Calling on a Poet and a Minister to Afflict the Comforted

 

                               Calling on a Poet and a Minister to Afflict the Comforted

                                  Published in Marietta Daily Journal July 30/31, 2022

            “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide / In the strife of Truth with Falsehood for the good or evil side.”

            I’m glad that the poem “The Present Crisis,” by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was in my high school American Literature textbook. For the most part Lowell has been canceled. Like Longfellow and other nineteenth century New England poets, Lowell was just too homespun and too concerned with what he and his contemporaries referred to as eternal truths. Soul-sick modernity has just about killed off the “Fireside Poets.”

            It matters not that in spite of being Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, an eloquent abolitionist, and being born into wealth and position, Lowell still possessed the common touch. Nor does it matter that all of the “Fireside Poets” (others were John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes) burrowed deep into the depths of human values, family, and “ideas that make nations great,” as one literary critic put it. Contemplation, love of country, and celebration of western civilization aren’t the main things on the minds of us moderns.  But what is the job of the poet or of the minister if it’s not to afflict the comforted? Consider the following quote from a minister.

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s anti-religious laws.”

Martin Luther King, like Lowell, was enumerating what he deeply believed was truth. They both viewed truth as being on the scaffold. In Lowell’s case, his poem was a response to the proposed annexation of Texas into the Union. Knowing that Texas would be one more slave state, Lowell argued against annexation, claiming “It is a truth that all men were meant to be free.” King, like the Declaration of Independence, asserted that freedom itself is rooted in objective truth.

But what do we make of these two thinkers and activists, given today’s entrenched relativism? Is truth objective or is it a matter of “my truth” and “your truth”? To many moderns, referring or appealing to truth is an act of intolerance. In higher education, in the media, and alas often in the law, relativism prevails. Paradoxically, relativism denies the existence of truth but insists on its own truth. Evidence of this can be found in President Biden’s efforts to deal with “disinformation.” It is illustrated by the growing practice of college students who either walk out or shout down guest speakers – always conservatives – with whom they disagree.

Other examples are the professional athlete, the corporation employee, and the college professor who refuse to allow their freedom of speech to be abridged and are fired, typically because they disagreed with their superiors and were brave enough to say so. Add the corporate pressure or city/county government pressure to participate in Pride Month. These developments are nothing less than soft totalitarianism.

Speaking of paradox, Lowell, King, and many other true lovers of freedom have experienced their own present crises that called for fighting for justice. But consider: if there is no truth, there’s no injustice. Semantically and ideologically those who claim there is no absolute truth have wrapped themselves in illogic.

In his book, “Live Not by Lies,” Rod Dreyer argues that America’s growing relativism and disdain for absolute truth is now a steady creep. Relativism will not one day dramatically triumph, thus ending the cultural/ideological wars. Rather, the culture war’s end will result in “comfortable servitude run by a technocratic progressive elite and supported by Big Data and a compliant capitalism.” Sad, if Dreyer is right.

Fearing Truth’s loss in the battle, Lowell wrote, “Though the cause of evil prosper / Yet ‘tis Truth alone is strong / Truth forever on the scaffold / Wrong forever on the Throne / Yet that scaffold sways the future / And behind the dim unknown / Standeth God within the shadow /Keeping watch above His own.”

Lowell’s sparkling poetry gained him international fame. “Our Present Crisis” was the springboard of the hymn, “Once to Every Man and Nation.” A voice for faith, freedom, justice and family values, his poetic success was overshadowed by personal tragedy. Three of his four children died in infancy. His beloved wife, Maria, died in 1853. Lowell sought to drown his sorrow by serving as America’s ambassador to Spain and later, Great Britain.

We all know about the fate of Martin Luther King.

 

Roger Hines

July 28, 2022