Author Archives: Jay Case

About Jay Case

I am currently a professor of history at Malone University in Canton Ohio. From 1986 to 1993 my wife and I were missionaries in Kenya with Africa Inland Mission, where we taught social studies at Rift Valley Academy. All three of our daughters were born there. In the time between Kenya and Malone, I earned my masters and Ph.D. in American religious history at the University of Notre Dame.

An Ethical Conviction That You Hold, For Which You Should Be Thankful

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You and I believe that slavery is wrong, but neither of us came to this conclusion on our own.  We did not reach this conviction by wrestling with complicated ethical, economic, political and theological issues.  We did not risk our lives to escape our own enslavement and we did not campaign tirelessly against powerful institutions to abolish an unjust system.  Neither of us have ever been confronted with the reality that we would lose a large proportion of our wealth, should our society decide that slavery were wrong.

Instead, we grew up in a culture where we did not see legalized slavery around us anywhere.  We were raised in a society that told us in thousands of ways, explicitly and implicitly, that freedom was good and this system was wrong.  We accepted this great truth without thinking about it.  It cost us nothing.

You and I have not contributed anything to the principle that slavery is wrong.  Oddly, though, we may still cast a smug eye on earlier generations.  We may consider ourselves to be morally superior to those from centuries ago who held slaves.  Or we might be bothered to discover that great Christians from earlier centuries held slaves, good people who loved God, like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.  What was wrong with these people, we silently wonder?  Without thinking deeply, we assume that if we were born in 1703, we would understand that slavery was an evil and unjust system.  And we would be wrong about ourselves.

The conviction that slavery is wrong is a gift.  We did not pay for it, work for it, achieve it through intellectual effort, or earn it through our own righteousness.  And yet those of us who live in 2012 hold on to this conviction firmly, without quite realizing how it ended up here in our hands.

This is how grace works. This truth was given to us by God.

It happened somehow through the processes of history.  God worked through many different people who, seeing through a mirror dimly, struggled to come to terms with a truth that was not obvious to them.  Some of them then battled formidable economic, political and social powers, in order to eliminate an unjust system.  The results, quite frankly, are stunning.

In 1776 slaves could be found in every single colony and region in the Americas, from Canada to Chile (and each of the original 13 states).  An overwhelming majority of people in North America, Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Central America and Africa accepted slavery as a fact of life.  They might not have thought it a pleasant system, but they were convinced that this was how the world operated.  In fact, the acceptance of slavery had been the default mode for all of humanity, for slavery could be found in some form in all regions of the world throughout history.

And then, in a blink of an eye (by historical reckoning), slavery was abolished.  By 1886 it had been eliminated in the Americas.  By that time, the vast majority of people of the transatlantic world agreed it was an unjust system.  This way of thinking spread throughout the world.  For the first time in history, the acceptance of slavery was no longer the default mode of thinking.

You and I have inherited that conviction.  We should be thankful for this particular gift.  Thankful that many people came before us who worked and wrestled and died and argued and committed themselves to abolition.  And thankful to God who, in His mysterious manner, worked through these people in history, so that we might think this way, without even realizing that we think this way, or why we think this way.

Oh, and one more thing.  Let us also be thankful that, regardless of our thinking, we are not enslaved in this way and do not live in a society that enslaves others in this way.

 

James Bond vs. Samuel Sharpe: Authenticity.

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I started this contest because the two times I visited Jamaica, our van drivers pointed out spots where James Bond films had been made, but none made any mention of Samuel Sharpe.  Tourists, obviously, are much more interested in James Bond than Sharpe.  So, my question has been which person should we be most interested in?

According to my unscientific and undemocratic and unsystematic process in which I make up the categories and analysis of this contest as I go along, Sharpe is currently beating Bond, 4 to 3.  Today is the last day of the contest.  So, the most James Bond can hope for is a tie, a prospect he never faces in his movies.

Are you nervous?  Are you sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation, anxiety and excitement?  No?  Well, give me a break.  I’m a historian, not a film maker.  (See the previous post).

