I Went Back to Ohio, and My Jesus was Gone; I Was Stunned and Amazed at my Plastic Jesus

Paul Harvey

In Ohio, Jesus has been struck down by lightning -- discuss. So come back, Pretenders and Woody Guthrie, come back to us now.

My theory: God is mightily annoyed at the recent prayer rally at the Texas GOP Convention, featuring a woman in Minuteman-like style using the Psalms to defend our sacred borders. John Fea explains more here.

Possible implications for BP do not look promising.

Surprising or Otherwise Interesting Primary Sources, Part III: The Jesus Lottery in the Jesuit Relations

Surprising or Otherwise Interesting Primary Sources, Part III: The Jesus Lottery in the Jesuit Relations

Paul Harvey

Earlier this week, Randall got us going on a series that I hope others will contribute to here: Surprising or Otherwise Interesting Primary Sources. Randall picked out a narrative in Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation, 1776-1914 by Nakahama Manjirō, a Japanese seafarer lost at sea who washed up on a deserted island, was picked up by an American ship, and ended up in Massachusetts in 1841.

Actually (and unbeknownst to him), Lin got us started a few posts down with his reflections on The View from Patgatgoch (Or Why the Moravians Are Still Sexy), his post about the 1300 pp. compilation of primary sources from the German Moravian mission among the Patgatgoch in eighteenth-century Connecticut.

So I’ll call my first contribution to this series Part III: the Jesus Lottery in the Jesuit Relations. No one would ever call the Jesuit Relations a “surprising” primary source; they’ve been grist for the scholarly mill for a century or more since the publication of Reuben Gold Thwaites’ 1899 edition of The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. More recently, Allen Greer’s The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America has provided a nice, short “greatest hits” compilations of selected excerpts from the Relations that have made these documents much more accessible for classroom use.

But while they are a standard source, I always remain surprised how little they seem to get used in courses on early American history generally, and American religious history more specifically. Since they have been scanned and are all easily available online, the possibilities for use are greater than ever. Just recently, I was using The Jesuit Relations Index to look for specific items through keyword searching, and got involved in hours of fascinating reading (the online index also made possible in one weekend or so a search that otherwise would have taken an awful lot more time reading through the hard copy).

In my search I found this story, which had previously escaped my attention, in vol. 55 of the Relations, covering 1671-1672. The story is told with the usual hagiographical excess, but reading about the porcelain beads offered up to the infant Jesus (or, in another story, the tobacco sprinkled over a manger scene figurine) provides plenty of fodder for classroom discussions of the interaction of religious traditions.

ARTICLE III. OF THE DEVOTION OF THE HURON

CHRISTIANS TO THE HOLY INFANT JESUS.

THE Reverend Mother Marie de l’Incarnation, of whom we shall speak later, presented at the beginning of Advent to Louys Taondechoren, chief Dogique of the little Huron Church, a very beautiful waxen relief Image of the holy Infant Jesus in his cradle. This good Savage manifested more gratitude for the gift than if he had been presented with all the treasures in the world. The entire Village shared his joy, and regarded this holy Image, although given to an individual, as a common possession and a present sent from Heaven. Their Pastor — who seeks only new opportunities for inflaming that zeal of theirs for everything connected with God’s Service — formed the plan, with Louys’s consent, to afford consolation to all with this treasure; and to take such action that each of the cabins might enjoy it in turn. Being well instructed, they beheld in this Image him whom it represented; and well knew that the honors which they rendered it would not stop at the figure before their eyes, but would pass on even to the sacred person of the Savior of the world, who graciously condescended to become a Child for love of us.

They conceived the idea of making the honors bestowed upon this holy Image an atonement for the ill reception that the Jews gave the Infant Jesus when he came into the world. [Page 277] The Father, seeing them filled with such pious feelings, assured them that this act of devotion would secure them a thousand blessings from Heaven. He gave them a whole week to prepare to receive the Image in their cabins; that week was spent in a. renewal of fervor that was highly acceptable to Heaven and Earth. A Missionary is happy when he finds means to reach the heart; and anything that can serve to advance his Church in the spirit of the faith, and in the practice of the solid virtues, seems to him of importance. He wrote on separate slips the names of the Heads of all the cabins; and when the day for this act of devotion came, after singing the Veni creator, the first slip that came to hand was the one inscribed with the name of a good widow, who had displayed especial zeal in the preparation that she had made for rendering herself worthy of being the first hostess of the little Jesus. She had thought only of what might please him, — often rising before dawn to go and [26] offer him her prayers in the Chapel; and to recite her Rosary there for the purpose of inclining his holy Mother’s heart in her favor. At this news she thought that she would die with joy. Speedily all was made ready, her cabin thoroughly cleaned, and a very neat little Altar prepared, with its dais and adorned with all the beautiful things that she could find for the reception of such a guest. For she was well convinced that this choice was a stroke of Heaven, and the sign of a special Providence of Our Lord toward her and all her family. The holy Image having been borne to her cabin in a sort of Procession, and placed on the Altar, the Father had the company offer a prayer in greeting to their guest, and present to him all that they [Page 279] possessed, — their goods, their persons, and their lives; while at the close, they all began to sing Christmas carols in their language in honor of the Holy Infant Jesus, continuing this Practice at their little evening Benedictions, On each of the following days.

