged in freely and personally offering more of help to our neighbors across the street and around the world.

If I had my life to live over again, I believe this is where I would start. Surely people everywhere are still drawn to chosen family-like communities where they experience lots of faith, hope and love. And people still need to be empowered and blessed to love others in everyday ways that offer good news to others around them.

More like this:

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.     

-Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47 (New Living Translation)

U.S. Airstrikes: "Proportionate and Necessary?"

President Biden: "The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.”

According to an Associated Press report, US forces carried out 85 airstrikes in Yemen today after attacking sites in Iraq and Syria yesterday in response to a drone attack that killed three US soldiers. 

Is this kind of retaliation really "proportionate and necessary?" The attack on our military base this week, in protest of our support of Israel's revenge strikes against Gazan citizens, killed three U.S. troops. U.S.counterstrikes have claimed the lives of at least 40, plus doing an untold amount of additional "collateral damage."

This brings up the question of whether the lives and property of US citizens have infinitely greater value than those of other nationalities, thus justifying our dropping megatons of explosives as a form of "defense."

Do starving refugees and bombing victims everywhere not have equal value? Do people suffering and dying as a result of millions of our taxpayer dollars spent in inflicting harm not equally deserve our mercy and compassion?

And if we really don't want to escalate conflict in the Middle East, why are we in fact escalating it by engaging in massive bombing campaigns?

Chris Hedges, an ordained Presbyterian minister and Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter, writes in his book, The Greatest Evil is War:

"In an instant, industrial warfare can kill dozens, even hundreds of people, who never see their attackers. The power of these industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying and crushing everyone inside. They can demolish villages and send tanks, planes, and ships up in fiery blasts. The wounds, for those who survive, leave terrible burns, blindness, amputation, and life­long pain and trauma."

Employing ever more evil means of this kind is far more likely to set off an unimaginably horrific World War III than to bring about any lasting peace.