Anyway, today’s category is authenticity.

Hmm.

Well, Samuel Sharpe was a real person.  James Bond is not and has never been a real person.  In fact, not even one of the six James Bonds was real.

Samuel Sharpe wins the pennant!  Samuel Sharpe wins the pennant! Samuel Sharpe wins the pennant!

The name is Bond. James Bond, Bond, Bond, Bond, Bond, Bond.

Wait a minute.  There are further considerations.  Sometimes fictional characters help us to better see what is real and true even if they themselves are not real. The best literature and the best films do that.

And James Bond…does not do that very well.  If we go back to the posts in which James Bond lost out to Samuel Sharpe, we will find that the Bond films do not give us solid insights into redemption, violence, human nature, race, sex or God.  Yeah, James Bond is cool and the stories are fun, but let’s face it, Ian Fleming was no Shakespeare, even though he had that English thing going for him.  Samuel Sharpe, meanwhile, played a key role in the abolition of transatlantic slavery. For that reason, if nothing else, solid historical analysis of Samuel Sharpe gives us a lot more insight into what is real and true about this world we live in.

A real person. OK, a bust of a real person.

So, yeah, go crazy folks, Samuel Sharpe wins it all.

 

Final Score:

James Bond       3

Samuel Sharpe  5

 

Next:  the post-game wrap up.

 

James Bond vs. Samuel Sharpe: Stories

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I wish I had a good story to tell about this one.

I don’t.

Apparently, I don’t have a good story because I am a historian and not a filmmaker.  Here’s the deal:  filmmakers often tell good stories.  Historians often don’t.

Is this news to you?

Bond films, of course, intrigue so many people because they tell good stories.  The typical Bond film often sports some sort of wild, unpredictable action scene toward the beginning, runs through plenty of twists and turns in the plot, and packs in dramatic action at the end.  The filmmakers use appealing narrative and visual tropes: technological gadgets, life-threatening explosions, clever villains, sex appeal, and cars that do things like turn into submarines.  The action often takes place in some sort of exotic and alluring setting.  James Bond is not only cool, he comes with his own background music.

Meanwhile, I have heard plenty of people complain about history teachers who make their students memorize dates.  And academic historians write books that are set up like long legal arguments, complete with professional jargon.  Who reads these things?

(Actually, other historians do.  Does that make us boring people?)

Now, there are very good reasons why academic historians write books that are set up as long arguments, supported by evidence that is meticulously detailed in footnotes.  Histories make claims about the past, and in order to be accurate about those claims, they need to be grounded in the evidence.

But some academic historians have wondered whether we have lost something by ignoring the power of stories and good writing.  Would more people see the significance of history if historians wrote better stories?

I’m not talking about Abraham Lincoln the Vampire Slayer.  I don’t mean that history should be simply be another form of entertainment. And I firmly believe that historians need to write long arguments with detailed evidence, even if these historical works are only read by other historians.

But I also suspect that there are important truths about the past that are best told in story form.  The Apostle Paul may have written theological arguments, but the Gospels are told in story form.

Samuel Sharpe’s rebellion would make a great story.  And a great movie.  Because of the lack of evidence, it would involve making speculation, but that speculation could be grounded in the best available scholarship.  And it would be a great counterpart to the film, “Amazing Grace.”  Admirable as he was as an individual, William Wilberforce does not encompass the entire story of the abolition of slavery.  But for now, all we really have are the historical arguments about Sharpe and the rebellion in Jamaica.

It is a hard to tell a good story AND hold true to the evidence.  But I think historians ought to try to do it more often.

That’s my argument.  I wish I could have told it in story form.

Bond wins this one.

 

Score:

James Bond                3

Samuel Sharpe            4

James Bond vs. Samuel Sharpe: Slavery, Sex and Consumerism

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OK, I don’t know what you are thinking about that title.  I may not want to know.  Just bear with me for a moment.

