Confederate Memorial Day and cataclysmic storms

In April 2011 and again in April 2014 – on the date when the most state celebrations of the former Confederacy converged – major storms spawned deadly tornadoes and record-breaking floods across the Deep South.

Coincidence?

April 2011, states across the Deep South launched a four-year celebration of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.

Every year, eight Southern states still officially observe Confederate Memorial Day.

Yet, the God of covenant love has a different plan for this time – a plan that involves confession and cleansing, not celebration of needless bloodshed. To cooperate with him, we have to let him show us what we haven’t wanted to see: The awakened white church across the South in the early 1800s became deeply double-minded and led the region to secede, to go to war and to vow repeatedly never to yield.

Never means never.

Today, the Southern states that still officially observe a Confederate memorial day don’t all do so on the same date. Indeed, each state has chosen its own date (and some, their own name). Texas commemorates Confederate Heroes Day in January (with a second unofficial observance in April); North and South Carolina, hold their observances in May; and Tennessee commemorates Confederate Decoration Day in June.

Five states observe Confederate Memorial Day in April. The five observances don’t necessarily all fall on the same date. But in 2011 and again in 2014, they did.

April 2011
150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and (unofficially) Texas observed Confederate Memorial Day on April 26.

In We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church, I wrote:

It’s May 2011. Last month and this, a series of disasters has plagued the South. In April, devastating droughts sparked wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, five severe weather outbreaks lashed the eastern half of the nation, breaking numerous records in terms of severity, destruction, and deaths. In the words of newscasters themselves, the months’ storms took the heaviest toll in “Dixie.” On the heels of the storms came the Great Flood of 2011. The Mississippi River overflowed its banks from Illinois to the Gulf Coast, nearing and topping 100-year flood levels and causing billions of dollars of damage, most of it in the Deep South.

Of these disasters, the tornadoes produced by far the greatest loss of life. A record-breaking 751 tornadoes occurred – 209 tornadoes more than the previous monthly record, set in May 2003. The two storm systems that primarily hit the Midwest caused great destruction, but no fatalities. Conversely, the three storm systems that plowed through the Deep South resulted in escalating numbers of casualties. April 4-5, nine people died; April 14-16, 43 died; April 25-28, about 340 died.

The April deaths from tornadoes or straight-line winds took place in these states (from greatest to least number of fatalities): Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Kentucky.

The month’s last storm system, occurring April 25-28, spawned one of the worst tornado outbreaks in US history. April 27, 2011, became the single deadliest tornado day in the nation since 1925.

Can it be coincidence that April 2011 launched four years of celebrations of Civil War bloodshed? Can it be coincidence that, in the 150th anniversary month, the deadliest tornado day in generations left a staggering death toll across the Deep South, but especially in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia – the day after those three states and two others commemorated Confederate Memorial Day? Can it be coincidence that all the month’s storm-related deaths took place in former slave states or territories and the vast majority of them in states that still officially commemorate the Confederacy?

April 2014
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and (unofficially) Texas observed Confederate Memorial Day on April 28.

And it happened again. A storm system that launched in Oklahoma and Kansas on Sunday, April 27, quickly turned deadly, taking 15 lives in Arkansas alone. On Monday, April 28, the system careened across Mississippi, Alabama and into Georgia, as well as other Southern states, spewing tornadoes, causing untold destruction and more than doubling the death toll. As the storm pushed eastward on Tuesday, cataclysmic flooding became the greatest devastator, especially on the Alabama and Florida Gulf Coast. Repeatedly, areas hardest hit were said to look like war zones. See more details here.

What if?
What if God has a purpose for this 150th anniversary of the Civil War, that he expresses in Joel 3:21 (CJB)? “I will cleanse them of bloodguilt which I have not yet cleansed.”

Might the devastating weather events during strategic Confederate celebrations suggest how desperately we need this cleansing? Might the reoccurring siren-sound of wind and waves echo the shouts of a loving Father, crying to the evangelical church culture rooted in the Bible Belt? “Stop pointing fingers at everyone else. I am speaking to you.”

“April 2011” section taken from We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church, by Deborah P. Brunt (WestBow Press, 2011), 10-11. All rights reserved.