The ceremony was followed by a feast which this good woman gave to the chief people of the Village; but before Placing the food before them, she thus addressed the whole company: “The little Jesus is entertaining you; and you must know that, although everything is his, independently of me, nevertheless I of my own free will make him a special gift of all that belongs to me, — my corn and other grain, and my little furnishings; and I pray him also to take possession of my person and of my children, to make such use of them as he shall choose, during this life and throughout all eternity. It was to make this solemn declaration in your presence that I prepared this little feast in his name.” That act of devotion was approved by all the company, and the Father, who was present, caused them after the benediction, to offer a prayer to the holy Infant Jesus, supplicating his acceptance of this good widow’s offering. She wished further that two of her children should also share in this offering. To this end, she sent for her little son Joseph, thirteen years old, our pupil in the sixth class, and godson of Monseigneur our Bishop, who is having him reared in his palace. Upon his arrival, she first made him pay divine honors to Our Lord in his Image; and then asked him, at the same time showing him Some Porcelain collars, — [28] wherein the entire wealth of the family consists, — whether he were not Well pleased to give the little Jesus half of his share. “Yes, indeed,” [Page 283] said he. Putting the same question to a daughter of hers, she received a like reply. Thereupon she said: “You gratify me, my children so the little Jesus will be pleased to accept half of our most precious possessions, and will sanction our using the rest in making our little necessary purchases.”

On the following day, she begged the Father to come to her cabin where, in her children’s presence, she besought him to accept a fine collar of 4,000 porcelain beads for the infant Jesus. This was given in order to strengthen the friendship which the latter had deigned to show them by choosing their cabin for his first abode in the village; and to implore him to regard them always as persons who, while wholly his from the necessity of their being, and the constant succor of his grace, had, by a voluntary resolve of their own free Will, pledged themselves to serve him the rest of their lives more faithfully than ever. They also besought him not to forsake them; and, although he made his abode in other cabins, to extend to them always a special Providence. The Father accepted the collar at the time, in order not to deprive her of the merit of her generosity and gratitude; but, because of her poverty, he made her take it back again two weeks later, assuring her that our Lord would be as well pleased thereby as if it were used in adorning his Altar.

While this image of the holy infant Jesus was passing from cabin to cabin each week, in the manner related, until the Festival of the Purification, each person, with a holy jealousy, took pleasure in preparing for it an altar more magnificent than the last, inventing new devices to guard it from the smoke.

Moses at Christmas

Moses at Christmas
by Ed Blum

I tried to ruin the blockbuster film Avatar. Not for everyone, mind you, just for my new brother-in-law, David. "Jen and I just got out of Avatar," I texted falsely. "Can you believe the Jackneff … is that how you spell it? … destroyed the village at the end. Jen figured out way early that Halpha was a traitor." I hadn't seen Avatar. There's no Jackneff; no Halpha. It was my brilliant way of tricking and hopefully irritating David, an animator who had been Facebooking about his excitement for Avatar for weeks.

"Bro, haven't seen it yet," David texted back immediately, "Not cool." I laughed and laughed. He fell for it. I called and explained that I was teasing and that I hadn't seen the movie. David mustn't have been too upset with me (or perhaps he had already purchased my Christmas present), for in my stocking he placed America's Prophet: Moses and the American Story by Bruce Feiler. I had seen the book at Barnes and Noble and determined to get it at the library. Instead, I had my own Christmas copy. Flying home from the east coast, all hopped up on Bayer because of my sprained ankle, I had my dose of religious history to read.

Feiler's work passed the time well. It's a quirky, but fun, book.

Pitched to a general readership, I can only imagine scholars enjoying it. Feiler oscillates between historical analyses of Moses at various moments in American history to Feiler's personal experiences or interviews. So he jumps from Puritan sermons to his observations of Pilgrim reenactors, or from the words of the Founding Fathers to what the Liberty Bell sounds like to him. I had a great time venturing with Feiler to Cincinnati where he raced across the frozen Ohio River at midnight as if he was fleeing from slavery. But sometimes the personal anecdotes seem ridiculous. There's no one chasing him through the streets; the drama is fake and the reader knows it (just as it is in Dan Brown's disappointing The Lost Symbol). Feiler is probably at his best when interacting with director Cecil DeMille's descendants and piecing together the personal and social origins of his 1950s epic The Ten Commandments.