I’m returning to a little series I have going that pits James Bond against Samuel Sharpe.   I have raised the question of which person we should be more interested in.  Today’s category:  objectification, which is to treat human beings as objects.

As a slave in Jamaica, Samuel Sharpe was, at some level, regarded as an object.  The movers and shakers of transatlantic slavery bought and sold human beings like they were houses, deeded human beings to descendants in their wills like they were furniture, and regarded the costs of human beings in their financial calculations in the same way they figured the value of their agricultural machinery.  These are not pleasant or appealing dimensions of the human story to dwell on.

Contrary to the logic of 19th century slavery, Samuel Sharpe was a person, not an object for economic production.

I do find it interesting, however, to consider Samuel Sharpe’s response to this dehumanization.  Just how did he come to the conclusion that the slaves had natural equality with others, especially when this was not an idea that had occurred to slaves in countless cultures down through the centuries?  Why did he instruct his followers to burn houses but not to harm slaveowners, when he obviously had been treated like property himself and it would have been so easy to gain revenge by treating slaveowners like property?  I am thinking the grace of God must have been at work there, but just how did it seep its way into his being?  I find those questions interesting and I wish we had more historical documentation to unpack the story of Sharpe’s life.

We have plenty of stories about James Bond, of course.  In the Bond films, there are human beings who are always, at some level, regarded as objects.  These human beings are the women.  James Bond is always on the hunt for beautiful women to seduce.  After these flings, we don’t ever see these women again, though James Bond keeps reappearing in every movie.  It’s part of the Bond formula.

Most evangelical and traditional Christians probably respond to this point by thinking, “of course this is a problem.  Sex should be reserved for marriage.”  But the discussion should not end there.

The fact that James Bond tends to regard women as objects is nothing new, historically.  One does not have to dig very deeply in history to find men in all sorts of cultures and civilizations who treat women in this way.

There is something new in the way that Bond objectifies women.  It is the same characteristic that is found in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy philosophy:  the role of consumerism.  I’m not just talking about the fact that audiences have bought Bond films and Playboy magazines.  I think that consumer dynamics enable James Bond films to present a sanitized Playboy philosophy for popular audiences.  It’s hard to recognize because all of us in western culture are deeply shaped by consumerism and because Christians tend to evaluate movies by a simplistic rating system that doesn’t encourage more thoughtful reflection.

Contrary to the logic of late 20th century Bond films, women are persons, not objects of economic consumption.

James Bond and Playboy both emerged in the 1950s and early 1960s when a consumer-driven lifestyle came within reach of most Americans (and a few Brits, if they could afford it).   And Americans enthusiastically embraced this consumer world.  Hefner and the Bond films took advantage of a certain kind of consumer lifestyle (among other things) to attract audiences.  Consider the lifestyle that each glorified.  Early on, Hugh Hefner cultivated an idealized image of the playboy as a man living in a “pad” (not a home), furnished with cool furniture, hi-fi stereos and tasteful décor.  He wore snappy suits and drank martinis.  Children did not inhabit this world (we should be thankful for that).  Nor did married, old, or physically unattractive women.  This lifestyle setting helped Hefner in his efforts to make pornography respectable and even cool.

If you cover up the women a bit more, this cool form of consumerism also defined James Bond’s lifestyle. (And it’s not just in the films.  Today you can purchase James Bond items online and imagine yourself to be living his lifestyle.  Good luck with that dream.)

Both Hugh Hefner and James Bond treated women as objects designed for their sexual gratification.  Like sports cars, women were quickly disposed of once a more fascinating model came along.  Like “hip” furniture, women were valued primarily for their physical, external appearance.  Just as we are to believe that the purchasing, wearing and disposing of stylish clothes does not bring any problematic consequences to our relationships, so we are to believe that the seduction and disposal of beautiful women does not bring any problematic consequences to our relationships.  Slaveowners viewed slaves like machinery, as cogs in their system of economic production.  Hefner and Bond viewed women like luxury cruises, as items in their lifestyles of economic consumption.

