tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post116888227169043678..comments2024-03-23T14:04:57.635-05:00Comments on Father Hollywood: Robert E. Lee's 200th BirthdayRev. Larry Beanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06705910892752648940noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post-9363610863450962002007-01-24T16:45:00.000-06:002007-01-24T16:45:00.000-06:00Having holidays prescribed by the state in the fir...Having holidays prescribed by the state in the first place is the original error, here. If they were not prescribed, we would find different people honoring those whom they found worthy. And we might be exposed to more contenders. Which would be all to the good. <br /><br />In our soundbite culture, I do fear that Father Hollywood's problems with King will be misunderstood. But again, the problem is with the soundbite culture, not anything that was said.solarbloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17506179756577015681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post-12576014041165173752007-01-20T09:51:00.000-06:002007-01-20T09:51:00.000-06:00Chris:
First of all, calling the man "Dr." King i...Chris:<br /><br />First of all, calling the man "Dr." King is a slap in the face to people who truly earned doctorates. Boston University should have revoked his degree, that is, if he were really to be "judged by the content of his character" and not by the "color of his skin."<br /><br />If we really believe in equality, why not treat King the way we would treat any other person who had done the same thing? This is not equality, but political pandering.<br /><br />We have gone from one extreme of white entitlement to the other extreme of black entitlement - and we call it "equality." Like King's "doctorate," it is a lie.<br /><br />The problem is that the national holiday is not "Civil Rights Day" nor a "National Day of Repentence" - it is "Martin Luther King Day." Certainly, there are more worthy men or women from the civil rights era who could have been honored, who should have been honored - but King has been jammed down our throats.<br /><br />And to utter a critical word about his lack of standing as a proper "role model" will no doubt bring about charges of "racism."<br /><br />The entire dialogue is rooted in dishonesty and manipulation, and is driven by intimidation. Slavery and segregation have been abolished. There is no need to repent of sins that were committed by previous generations. However, there are sins in the present that need to be repented from - and I believe the way the dialogue on race is carried out is one of them. It needs to be done with honesty, integrity, and candor instead of with bullying and mendacity.Rev. Larry Beanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705910892752648940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22781533.post-67368195261719916382007-01-20T07:39:00.000-06:002007-01-20T07:39:00.000-06:00Father Hollywood,
I yield to no man in my admirat...Father Hollywood,<br /><br />I yield to no man in my admiration for Robert E. Lee; and your points about the less-than-inspiring character of Martin Luther King Jr are well-taken.<br /><br />But we do not honor Dr King on account of his character, but as a way of paying homage to the cause of racial equality for which he struggled and of which he is the symbol. Whatever his faults may have been (and they were many), he called his country to repentance for her sins against simple justice. Even if his eloquence was plagiarized, the cause in which he employed it was just.<br /><br />When we honor Dr King, we are not saying that he was a great man; we are saying that he was profoundly right about this one cause. It is an annual act of national repentance, and as such it is not unfitting.<br /><br />The case is quite otherwise with Robert E. Lee. We honor and admire General Lee because he was truly a great man, a man of great character, whether or not we support (or would then have supported) the cause for which he fought. We honor the man in himself, not as a symbol for a wider cause.<br /><br />When I was a schoolboy, I was taught the usual model about the Civil War: that slavery was the only <i>casus belli</i>; that the South had no right to secede; that Lincoln was our greatest President, who had a duty to "save the Union". Over the decades my views on the War have changed substantially, to the point where I suspect that you and I would view the historical facts and moral issues of the War similarly. But my respect and admiration for Robert E. Lee has never changed, no matter how my understanding of the War has changed. That is because his greatness is his own, not simply a proxy for support of the Southern cause.<br /><br />Chris JonesChris Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03220498656377282715noreply@blogger.com