Society, religion and government .. three spheres that overlap to various degrees .. even Israel 1.0, a theocracy, had all three. So in reflecting what we have in the 21st century in the USA we have to go way back in time to see the influences that got us here.
The core moment of this particular story is how in 1861 a song could be written that on it's face might be seen as a noble song. But just like hearing/saying the Pledge of Allegiance "sounds" good, one must deconstruct it to understand what it really says AND consider the source (in the case of the pledge, it was a socialist).
Quoted material below from:
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/his-truth-is-marchinig-on/
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/understanding-the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic/
"... The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was written by 41 year old Julia Ward Howe, former financier of John Brown's attempt to spark a slave revolt across the South in a way that would insure many innocent people might die (which in pure Puritanical thought was fine because the end justifies the means) . You should know that Julia and her husband Samuel Howe were not Christians as we think of Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and so forth. During the 1850’s and 1860’s the Howe’s were in lock-step with most Unitarians of the northeastern States of that era and thereby embraced a very free-thinking, Transcendentalist, pretend-Christian theology. As was customary with Unitarians in Massachusetts during that era, the Howe’s belief in God and Jesus Christ (as we know it from the Christian Bible) was rather confused with Transcendentalism, Rationalism and The Doctrine of Necessity. Such confused religious belief was commonplace among Massachusetts intellectuals who had embraced the Republican Party..."
".. In November 1861, Julia was picnicking with her husband and others as they watched a review of Massachusetts troops, just outside of Washington City. During the review she was captivated by Massachusetts soldiers singing “John Brown’s Body” to a lovely tune that had been composed by South Carolinian William Steffe as a Methodist Sunday school and camp meeting song about 5 years earlier. But, it seems the review of troops was disturbed by some Confederate soldiers who opened fire on outlying pickets and sent the picnickers “scurrying back to the capital.” The original words put to William Steffe's tune in 1855 were pure Christian in thought. However, two years after the conviction and execution of terrorist John Brown, certain Federal soldiers, who were imbued with an enthusiasm for Abolitionism, a hatred of southern States people (because a small percentage owned slaves) and an admiration of Brown, adapted for their militant purposes the “Say, Brothers” hymn, resulting is a gory hymn praising their hero. The tune was the same and the “Glory, glory hallelujah!” was the same, but the meaning was in no way an expression of Christianity..."
So let's compare.
The original lyrics of 'Say Brothers Will You Meet Us' are below:
Verse 1:
“Say, brothers, will you meet us,
Say, brothers, will you meet us,
Say, brothers, will you meet us
On Canaan’s happy shore?”
Refrain:
“Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,
For ever, ever-more!”
Verse 2:
“By the grace of God we’ll meet you,
By the grace of God we’ll meet you,
By the grace of God we’ll meet you,
Where parting is no more.”
Verse 3:
“Jesus lives and reigns forever,
Jesus lives and reigns forever,
Jesus lives and reigns forever,
On Canaan’s happy shore.”
Summary ... Jesus' followers far and wide would empathize with this song.
Below is the John Brown song:
Verse 1:
“John Brown’s body lies a mould’ring in the grave.
John Brown’s body lies a mould’ring in the grave.
John Brown’s body lies a mould’ring in the grave.
His soul is marching on!”
The chorus:
“Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
His soul is marching on!”
“The stars of Heaven are looking kindly down.
The stars of Heaven are looking kindly down.
The stars of Heaven are looking kindly down.
On the grave of old John Brown!
“He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord.
He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord.
He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord.
His soul is marching on!
“John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back.
John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back.
John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back.
His soul is marching on!
“His pet lambs will meet him on the way.
His pet lambs will meet him on the way.
His pet lambs will meet him on the way.
And they’ll go marching on!
“They will hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree.
They will hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree.
They will hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree.
As they go marching on!”
In summary, this basis song about John Brown for the Battle Hymn expresses "... the Unitarianism of the time, with a touch of Christianity, as it elevates John Brown to a militant angel who is admired by “the stars,” serves as a soldier in the “army of the Lord,” returns in spirit form to lead the Federal soldiers, called his “pet lambs,” as they push southward in their invasion of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri and, that then accomplished, on into the Confederacy, climaxing with the hanging of President Jeff Davis. ..."
In Julia's first version (that was passed on to some of her friends) written the day after her picnic was interrupted, was a first person rendition of what she observed the day before. However, in the next few months this would morph into version 1.0 printed in the February 1, 1862 issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine, on the front cover . It is very important to notice the differences:
Verse 1:
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Remaining verses:
“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
“I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.
“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
"... The words of the first verse appear to have been inspired by hearing the John Brown song the previous day, especially the third verse: “He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord.” It was there, the previous day, that “Mine eyes” — that is “Julia Ward Howe’s eyes” — saw the “glory.” And it is easy to believe that it is the martyrdom of John Brown that is “trampling out the wine press” and attacking with “his terrible swift sword” — that John Brown’s “truth is marching on.” You see, the “his” is not capitalized. But, in the edited version of “The Battle Hymn,” published in February 1862, “his” is changed to “His” to switch the meaning from John Brown’s “terrible swift sword” to God’s “terrible swift sword.” Since “His” begins the last line of the verse, we cannot tell if she is talking about God’s “truth” or John Brown’s “truth,” but it is not hard to assume she means John Brown’s “truth.”