Of course, Bond films haven’t been the only ways that a sanitized Playboy philosophy has expressed itself in our culture.  But they have been widely popular.  As such, Bond films have played a role in the tendency that has developed during the last half century to look upon sexuality as a component of our consumer lifestyle.  There’s a different kind of slavery at work here.

It’s a historical development that requires better understanding.  As such, I think it is quite good, when viewing films, to think about and discuss these issues.  This kind of film viewing is not only interesting, it could lead to deeper understanding, wisdom and Christian maturity.

Most people do not view films these ways, though.  I’m guessing that most men who watch Bond films merely respond to the women on screen with a desire that says, on some conscious or unconscious level, “I’d like to have that.”

There it is.  Slavery, sex, and consumerism.

Score

James Bond        2

Samuel Sharpe    4

Revivals, Idolatry and Politics

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I went to a good, old-fashioned revival last week.  I found it interesting that in this age of mega-churches and coffee bars in the foyer and big-screen HD technology, this meeting still had many things that I had seen before in revival meetings.

Consider the following features: it drew a big crowd and opened up with music.  We were told to go out and go door to door to spread the faith in our neighborhoods.  We were told that we shouldn’t be shy to talk to our co-workers and neighbors and friends.  We were told we lived in a broken society and we were part of the solution to set things back down the right path. Then we hit a musical interlude in which a quartet sang “Amazing Grace.”  And finally the main preacher got up and stirred the crowd with an impassioned message, reminding us that we were part of something bigger than ourselves.  Right before the final music, he told us that the greatest hope for earth was….

Wait a minute.  I’m sorry, I got confused.

This wasn’t an evangelical revival.  It was a political rally for Mitt Romney.  (Four blocks away from my house, actually, at the local high school baseball field).

The similarities of the Romney rally to evangelical religious revivals are not merely interesting coincidences.  (And let me just annoy both the die-hard Democrats and die-hard Republicans among you by saying that Obama rallies and Romney rallies are pretty much structured the same way.)

There is a historic connection between political campaigns and revivals.  As early as the 1740s, George Whitefield and other evangelical revivalists pioneered techniques for preaching to large audiences – often outdoors.  By the early 19th century Baptist and Methodist revivalists (like the circuit-riding guy on the horse on my blog masthead) had perfected these methods.  They became so widespread and so effective that politicians picked them up for their own campaigning purposes.  These rallies have been a part of our political culture ever since.

I wonder if this is more than a historic curiosity, though.  This past Sunday, while speaking on a totally different topic, my pastor pointed out that we make idols out of all sorts of things, and we aren’t even aware that we do it.

In the passion of a political campaign, we can make politics and the United States itself into an idol.  It seems to me that the subtle similarities to evangelical revivals can stoke hopes and desires that this candidate, this political party, this policy, this nation will save us from the woes that beset us.

Ponder this:  at the close of his rally the other night (right before the fireworks), Mitt Romney declared that America is the hope for the world.

No.

Jesus Christ is the hope for the world.

Wise political leaders, well-crafted policies and effective governments can bring order to society and limit evils and sins that we humans inflict on one another.  We need to do the best we can to work for good government, which has an important role in this world.  That role, however, is not that of savior.  Politicians, policies and the nation cannot eliminate those evils or sins, nor can they truly save us from them.

American political leaders have long had a habit of slipping into over-the-top rhetoric because it gets American audiences fired up.   We hear it and we don’t even realize that we are asking the United States to take on the role that only Christ can fulfill.  In 2008 Barack Obama declared that “the United States is the last great hope for humanity.”  Sarah Palin proclaimed that “America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has known.” Abraham Lincoln, that kindly, avuncular, home-spun Midwesterner on our penny said “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”

How do you like your idolatry?  It comes in tasty Democrat, Republican and historic flavors.

For those of you who want a sophisticated and challenging theological discussion of these things, I would recommend Theopolitical Imagination by William T. Cavanaugh, particularly his essay, “The Myth of the State as Savior.”

