The Return of Cotton Mather: “Thou Shalt Not Covet”
I enjoy keeping up with the local news in Wichita. Recently, I heard of something new, a panel that the Mayor has deemed necessary because of a social problem much in the spotlight – the lack of diversity. Diversity is a word that cannot exist on its own, but describes the variety in something else. A panel, like a choir, is organized by a director, and produces a cant, a litany for some edifying purpose. I will pitch in, casting what is not the first stone, but one from without the circle of diversity that this particular panel describes.
One of the great tautologies in human experience lies in the observation that other people do things that are wrong, whether it be the direction they choose to walk down grocery store aisles, the colors they paint their houses, the kinds and numbers of animals they keep in their yards, the types of masks they wear (both for halloween and modish hygiene), even the sorts of churches they do or don’t attend. If we each had our way, certain things would not be permitted (and other people don’t forbid or permit the right things anyway). Those with the freedom and power to deny or allow often purpose incorrectly. This is a tautological certainty. The “land of the free” has become the land of constant transgression.
A certain French Emperor, who believed that Europe was doing wrong things, observed that society was impossible without peace, that peace was impossible without government, that government impossible without law, law without authority, and that no-one would submit to authority without religion. Of course that self-styled Emperor could not enforce the religion required for peace without buckets of blood, since people kept doing things wrong. In his case, people insisted on belonging to various duchies and kingdoms that weren’t French, an alarming and messy diversity, egged on by the pesky British. We, of course, observing that the French “did it wrong,” congratulate ourselves upon observing that religion and government don’t mix.
‘Bleeding Kansas’ refers to the armed conflicts that characterized our struggles in this territory to become a state, whether free or slave, under the principle of sovereignty, the idea that if you can get enough people together who believe a smaller group of people are “doing it wrong,” you can put a stop to their doings. This principle, which replaced the Missouri Compromise regarding accession of new states to the union --where one new slave state was allowed for one new free state (a sort of parity) -- made the struggle for statehood in Kansas one of ideological (religious) persuasion rather than constitutional order. People interested in forbidding others from doing wrong things flooded into the territory of Kansas to make sure others would do things right, both Northern abolitionists and Missourian slave holders. A bloody fight broke out, and to make things brief, we now live in a free state in a free nation, ascending to the stars in the national flag’s field of blue through our “difficulties.”
This fight was religious, because it dealt with the purpose of man itself, and no one who makes a pronouncement as to what others should be doing is free of religion.
When differences of religion exist, resistance, rather than submission, to laws will inevitably break out. You may say, “That’s where you are doing it wrong! We separate Church and State in these territories, sir!” I would reply that you are doing it wrong, since I never said Church, but merely religion. Religion is the question of purpose, what we should be doing with life. It is wrong to assume that since church attendance is down among us, that there aren’t as many people who think everyone else is living the wrong way. Here in the land of euphemism, we detect religion that relies on mystification in order to avoid its positive implications.
“Ah, but what about Cotton Mather?” The Hawthornian view of the sins of our fathers would have us meditate upon the horrific Salem Witch Trials. Fascination with witchcraft led to trials at law and subsequent executions of people who may actually have been victims. A crime looking for a perpetrator is one of the touchstones of those who proclaim, “I thank thee, oh Lord, that I am not as them.” We are fascinated that so many others would join in this vicious pursuit of new criminals, people so wrong as to seek league with the devil himself. Though insane to court the hosts of fallen angels, doing so could be a very handy benchmark for singling out those so wrong they must be blotted out of the public square. A social consensus organized a community to pursue wrong doers, creating policy that engaged and enraged citizens. We vilify Cotton Mather and his community-organizing effort -- and feel better about ourselves. (Witches also feel much better about this.)
Mather was wrong, so wrong that even today pastors, preachers and priests are wrong to tell us who is wrong, and they certainly shouldn’t make laws. This is our agreement about religion. Unfortunately, it is impossible to coerce obedience to laws without religious assumptions of some kind amongst the governed. After all, “man does not live by bread alone.” If religion is necessary, but people aren’t in Church, then how are they to know who is doing wrong things? Fortunately, a preacher doesn’t need an ornate setting, a collar, a crucifix. A preacher needs a congregation though, and our Mayor, Brandon Whipple, seems to be building one around the discovery that others are doing something wrong. In the vacuum of moral instruction by the clergy and schools, a young man with mild experience of the mundane takes up the mitre.
The Mayor’s “Diversity, Inclusion, and Civil Rights Board” has been, if we are to pay attention to words and meaning, “ordained” by means of a city ordinance. This seemingly harmless empaneling is in actuality more like the installation of the Dominican Order or the Knights Templar, or for those of us in a happier mood, perhaps “The Justice League” or “The Avengers,” all in order to pursue wrong doings. One of the first acts of this “inclusion” group was to disinclude a member who was a bit too diverse. Hopefully he won’t be burned at the stake, but it is clear that he is not to be tolerated in the public square defined by this group. Any assemblage that identifies heresy has an orthodoxy, and this is religious. Apparently there is a right kind of unity, of diversity, and of who should be included and excluded.
This entanglement that leads to strife has customarily been avoided by our constitutional arrangements, even the arrangements of our city government in Wichita which features a relatively weak office of the mayor, so that people may enjoy maximum freedom in our social arrangements. This may be annoying to those who see others using this freedom to do wrong things. In the past, this border, this wall of right and wrong has been relatively well defined by things we call laws. These have devolved from something like “Honor your Father and Mother”and ‘Thou shalt not covet,” giving us both the line of authority for submission to instruction, and the warning against worrying that other people are doing wrong things. It seems now that the law isn’t enough, that we must realign our religious understanding into a unity and inclusion. The restless tendency in current politics to foment movements -- where before there was peace -- and to cry “justice, justice!” as we warp law, should be understood as religious. Religious goals always bring the sword, and if you do not realize this, you are doing history wrong. Sometimes the sword is inevitable, necessary and purgative. Often, the sword is merely the means to organize guilt and self justification, often for the assurance that numbers declare righteousness. We call these last goals political.