The words of the second verse readily suggest that Julia Ward Howe — she is in first person, she is the “I” — sees John Brown in the “hundred circling camps” and sees soldier’s building “an altar” to John Brown or to his alleged “spirit” — this being evident by the use of a lower-case “him” instead of a capitalized “Him.” Again, in line three, she uses a lower case “him” to specify that the “righteous sentence” of death to Confederates is seen as being handed down by the spirit of John Brown. But John Brown’s presence would become obscured from verse 2 before publication in February, as the “him” would be replaced with “Him.” .. and so on with the rest of the lyrics in the rest of the verses.
For example, John Brown is clearly the mover and shaker in the fourth verse. Surely it was John Brown who “Sounded out the trumpet that shall never call retreat” and “has waked the earth’s dull sorrow with a high ecstatic beat.” Julia Ward Howe is crediting John Brown with starting the crusade that she sees unfolding before her eyes — the holy military crusade aimed southward.She closes with reference again to “Our God” inferring that the people of the southern States have some other God. This obvious calling to follow John Brown to battle would be seriously edited before Howe’s lyrics would be published in February. The second line would be completely rewritten to become, “He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat,” and in the third line “him” would become “Him,” thereby removing John Brown and suggesting that God or Jesus Christ is “sifting out the hearts” and sitting in “His judgment-seat.”.."
So what is to be said about this subtle shift from a martyred human hero (to some, terrorist to others) towards linking these ideas to be God's ideas and that claim of the moral high-ground?
Let's look back several centuries where we have no other than John Calvin as a spiritual policemen in Geneva, Switzerland in the 1540s. In that decade, "... 150 dissidents were burned alive on slow-burning pyres of green wood in an effort to promulgate adherence to the theologian’s cleansed religion by civil means.
It was precisely the descendants of Calvin, the Puritans and their rigid totalitarianism, rational asceticism, and adherence to a fluid theology as time went on that made it a breeding ground for the progressive ethos. Eventually gone were the Jesus followers, but what remained were rootless, majoritarian radicals, who aimed to “fortify the government of their own reason.” .."
"... Their subsequent vehement opposition to Scriptural traditions and Church heritage, and emphasis on personal interpretation (which by itself is not an issue) made Puritanism intrinsically schism-prone with each re-creation came gaping theological holes to be filled with differing ideologies, until God and Biblical justice were altogether abandoned for “social justice.”
Even when Calvinist-borne Congregationalism became the official state religion of Massachusetts, it still couldn’t stop the constant splintering and “the spreading of the contagion of corrupt opinions,” as colonist Rev. Thomas Shepard described it. After all, change had always been at the heart of the Puritan ethic.
Yet, the core dogma of forging heaven on earth, a new Zion, held fast. It was simply passed from the hands of the Christian Hebraist fathers to their puritanical atheist sons. No longer necessary were parishes or pastors or even God. Statism became the new church and the zealotry of its members was/is stronger than ever.
People would eventually become trained in the habits of obedience to the religion of secular Puritanism, if beaten down enough through law, regulation, invasion, war, re-education, propaganda, and reconstruction. Why recognize the reality of original sin and live your life in humble accordance when there is forced sanctification of the here and now? (when you can beat someone else over the head who dares to think different than yourself and yet claim that you are "diversity minded") .."
Truly, to the progressive Puritan, his (their god's) "truth" (ever changing) marches on ..
This rallying cry was underpinned by the idea of "divine providence" that God endowed America’s Exceptionalism and by virtue her growing dominion ...
"... Steeped in the Puritan ethic – a works-based path to salvation that played down the tenet of original sin – these reformers sought to civilize the Indians and Catholic immigrants settling the frontier .."
Unfortunately, this American Exceptionalism caught on even in the South before the War for Southern Independence:
- “it was Southerners who embraced the great national wars against Great Britain in 1812 and Mexico in the 1840s … (and) the concepts of national greatness and manifest destiny,” explains historian John Devanny.
- In fact, it was Virginia-born James Monroe who purchased Spanish Florida. He also gave us the influential Monroe Doctrine. It was a policy that put European powers in check, isolating the U.S. from their sphere of influence. But the doctrine also enabled the U.S. to seek its own ambitions in all of the Americas sans Old World competition.
- It was Thomas Jefferson who made the Louisiana Purchase from France, doing so for unencumbered trade access to the Mississippi, but still doubling the size of the U.S. It was Virginian John Tyler who pushed for and signed a bill annexing Texas, permitting its statehood.
- It was North Carolina-born and Tennessee-raised James K. Polk, who secured the Oregon Territory from Britain. He also acquired California and much of the Southwest through the Mexican-American War.
- And it was Virginia-born Henry Clay, known as the “Great Compromiser,” who made a name for himself as a Kentucky politician by promoting the “American System” – a high-tax, pro-national bank, pro-central authority, nationalistic philosophy. In other words, Hamiltonianism.
".. There were notable exceptions, like John C. Calhoun, John Randolph of Roanoke, John Taylor of Caroline, and Jefferson before and after his presidency. But still, many influential Southerners seemed to have temporarily succumbed to the progressive mentality.
But all that changed with the election of 1860. It was the tipping point that gave “Dixie a ‘national consciousness,’” as Devanny describes it, snapping the duped Southern statesman out of his malaise and rekindling in him his localist and limited-government heritage..."
Now you know .. probably more than you wanted to.
Singing the Battle Hymn like saying the Pledge of Allegiance is not longer an option for me .. based on my principles.
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