Otherwise, ponder (and pray about) this question this election season:  when, where and how do we slip into this kind of idolatry?  And what kind of citizen is Christ calling me to be?

Bloggers Who Direct You to Other Blogs that Blog about Books by the Blogger Who Directed You to that Blog

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Uh, that would be me, in this blog.

I keep forgetting that one of the things that happens on blogs is that the blogger gets to promote his/her own book.

Over at the “Hermeneutic Circle,” Jared Burkholder of Grace College interviewed me about An Unpredicatable Gospel.  You can check out the interview here and here.

And you should take a peruse through Jared’s blog as well.

 

 

 

http://www.hermeneuticcircle.com/2012/10/jay-case-on-evangelicals-and-world.html

Evangelical Colleges: Politically Captive?

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I’m taking a break from James Bond and Samuel Sharpe to ask some election season questions:

Is the college where I work, Malone University, hopelessly conservative because it is, after all, largely evangelical and requires its professors to abide by a statement of faith?  Or is it hopelessly liberal because it does, after all, have a tendency to employ pointy-headed professors?

Yeah, I get it from both sides.

For instance, a few months ago, I was invited to speak about presidential elections in American history at an event for clients of a financial services company.  In my role as a history professor, I made a few modest historical observations.

I was paired with another speaker who had worked on Capitol Hill.  He essentially laid out possible odds for which party might win the White House and the houses of Congress.  Although he was introduced as a former congressional staffer, the audience was not told that he had worked for Democratic members of Congress.

What I found most interesting was the reaction from the audience.  We both received a range of questions, but a few people singled me out for special attention on one issue.  One woman came up afterwards and asked me what party I supported.  Even though I told her I considered myself an independent, she did not really believe me because, as she said, liberalism was so rampant among college professors.  Several other audience members made comments indicating that they had similar assumptions about my political commitments.

The other speaker, the bona fide blue-state Democrat, did not receive similar comments.

Now, I had tried to be studiously non-partisan. I had given a Republican and a Democrat example from history for every point I made.  I had suggested that audience members ought to find a friend who supports the opposing candidate and have breakfast with them once a week so that they could hear different viewpoints and discuss them in a civil manner.  But it was apparent that some of the conservative members of the audience still looked on me with suspicion because I am, after all, a pointy-headed professor.

Then yesterday I read an Atlantic blog by Conor Friedersdorf that described “epistemic closure.”  This refers, in essence, to people who get all their information about the world from institutions promoting the same worldview.  These folk never encounter opposing viewpoints.  In Friedersdorf’s estimation, conservatives are particularly guilty of this type of close-mindedness and evangelical colleges are part of the problem.  “It’s now theoretically possible to go from evangelical homeschooling to a conservative college where debating abortion is verboten,” he wrote, “to a job at a conservative think tank, reached via a talk-radio-filled commute.”

To be fair to Friedersdorf, he is primarily discussing the role of conservative media.  However, his argument is based upon the claim that conservatives have built cradle-to-grave institutions that are closed off from intellectual diversity.  I am, it appears, part of this epistemic closure.  I do not know if he would believe me if I told him I am an independent.

This is the world I live in.  Greg Miller, a colleague of mine, says that evangelical professors sit on a window sill high up in the ivory tower.  And all the non-evangelical academics in the ivory tower are yelling at us, “jump, jump!”  Meanwhile, down below on the ground, are the members of our evangelical churches.  They are looking up at us teetering on the window sill of the ivory tower.  And they are yelling, “jump, jump!”

So are evangelical colleges close-minded?  There is data to suggest that evangelical colleges are more conservative than other types of institutions.  Inside Higher Ed reported yesterday that the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute released a study that ranks “private, 4-year, other religious” (meaning non-Catholic) colleges as the most conservative of any kind of institution.  (The other categories are “public universities, private universities, public 4-year colleges, private 4-year non-sectarian colleges, and private Catholic 4-year colleges).  I don’t know what percentage of evangelical colleges make up the category of “private, 4-year, other religious” colleges, but since Catholic and non-sectarian colleges fall under different categories, it has to be a large number.  At any rate, it strongly suggests that evangelical colleges are more conservative than other kinds of institutions.