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My Gettysburg legacy and this turning time

In a very real way, I was there at the Battle of Gettysburg. In a very real way, I was everywhere my great-great-grandfather Lorenzo walked, everywhere he fought, everywhere he participated in bloodshed, everywhere he bled and prayed, cursed and cried, laughed and loved.

Two of my great-great-grandfathers fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. One, Lorenzo Whitaker, fought in the Battle of Gettysburg 150 years ago this week. He was wounded and taken prisoner in fighting that left his unit decimated and most of his comrades dead.

My cousin, Skip Rohde, has written an intriguing blog post about our common ancestor and his participation in the Battle of Gettysburg. Skip concludes his “Gettysburg Anniversary” reflections this way:

“So as we commemorate Gettysburg over the next couple of days, and think about its impact on our country, I’m going to think instead about its impact on me, personally.  Had anything been different there, had a bullet gone slightly right or left, or an order been given a second earlier or later, I might not be here.  The individual strength of one man, though, pulled him through multiple major battles, two years in a prison camp, and into a farmer’s life in the reconstruction South, where he successfully raised a family, one of whom eventually led to me.”

I can identify, Skip. I too exist because Lorenzo Whitaker survived the Civil War and, more specifically, the Battle of Gettysburg.

Further, Lorenzo’s life, wartime experiences and near-miraculous survival of several of the bloodiest battles (including Gettysburg, Second Manassas and Antietam), as well as his survival of two years’ imprisonment in Fort Delaware, are part of the deposit God has placed within me to equip me to write, We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church, addressing issues still unresolved today. In a very real way, I was there, everywhere Lorenzo walked, everywhere he fought, everywhere he participated in bloodshed, everywhere he bled and prayed, cursed and cried, laughed and loved.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War. It was also a turning point in the life of my great-great-grandfather Lorenzo. Before Gettysburg, his unit had repeatedly routed the Union troops, though also sustaining heavy losses. But beginning July 1, 1863, 20-year-old Lorenzo’s experience dramatically changed. He encountered:

• woundedness and pain;
• imprisonment and the horrific conditions of the prison camp;
• the defeat of the Confederacy;
• the degradation of Reconstruction; and
• the determination of Southern whites to re-establish their pre-war Southern identity, and thus relentlessly to degrade Yankees and blacks.

Released from prison in June 1865, Lorenzo married, farmed and raised a family in the midst of it all.

Those who’ve been to war know the physical wounds often heal much faster and more fully than the inner wounds suffered. Indeed, unhealed inner wounds often show up in the next generation, and the next. Further, we white Southerners – the people most likely to tell our black counterparts to get over their historical and generational wounds – clearly demonstrate that we ourselves haven’t healed. Among the many evidences: 150 years later, we’re still re-living those battles, still trying to win that war.

It’s the inner wounds – such as the wounds Lorenzo received and inflicted – that have been passed down, unawares, from generation to generation of whites and blacks whose roots lie in the Deep South. It’s the inner wounds of hundreds of thousands of Lorenzos – now manifesting in millions of their descendants – that God is exposing in this turning time, as he concurrently gives us grace to see, to release and to heal.

Why now?

We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church – Q&A 5

Why now? Why do you think God gave you this message now?

Photo courtesy of Bettina Schwehn at http://www.uniqraphy.de

We’re in the midst of the 150th anniversary of the four-year Civil War. The year the tide turned in the war was 1863. So this year, 2013, marks the 150th anniversary of that turning point. I believe this anniversary provides a crucial window for a different kind of turning – a turning, and a returning, of the church.

Whenever God brings something to light, he also pours out “a spirit of grace and supplication” on those he wants to respond. In this time, God is giving his people grace to see what we haven’t wanted to see so that, at last, we can become who we truly are. In this time, God is giving us courage to break free from destructive patterns that have kept generations in bondage, crippled the US church and sabotaged spiritual awakening for a century-and-a-half.

Always when God gives grace, he also gives us freedom to accept or reject it. If we accept that grace? If we dare to confess from our hearts? Let me summarize the outcome with one more quotation from We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church:

“At last we realize: The uncomfortable, the difficult, the devastating aspects of confessing and repenting aren’t a plot to do us in. They’re God’s way of removing the veil so we can see and reflect his glory—splendor we cannot imagine or describe.”