And because this city never forgets its history, I am especially grateful for Ed Grimsley’s article, “The Home of Religious Freedom,” which describes Richmond’s most important contribution to the United States of America, and to the Commonwealth of Nations. For here the power of the sword was finally severed from any religious establishment. While this nation still struggles with what that severance means for our common life, it is incontrovertible that religious freedom is the cornerstone of political freedom. Without the legal separation of church and state, we could kiss goodbye those other liberties that we take so much for granted: freedom of speech, of the press and the right to peaceable assembly.
I am grateful also that we who are hosting the 216th General Assembly will make more of “America’s First Freedom” and a visit to the Polegreen church than we will of Richmond’s other famous (or notorious) claim to fame. We were the capital of the Confederacy, after all, and at least every five years something happens in Richmond to open the wounds that are still too fresh from the Civil War. Most recently it was about the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln with his son, Tad. It resides on National Park Service land near the Tredegar Iron Works, about seven blocks south of the convention center where the Assembly is meeting.
The Lincoln statue is worth seeing. It commemorates the president’s only post-war visit to Richmond. He came and walked the streets without arms or guard; he came offering peace. When he visited the White House of the Confederacy — from which Jefferson Davis had recently fled, and where the occupying federal general had established his command — Lincoln did not swagger inside as a victor. He asked for and received a drink of water. When the general asked him what he should do with this defeated, conquered city, Lincoln said, “Let ‘um up easy, general. Let ‘um up easy.”
Two observations.
First, “Let ‘um up easy” is as good a theme as we could find for the 216th Assembly. We have powerful lobbying groups trying to amend the Book of Order, and to protect the Book of Order from amendment. What would happen if we acted toward each other, even with our strongly held convictions, in a spirit of discernment and hope for the unity of our historic church, rather than with the cynicism of the powerless or the blood-lust of those who smugly anticipate victory? How could we practice what I called in a recent sermon, the politics of Pentecost, the politics of invitation and witness, rather than the politics of accusation and coercion? I am always sadly amused by two mighty opponents struggling for control of the PC(USA), which is steadily diminishing in numbers, not because of conservatism or liberalism, but because people are soul-weary of the war without end among us. Soul weary.
Second, “The Home of Religious Freedom” reminds those who would practice coercion with religious regulations that coercion is the business of the state, not the church. Police powers were not conferred upon the apostles, but were recognized by the church very early as the gift of God for the maintenance of order in the body politic. Thank God for a government that protects religious freedom with the power of the sword, and that does not use the power of the sword to compel belief. We would not enjoy religious freedom without the coercive power of government. As Grimsley reminds us, that freedom was not won or established by persons coming here for that purpose, but by those in whose interest it was to bring it to birth, by God’s providence, in Richmond.
In a world of increasing religious fanaticism and in a city that not only birthed religious freedom, but is marked by the blood of those who prayed to the same God and read the same Bible yet slaughtered each other for four years, it is appropriate to remember our heritage — all of it — and give thanks to Almighty God.
O. Benjamin Sparks is interim editor of The Outlook and pastor, Second church, Richmond, Va.
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