But does that make evangelical colleges close-minded and guilty of “epistemic closure?”

Over at the “Pietist Schoolman” blog, Chris Gehrz, a history professor at Bethel University in Minnesota addressed this question a couple of weeks ago.  He gave evidence and arguments for why institutions in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities do not fit into a category of “right-wing monoliths.”  This fits with my impression of Malone, where I know we have professors from a range of political positions (though I do not know exact numbers.)  Gehrz wrote that “I feel like I’ve heard as many complaints from conservative professors about the lack of right-wing speakers on campus as vice-versa, but I’d also say that most of us are not all that politically partisan and that our students probably aren’t all that certain of how we vote.”

Gehrz admitted, humbly, that this may be wishful thinking.  He pointed out that we need more studies on these sorts of things.  I agree.

So here is the interesting part of the recent UCLA study:  one could conclude that evangelical colleges (or to be more accurate, “private, 4-year, other religious” colleges) are the most politically diverse of all types of institutions of higher education.

Check out the numbers.  In the study, 23% of the professors at these colleges consider themselves to be politically “conservative” and 0.6% consider themselves to be “far right.”  That is 10% higher than any other kind of institution in higher education, which is what makes them conservative, in the eyes of many academics.  But we also find that 29.1 % consider themselves “middle of the road.”   And the study reports that 40% of the professors at these institutions consider themselves “liberal” and 7.4% consider themselves to be “far left.”  This is what makes them liberal, in the eyes of many ordinary evangelicals.

In my eyes, this is what makes them politically diverse.

Or, at least, the most politically diverse kind of college you can find.

Yes, the UCLA study is only a small glimpse into a complicated issue.  For instance, I do not know what institutions get included in the “private, 4-year, religious” category.  And one will need to look more fully at individual evangelical colleges to better determine the extent to which they are guilty of “epistemic closure,” though one should ask the exact same questions about colleges that have large percentages of liberal professors.  The point is that the UCLA study carries more weight than perceptions, which is all that most people have to base their conclusions on at this point.  At the very least, the study suggests that “private, 4-year, other religious” colleges are better than other educational institutions at hiring professors from a range of political positions.  If, however, you want an education that has the narrowest range of political views, you should attend a public university or a private, non-sectarian, 4-year college.

Better yet, choose an evangelical college for its ability to integrate faith and learning.

“Ah, ha!” many academics will say.  That is exactly what makes evangelical colleges guilty of indoctrination, close-mindedness and “epistemic closure.”

I disagree.  But I’d be happy to talk about it and listen to opposing viewpoints.

 

 

James Bond vs. Samuel Sharpe: Missionaries and World Christianity

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James Bond, missionaries, and world Christianity?

You may be thinking that I have a topic that really does not fit in my contest about which individual we should be more interested in.  You may be thinking that because I have written a book about missionaries and world Christianity, I am looking for a cheap way to turn the topic back to my interests. You may be thinking that I am playing a literary bait and switch here, using James Bond to hook your interest in something totally different.

You may be right.

But then, again, you may not be.

Granted, the nature of James Bond films compels me to shift the point a bit.  I can’t have a sensible contest based on the question of how world Christianity plays out in these thoroughly secular films.  There is, however, a closely related topic to world Christianity.  What happens when the Bond films cross cultural boundaries?  What does cross-cultural engagement look like?

Let’s just say, not great.  Bond films exude an aura of British superiority.  This ethnocentrism, apparently, was even stronger in the Ian Fleming books.  In fact, the whiff of British exceptionalism was so strong that some storylines had to be revised when the books were made into movies for American audiences.  I guess American audiences don’t like to be depicted as inferior.  Who knew?

