Piranesi, Cicadas and the SBC

What we forget

I’ve been thinking a lot about memory and history this week. What we try to forget, and what we seemingly can’t help but forget. What we wish we could forget.

One reason I’m thinking about this now is that I am reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke right now. I have yet to finish it, and certainly don’t want to spoil it for you, but suffice to say it is about a young man who finds himself trapped in a new world so that he forgets his old one, who he is and why he’s left his old world and ended up in this one. It is only through great effort that he is able to remember, which is initially so upsetting he thinks he’s going mad. He eventually comes to understand that he is not going mad, but remembering what is most real. He knows this knowledge will be fleeting if he does not act on it quickly. Forgetting is so easy. But history is not negated by forgeting. It festers. It returns. We are reminded.

I thinking about these ideas a second time today. Melissa and I intended to go for a long drive to visit a winery, but Saoirse covered herself in apple sauce a few minutes into the drive, and so a visit to a place which requires some minimal level of dignity in presentation was off-limits. I looked up nearby “beautiful sites,” and the Hampton National Historic Site came up. It was close and so we went. We arrived and quickly learned that it was actually an old plantation. Plantations are not my favorite kind of historical sites, but it was beautiful. Old trees and manicured gardens. Horse stables and a farm. The centerpiece was an old, Southern-style mansion.

As we walked the grounds, Melissa and I (and Saoirse…and maybe Ilaria, too, in her own way) marveled at just how loud the cicadas were. Melissa’s ears hurt. The sound was constant, but also came in waves, the peak of which would make you brace yourself. Melissa observed, “There are so many of them, because no one has been allowed to build here. The ground has not been upset. Some of the trees here are hundreds of years old. Very little has happened here over the last seventeen years…”

Very little had happened over the last seventeen years. Left undisturbed, the cicadas came in full force, as was predicted. As was obvious. They’d always been there, and no one had done much of anything that would mitigate their return.

I can’t remember who, but one friend recently tweeted something like: “I have to admit, I don’t get all the discussion about cicadas this year. Growing up in the South, I remember hearing them every Summer. It was constant. Am I imagining this? I don’t get it.”

There’s a third reason I’ve been thinking about history, memory and forgetting this week. The Southern Baptist Convention, still the largest protestant denomination in the country, has an important decision to make this month. It is important. I understand some believe what happens in the SBC doesn’t matter, that their history condemns them. Maybe, if ignored, it will disappear. I’ve never belonged to the SBC, and I understand those who have left, but I can’t say that it doesn’t matter where they choose to go, what they choose to become. People God loves are there. If there was no SBC, I would have never sat in a church listening to a pastor trained in SBC seminaries who told me I could commit my life to Jesus there and then. I would have never had the opportunity to raise my hand. Who knows where I’d be.

More foundational, as long as we’re living, we still have the opportunity to make important decisions for Jesus. Somehow, even when others believe we can do nothing to redeem ourselves, our choices still mean something to Jesus.

My friend, Russell Moore, is one of those people who makes decisions for Jesus. Over the years, I’ve come to rely on his integrity, a confidence that even when we disagree, I can trust that he will navigate that disagreement in good faith. Because of his integrity, and his track record of faithfulness and sound judgment, I listen when he talks.

Russell’s voice has been heard this week. I won’t recap everything here as we have covered this (and much else!) pretty closely in our weekly “Faith in the News” emails for subscribers. In a letter written last week that was leaked to the press yesterday, Dr. Moore recounts to current SBC President JD Greear their work to pursue reform and accountability regarding sexual abuse in the denomination, and that work being obfuscated and stonewalled by Mike Stone, Paige Patterson and others. Mike Stone is running for SBC President by attacking SBC institutions and leaders, and accusing the SBC of a “leftward drift” which includes an embrace of Critical Race Theory. The SBC will select their president next month. How misguided it would be for the SBC to choose a man with these priorities to lead it.

I hope you’ll read the full letter from Dr. Moore. It is a sobering letter that reflects what a challenge it can be to seek to deal with things some people with power would prefer to keep buried, and to remember history in a way that would influence the present.

Next month, the Southern Baptist Convention has a choice to make as they select their new president. May Dr. Moore’s letter be for the SBC like one of those discovered by Piranesi: a reminder of what is most important in light of history, in light of mission, in light of the truth. A reminder of who they wanted to be, and who they were becoming. A reminder of what can be lost.

Everywhere I go—everywhere I go—I am greeted by former Southern Baptists. Almost none of them are angry or bitter. If anything they are nostalgic and want to reminisce with me about words we would share that others in their new church communions wouldn’t know—“Lottie Moon” and “Annie Armstrong” and “RAs” and “GAs” and so on. I have had more conversations about “Training Union” and “Centrifuge” after speaking to other denomination’s annual meetings than I ever have at our own. They love their Southern Baptist past. That’s where they found Jesus, and where they found a way to be on mission.

None of these people, before they left, called the Executive Committee, threatening to defund anything if they didn’t get their way. The thousands of young people I encounter on college campuses who are now non-denominational or of another Christian denomination don’t do exit interviews with their association Director of Missions. Instead, they just look at the rage and the cover-ups and shrug their shoulders and say, “I guess they don’t want people like me.”

There are other letters they might find as well: from Beth Moore. From Charlie Dates. From Rachael Denhollander.

May these letters be found and consulted as reminders. Then, may the SBC act quickly, before they are convinced to forget again.

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