Feiler concludes that Moses taught American's a series of lessons. He taught them to have the courage to hope and rebel (in Exodus liberation style) and how to consolidate as a community (in law-giving and law-abiding style). He taught Americans how to form identities in difficult times (like massive immigration moments), how to fight the Nazis and Commies (with superheros and Charlton Heston), and how to deal with devastation (by accepting that sometimes you don't make it to the Promised Land).

And finally, Feiler proclaims that more than any other figure, Moses is the man - even more than Jesus. "Moses was more important to the Puritans, more meaningful to the Revolution, more impactful during the Civil War, and more inspiring to the immigrant rights, civil rights, and women's rights movements of the last century than Jesus," Feiler shouts. "Beyond that, Moses had more influence on American history than any other figure from the Bible or antiquity."

These are bold words. In modern America, it takes a lot of guts to challenge Jesus. Sure, two thousand years ago you could get away with arresting him or crucifying him pretty easily. But throughout American history, as Stephen Prothero and Richard Fox have shown brilliantly, Jesus has been a force. Prothero even suggests that the United States can best be understood not as a "Christian nation" or as a "pluralistic nation" but as a "Jesus nation." Now we have a challenge: Moses or Jesus. Historians, marshal your evidence and make your choice.

I'm not sure why Feiler insists on comparing Moses to Jesus in American historical influence. Perhaps it's his way of divesting American history of some of its overly Christian emphasis (like how some of my colleagues have quietly balked at Prothero's claim about the ubiquity of adoration for Jesus in American culture, explaining "I'd never put this in print, but I have always hated Christmas. You can't say that, though."). Do we need some statistician to quantify the number of books on Jesus and Moses in the Library of Congress or how many paintings there are of each one or of how many times members of Congress have referenced either one? Do we need to compare the box-office numbers of The Ten Commandments with those of Passion of the Christ? Do we need "Touchdown Jesus" to square off with Charlton Heston in a cage match?

It may be better to think of Moses and Jesus as tag-team partners in American history than separate entities. I'm guessing that the folks who want huge blocks of the decalogue inside and outside of courthouses tend to be the people who pray to Jesus. But I'm probably being too harsh. We historians are often found debating whether economic or political or cultural or religious forces were the most important in an era, as if any of these can neatly be separated. So perhaps we have Feiler to thank for a new scholarly discussion - which biblical character was the most important in American history - when, where, how, to whom? Regardless, thanks for the great present David.

Jesus Made in America

Paul Harvey

To the literature on Jesus in America, represented most notably and recently by Stephen Prothero's pithy and readable American Jesus and Richard Wightman Fox's lengthier and more scholarly Jesus in America, one may now add Stephen Nichols, Jesus Made in America.

Unlike Fox and Prothero, Nichols writes from an overtly confessional, evangelical viewpoint. Nonetheless, there's a good deal here for readers from various persuasions; in particular, Nichols provides an interesting exploration of Jesus in the movies, and acidly surveys as well Jesus in Contemporary Christian Gospel (no theologians need apply) and in the contemporary religious right.

Matthew Hall has a nice short blog review of the work here, which concludes:

The final chapter is sure to be the most provocative of the book. There will be many conservative evangelicals who will share Nichols’ discomfort with seeing Jesus branded on t-shirts and “Jesus is my girlfriend” Christian pop tunes. But Nichols argues that the Religious Right has just as easily appropriated (co-opted?) an “American Jesus” that suits its commitments to fiscal conservatism and a particular brand of neocon foreign policy. Here he commends Darryl Hart’s proposal in A Secular State: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State, one that has a lot of merit to it. As Nichols notes (following Hart), evangelicals on both the right and the left have exhibited a tendency to co-opt Jesus as a medium for their political ideologies and policies. In the end, however, the otherworldly nature of historic Protestantism is largely subsumed.

One suspects that evangelicals of every stripe will find something that makes them squeamish. But then again, perhaps that’s just what Nichols is going for here. If American evangelicals are to recover any cultural capital and religious credibility, they will likely have to dispense with their penchant for sentimentalized caricatures of Jesus and mass-marketed religion. Whether or not that will happen is hard to say. After all, America is a religious marketplace where supply and demand are in play just as strongly as on Wall Street.

This work, like others in the genre (with the exception of one fine chapter in Prothero), has little to say about how Jesus has been received and represented among African Americans and Native Americans, nor how Jesus has been racialized in American history. For that story, stay tuned for Ed Blum and Paul Harvey's Jesus in Red, White and Black, which we hope to complete by the end of this year.