It gets worse, however, when dealing with non-Anglos, particularly in the books and early films.  The villains are often nonwhites and they are often deformed.  Furthermore, nonwhites just don’t have the brains, the sensibility, the skills, or the enlightened rationality of the Brits (or the Americans, for the film versions).  In “Dr. No,” Bond enlists the help of a Jamaican assistant to investigate Dr. No’s hideout, but this black guy, like the other

The dragon: ha, ha, it’s just clever technology, folks.

Jamaicans, is deathly afraid of the rumors he has heard about a dragon that inhabits the island.  The “dragon” turns out to be a flame-throwing tractor with big teeth painted on the front.  The foolish, superstitious and cowardly Jamaican assistant gets killed in the ensuing battle, but the film viewers are not supposed to care because, like the villains, his life doesn’t seem to matter much.  (It should be noted that even though they are evil, none of Dr. No’s scientific assistants are black.  His hideout displays a level of intelligence that blacks do not seem capable of achieving.)

The Jamaican assistant’s fear of the “dragon” emerges from a common depiction of race and religion that comes straight from the 18thcentury Enlightenment thinker (and Brit) David Hume.  According to Hume, less rational people, particularly those who have not been blessed with civilization, believe in irrational religious beliefs that express themselves in superstitious behaviors.  Enlightened and rational people, on the other hand, build sophisticated, morally superior civilizations that progress beyond the ignorance of previous

Build your own “Dr. No” Lego dragon! Pretend you are intimidating inferior people!

ages.  “I am apt to suspect the Negroes, and in general all other species of men, to be naturally inferior to the whites,” Hume wrote in Essays, Moral and Political.  “No ingenious manufactures among them, no arts, no sciences.”  Most people easily spot the racism in Hume’s thinking.  However, his claims about religious faith, which masquerade as rational truth, still infect much of the western world today

Samuel Sharpe, who lived half a century after Hume’s death and more than a century before the first James Bond film, would seem to qualify as a superstitious and naturally inferior “species of men.”

But here is where world Christianity helps expose fallacies in Hume’s and Fleming’s brand of Enlightenment thinking.  Sharpe’s relationship with the missionaries brings out point.  The leaders of this 1831 Jamaican rebellion (as well as a similar rebellion eight years earlier in Demerara, on the north coast of South America) were deacons and evangelists.  Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries from Britain had been ministering among the slaves for the previous decades.  Slaveowners, in fact, complained bitterly that the missionaries were spreading radical and subversive ideas about equality and abolition among the slaves.  (Hume, who believed that evangelical religion led to social disorder, political radicalism, emotional derangement and psychological delusion, would have agreed).

The missionaries, however, did not promote, plan or lead the rebellion.  In fact, they warned the slaves not to plan any resistance, they downplayed the possibility of emancipation getting passed in Parliament, and they did not even know of Sharpe’s rebellion until right before it occurred.

In other words, this movement took off without missionary leadership, in ways they did not expect and could not control.  That is usually what has happened when a movement of Christianity emerged and grew after it had crossed cultural boundaries.

There is also a theological point here about cultural blind spots.  Although they were generally favorable to antislavery ideas, British missionaries preached a simple evangelistic message and stayed away from topics of abolition.  The slaves who had converted to Christianity, however, saw implications in the gospel that white Christians were slow to recognize:  the Exodus story indicates that slavery is not God’s plan for the world.  The same held true for Christian slaves in the American South.  On Sunday mornings they might hear a white minister preach on the text, “slaves obey your masters,” but on Sunday nights, in the privacy of their separate worship, they heard slave preachers draw conclusions about freedom from the Gospel.  And they wrote and sang scores of spirituals with themes of being released from bondage in Egypt and entering in the Promised Land.

These slave spirituals could get emotional, a point that Hume would have looked on with distaste.  The slaves could not boast of “ingenious manufactures” or cool Bondian technology.  They did not display the marks of a “civilized” people.  But they understood truths unknown by rational philosophers like Hume and clever writers like Fleming.

That’s interesting.

 

Score:

James Bond      2

Samuel Sharpe  3