I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the place the legacy of Robert E. Lee loomed giant. Properly earlier than I discovered Civil Struggle historical past, I used to be taught that Lee was Christian and a southern gentleman. At household gatherings, one story was instructed frequently: on his approach again from battle, Lee stopped at our household dwelling one evening; he was such a gentleman that he insisted on tenting out within the yard in order to not monitor filth into the home. With satisfaction, I’d retell this story to my pals, concluding with the punch line: “And guess what? Robert E. Lee was my great-great-great grandmother’s cousin!” Twenty-five years later, I’m ashamed of my childhood satisfaction in Accomplice mythology, however I’m not stunned by it. Accomplice leaders had been shrouded in sainthood at dwelling, in class—our highschool mascot was a Accomplice soldier—and all the best way down Richmond’s storied Monument Avenue.
In Religion, Race, and the Misplaced Trigger, Christopher Alan Graham breaks down the enduring mythology behind Richmond’s Accomplice sentimentality as he explores how the individuals of his parish, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, have understood race and racial relations from a Christian perspective over the previous 150 years. As he presents his analysis on the church that was generally known as the Cathedral of the Confederacy, Graham makes it abundantly clear that the form of our storytelling issues as we grapple with legacies of White supremacy.
As he cracks open St. Paul’s historical past of racism, Graham facilities the experiences of White Episcopalians, who’ve exacerbated racial violence by perpetuating paternalistic tropes and narratives. He writes, “I’ve averred from describing hurt from a Black perspective or going inside Black church buildings or different refuges to extract that data. . . . I’ve by no means felt snug, or geared up, in describing or articulating the ache that’s neither my very own, nor that of the individuals I examine right here.” I admire Graham’s candor in regards to the limits of his venture, and I hope that future analysis on St. Paul’s will do extra to elucidate Black views. Nonetheless, the scope of Graham’s analysis offers a chance for readers to confront plainly St. Paul’s connection to race, slavery, segregation, and discrimination as a rich White Christian establishment.
Religion, Race, and the Misplaced Trigger is a must-read for Virginia Episcopalians, nevertheless it’s additionally greater than that. Christians in any area and from any denomination might be challenged by Graham’s account of our tendency to trigger hurt within the identify of advantage and charity. Throughout 5 chapters, Graham seamlessly weaves his bigger-picture questions into his congregation’s very particular historical past. As he follows the individuals of St. Paul’s by means of the durations of enslavement, emancipation, reconstruction, and civil rights, he invitations readers to return to their very own histories and to ask: Which tales can we inform? Who is nice? How can we bear in mind our ancestors who participated in techniques of oppression and injustice? How have White establishments perpetuated “the narrative of trustworthy slave/waged servant and benevolent grasp/employer”? How have Christian church buildings enacted violence in opposition to Black individuals in an effort to keep order and management? How can we unravel our lived histories of racism? The place can we go from right here?
From Graham, we be taught that for generations, St. Paul’s proudly pointed to the pews the place Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis sat, and because of this, the complete worship area grew to become a shrine to the Misplaced Trigger. We be taught that Monument Avenue’s Robert E. Lee Memorial was erected in 1890 on land donated by a member of St. Paul’s, and the church’s rector on the time gave the dedicatory handle. We be taught that St. Paul’s responded to a $1.5 million request for reparations in 1969 with a mere $7,500 donation. Maybe most significantly, we be taught that in 2016, St. Paul’s launched its Historical past and Reconciliation Initiative to acknowledge, untangle, and inform this historical past in full. Certainly, within the work of racial justice, “complacency, not resistance, remained the strongest countervailing drive,” Graham elucidates. By demonstrating the methods during which St. Paul’s selected to step out of its personal complacency, Graham efficiently lifts up the congregation as a mannequin for different church buildings to do the identical. In telling his church’s story, pitfalls and all, Graham invitations us to inform our personal tales such that the depths of institutional racism is likely to be delivered to the floor, one sincere dialog at a time.
I now stay in downtown Richmond, only a few blocks from the place the Robert E. Lee Monument as soon as stood, and I’ve watched a mattress of bushes develop up quietly instead. As an Episcopal priest, I proceed to discipline frustrations from Christians who firmly consider that now we have didn’t protect Richmond’s historical past by taking down Accomplice monuments. As I hear these complaints, I proceed to witness racism run rampant in our metropolis. Paternalism and racism are alive and nicely within the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, reparations nonetheless haven’t been paid, and I’m left questioning: What’s the story my church is writing as we speak? We have now an extended technique to go within the work of racial justice and therapeutic right here in Virginia, and as Graham so importantly reminds us, merely eradicating plaques and memorials gained’t be sufficient. The evolving histories we select to inform will matter vastly.
In the long run, Graham’s ebook is greater than a mere evaluation of historical past. It’s a transferring acknowledgment of sin and the complexities of evil. There’s hope even on this, as a result of with each confession of sin comes a chance for repentance, reconciliation, and renewal of life.
