Culture Shock Round 3: Grieving with Americans (and the Genius of Hamilton)

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Six years ago I wrote a blog post about the culture shock involved in suddenly working overseas with primarily American teammates. Since that time, I have been generously and gently invited to understand and share in the joys and the griefs of my American friends and colleagues.

Last week the hit musical Hamilton became available for home viewing, and one of our dear friends here immediately subscribed to the relevant service and set up a watch party, to which we were invited. In keeping with responsible pandemic guidelines, it was a small group, composed of two Canadians (myself and my wife), and five Americans. Four of the five Americans I know well enough to have witnessed their conflicted feelings for their country.

They are not conflicted in their love for their country; they love their country (and their fellow Americans) enough to desire positive change. To have your heart merely swell with pride for your nation is not patriotism, but ego. To allow your heart to be pierced by the suffering within your country and to be moved to act upon it is the patriotism of the conflicted, as all true patriotism must be. These are my friends here, and I have learned a great deal from them.

What does all this have to do with Hamilton? I confess that prior to last week (and even in the first 30 minutes or so of viewing) I thought Hamilton to be overrated and a bit ridiculous. It has been criticized for its “woke” casting, for its glossing over of some historical wrongs of its protagonists, and for its targeting of the liberal elite with a feel-good message about an early America that still considered Black people to be “3/5" of a person and which identified Native Americans as “Indian Savages”.

Post George Floyd, it seems a bit twee.

Watching Hamilton with my American friends gave me new perspective. Of course, the music, choreography, and staging were all excellent, but it was hearing from friends about how the story reinterpreted the creation mythology* of the United States that helped me see some of the underlying genius.

* Here and elsewhere, I use myth not in the sense of “not true” but as an overarching narrative tradition.

As a Canadian, it has always been hard to wrap my mind around the myths of the Founding Fathers: the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and all these pieces which seemed to weave the very fabric of American identity. I’m sure I still don’t understand it correctly, and I will gratefully accept correction for anything I get wrong.

The casting for Hamilton was far from just a “politically correct” stunt. It was genius. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, et al, sit as gods in the American Pantheon. They are more myth than men at this point, known less for who they were than for what happened because of them. To cast them as historically accurately as possible would be to simply reiterate the mythology as it currently sits.

By casting People of Colour in many of these roles, Hamilton breaks the connection between whiteness and godhood. Hamilton both humanizes the gods and makes space for People of Colour, who have historically been excluded from this important piece of the American consciousness. This reinterprets the creation myth to apply to the America of today rather than that of 250 years ago. Today, the founders would not have to be universally of European descent, but could be anyone.

The genius of Hamilton is in reinterpreting a mythology that lies deep in the American psyche. In Hamilton, the myth is not debunked, it is rehabilitated. It is a course correction which allows Americans who have received this myth for generations to carry forward in a post-2020 world without jettisoning everything they believe in, but expanding the dream to include all those previously left in the cold.

It’s true that Hamilton is historically inaccurate in important ways, but the myth of the Founding Fathers always has been. In the end, the story of any nation is more important than the facts, because the facts are merely what has happened; the story is still being written.

Fear Not

Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash

Last week the president of the U.S. suggested that Christians needed him to ‘guard their religion’. Raising the spectre of ‘left-wing’ alternatives, he presented himself as the only leader they could trust to defend them.

I’m not particularly interested in whether he’s right or wrong about any of that. My heart aches, though, for those who believe that their religion needs to be guarded. (I mean that sincerely, not in a barely-veiled, Mr. T, ‘pity the fool’ kind of way.)

There are people who believe their religion needs protecting (maybe you’re one?); these people are not idiots. They are reacting exactly as anyone else would when feeling threatened. If you look at the political and cultural landscape, the threat is not imaginary - there is a culture war happening. If you are one of those people feeling overwhelmed, I am sorry for the constant attack you must feel.

There is good news, though - dare I even say, Good News? Whether you lean to the left or to the right, you don’t have to fight those fights. If you, like me, identify as a Christian, the very heart of the good news gives us hope, joy, and an imagination for something better than any government can bring about or prevent.

Our faith does not need to be defended. As I write this, Christmas Eve is mere hours away. A baby in a manger in a backwoods province of the great Roman Empire; that is how an all-powerful God chose to enter the world.

In that time, Roman Emperors called themselves ‘Son of God’ and proclaimed the ‘Good News’ of their own reign. In that time, the people of God were subject to cruel rulers and an oppressive occupying force. And God saw fit to face that as a helpless child born to a family without wealth or status.

The Good News allowed the early Christians to face down an empire - and the empire blinked first. The Good News allowed these people to face the sword or the arena with peace and joy, believing with every atom of their being that no human could take away the life that God had given.

The Good News tells us today, as it told us then, that God’s people need no earthly rulers to defend their faith. Rather, the subversive, enemy-forgiving, fear-driving-out perfect love of this faith was something rulers needed desperately to be defended from themselves.

If people cannot be made to fear, they cannot be made to serve. If they cannot be made to serve, then those who would rule have lost their authority. And so, from that time, rulers have sought to restore fear to the people of God.

I recognise the pain people feel as they see their culture changing and shifting, perhaps from one they felt supported their faith and practises to one which scoffs at them. I also recognise the pain of those who see their brothers and sisters respond to this pain by embracing values which wound them deeply; I feel that pain myself.

At times like this, I wonder if we have forgotten that Good News is literally good news. That we need not be caught up in the endless cycle of action and reaction; that we are people of hope and not fear.

If the only religion you recognise, in yourself or in others, is one of fear, this Christmas I offer you Good News. There is hope. There is joy. There is beauty beyond anything we could have imagined. We don’t need to defend it and we don’t need to guard it; we need only drop everything and pursue it.

Terminology

Should Missionaries Talk Politics?

When I log into my social media accounts over half of what I see has to do with U.S. politics - and I'm a Canadian with mostly Canadian friends. Honestly, no one needs more political posts, so why even ask the question about whether missionaries should engage in political speech? I'm glad you asked!

Pope Francis, Doctor Who and Fanboy Theology

Everybody wants to be an iconoclast. There's just something so satisfying in tearing out the fixtures of the way you "used to think"; and that's not a bad thing. How do we behave, though, in someone else's house after renovating our own?

Is Hell the Fire at the Heart of Missions?

"It is not always wrong even to go, like Dante, to the brink of the lowest promontory and look down at hell. It is when you look up at hell that a serious miscalculation has probably been made." - G.K. Chesterton 

Hell. Imagery of fire and torture are so interwoven into the western consciousness that it is hard to tell the difference between fantasy and theology. For readers who don't draw that distinction on any subject :) please feel free to come along for the ride but I'm aware that I am dipping into a topic specific to faith-based mission work.

The World is Our Ballot Box

With the upcoming Canadian election my social media feeds have been saturated with political messages. However far apart they may be ideologically, there is one underlying tenet they all share: "Your vote will determine the future of our country." Though it is seemingly the sole point of unity in all of the rhetoric, and though I risk the ire of every side in saying so, I respectfully disagree.

Your vote, while arguably important, might just be one of the least significant things you can contribute to the future of your country.