Anachronism — [second definition] a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other (Example: “By the time I reached my teens, the housewife was an anachronism, replaced on television by the perky, glamorous, character of That Girl, Marlo Thomas, who kept her boyfriend at bay in the interest of pursuing her acting career.”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
There are variations on anachronism, or, better said, there are subcategories of anachronisms;
- Prochronism — “an impossible anachronism which occurs when an object or idea has not yet been invented when the situation takes place, and therefore could not have possibly existed at the time.” — the image on this blog post of Abraham Lincoln with a boom box is a prochronism
- Parachronism — “anything that appears in a time period in which it is not normally found (though not sufficiently out of place as to be impossible).” — a woman in 1960s suburbia using a washboard rather than a washing machine is a parachronism, in that while it is not impossible, it would have been improbable.
- Behavioral and cultural anachronism — “the intentional use of older, often obsolete cultural artifacts may be regarded as anachronistic. For example, it could be considered anachronistic for a modern-day person to wear a top hat, [or] write with a quill.”
- Politically motivated anachronism — “Works of art and literature promoting a political, nationalist or revolutionary cause may use anachronism to depict an institution or custom as being more ancient than it actually is, or otherwise intentionally blur the distinctions between past and present.”
It is the last one, the politically motivated anachronism that concerns me. There has been some significant blurring between past and present among both the far-left and the far-right. What do I mean? Well, let me pick on the far-left, although I could do the same with the far-right. We have fallen into anachronism in the removal of some statues, but not of others, and it is all related to the subject of slavery.
Do I believe that slavery is and always was wrong? Yes! However, that does not mean that people of earlier times believed that slavery was and always had been wrong. One need only look at world history to see how prevalent slavery was, including among all the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets. So was polygamy. This means that generations of people would have grown up seeing slavery as the natural result of war or of some other happening. Does this mean it was right? No, it does not!
When our Lord came, he made it clear that polygamy was not the right stance. The Church understood that immediately as can be seen in the writings of St. Paul who insisted that an elder had to be the husband of only one wife. A very clear message was given. Sadly, the message about slavery was not as clear. Jesus does not appear to address slavery. The Apostle Paul addresses slavery, but only in a sideways fashion. One has to read St. Paul’s letter to St. Philemon to realize that the Apostle Paul’s attitude was that if a slave wished to be free then he or she should be freed. His teachings on that there are “neither slave nor free” certainly indicated his position of no ontological difference between Christians.
However, it must be admitted that, on the practical level, he was not clear. There have been many explanations, most of them circling around the fact that the Roman Emperors would have quickly destroyed any religion that advocated for the freedom of slaves. As with the development from polygamy to monogamy, the development from slavery to slavery being forbidden took some time. This is where anachronism comes in.
When people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, anti-slavery sentiment was just beginning to show itself publicly (in the Anglo-Saxon colonies). Thus, it is an anachronism to charge that they were racist slave-owners just like it would be an anachronism to charge King David and King Solomon with being sexually depraved polygamists. Though a couple of prophets mention that their many wives led them astray, no prophet says that they were wrong for having multiple wives.
By the time the Southern leaders rose up against the Union, abolitionist sentiment was strong in the North. And, the bottom line was that they were rebels who tried to falsely claim that a State could pull out of the Union at any whim of its legislature. By the time of the Civil War, more than one European country had terminated slavery, thus there can be no claim that they did not know. And, when all is said and done, rebellion is rebellion.
As a side note, it is precisely because rebellion is rebellion that Francis Schaeffer (dad not son) had to write a short book defending the American Revolution. He was erudite enough to realize that the American Revolution, itself, could be charged with the sin of rebellion against established authority. It was difficult for Rev. Schaeffer to defend this thesis because strong Calvinists have an affinity for supporting a supposedly God-endowed government. Thus, in his book he had to show that somehow this was a God-approved rebellion, a very difficult task.
Thus, when we look at statues of people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, I would keep the statues for the same reason I keep icons of King David and King Solomon. Both of them predated the Jesus-revealed knowledge that polygamy was wrong. Both of the Presidents I named predated the full flowering of the abolitionist movement, although Jefferson would have been more aware of it than Washington.
But, when I look at the statues of the Civil War leaders, I say that they do need to be removed. They not only went against the understanding that slavery was not right, but also they openly rebelled against the country of which they were a part merely on the suspicion that abolition might be imposed on them. Unlike Washington and Jefferson, the Civil War era Southern leaders were indeed true rebels against both God and this country. There is little reason to have their statues up and their names used for military bases.
It is all a matter of understanding anachronism.
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