There are sentences for example, where John cautions Abigail against openly sharing his letters for fear of sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. They reveal a husband and wife, both loving parents who are also very much the exemplary, one for the other, each for God.
‘Their mutual respect and adoration served as evidence that even in an age when women were unable to vote, there were nonetheless marriages in which wives and husbands were true intellectual and emotional equals.’ (History.com)
I picked this book up out of curiosity about its historical and theological significance. As I continue to casually read through them, I am more and more convinced about the gravity of their contents, context and the important message they carry to the world, not just Americans.
Part of a letter written to John in May, 1775, from Abigail, further clarifies my point :
‘The Lord will not cast off his people; neither will He forsake his inheritance. Great events are most certainly in the womb of futurity; and, if the present chastisements which we experience have a proper influence upon our conduct, the event will certainly be in our favour’[i].
The Adams family epistles have contemporary relevance. The most pertinent of which is that they challenge Christians to steer clear of anti-intellectualism. They encourage Christians to engage; to understand current events in light of the biblical texts, and move away from disengaging in informed debate, dismissing it as uninteresting, convoluted and/or unnecessary.
Here are a people on the cusp of necessary conflict; a people not yet prepared for what they hope to avoid; a people who understand the danger of the mob; a people who acknowledge that they bear the burden of responsibility, and are God’s participants in necessary decisions that will require courage, faith, hope, prudence, calm justice and fierce mercy.
The same people who, under God, will stare down the supposed divine right of a king, and challenge his exercise of freedom without restraint.
The same people who will instead assert that under God all are created equal, and that authentic freedom can only come with the caveat of authentic responsibility.
One example is that both John and Abigail looked unfavourably on slavery, made clear by Abigail’s rebuke: ‘I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me— to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have. You know my mind upon this subject.[ii]’
Both husband and wife lived out their faith – not in a cloister, reserved pew or in pious appearances.
A constant in the letters are references to biblical texts. Used comfortably, they form an important part of the extraordinary exchange. It might not be so wrong to suggest that these letters read like small sermons, shared between a loving, overburdened husband, and his equally loving and overburdened bride.
Unfortunately, the letters are not without theological issues.
Gaps exist. Such as Abigail’s allusion to a form, of what Shirley Guthrie called, the ‘common heresy’ of Pelagianism (Christian Doctrine, 1994:127) – an ancient misinterpretation of God’s salvation, grace and the role of the responsive sinner.
‘God helps them that help themselves, as King Richard says; and if we can obtain the Divine aid by our own virtue, fortitude, and perseverance, we may be sure of relief.[iii]’
In addition, I’m uncertain as to whether or not the countless references to ‘Providence’ are in fact veiled 18th Century Congregationalist references to the Holy Spirit. The context implies they are.
‘I pray for you all, and hope to be prayed for. Certainly there is a Providence; certainly we must depend upon Providence, or we fail; certainly the sincere prayers of good men avail much. But resignation is our duty in all events.[iv]’
Nevertheless, reformed theology appears to dominate the politics, parenting philosophy, orthodoxy and sociology. Prayer and references to God’s care, wisdom, provision and guidance are ever-present.
This is not something that is the result of a cultural Christian appendage. To begin with Abigail Adams is openly critical of appearance only faith.
‘General John Burgoyne practices deceit on God himself, by assuming the appearance of great attention to religious worship, when every action of his life is totally abhorrent to all ideas of true religion, virtue, or common honesty.[v]’
John affirms this in a similar way stating that:
‘The man who violates [destroys] private faith, cancels solemn obligations, whom neither honor nor conscience holds, shall never be knowingly trusted by me. Had I known, when I first voted for a Director of a Hospital, what I heard afterwards, when I was down, I would not have voted as I did. Open, barefaced immorality ought not to be so countenanced.[vi]’
The Adams family epistles are unique in that they present an organic living relationship between husband and wife, grounded in God’s freedom. What has caught me by surprise is that God is not reduced to second place. Alongside great concerns, God is still in the forefront of their thoughts, and as a result a good deal of theology permeates the wisdom that informs their actions, wit and dialogue .
One thing grasps me as I read through these letters. That is the relevance they hand out to a contemporary audience still concerned with the matters of God, love, liberty and the caveat of responsibility.
Braintree, 19 August, 1774:
‘Did ever any kingdom or state regain its liberty, when once it was invaded, without bloodshed? I cannot think of it without horror.
Yetwe are told that all the misfortunes of Sparta were occasioned by their too great solicitude for present tranquillity, and, from an excessive love of peace, they neglected the means of making it sure and lasting.[vii]”
– Abigail Adams.
History forgotten is history repeated.
References: (Not otherwise linked)
[i] Adams, J & Adams, A. 2012. The Letters of John and Abigail Adams (Kindle Ed). Start Publishing LLC, 7th May , 1775
Tell your story and shout from the rooftops, “…look at what the Lord has done” (Psalm 118:17).
‘Perhaps the figure of ‘the martyr’ [μαρτύριον – marturion] that we need to mobilize [recover] is not the one who sacrifices him-or herself but the one whose compulsion is to witness and to provide testimony.’
(Shelly Rambo, 2010. Spirit & Trauma: A Theology of Remaining)
Albert Camus asserted any action which acts decisively against injustice and oppression, is to be considered as being part of what he called the ‘generosity of rebellion.’[i]
This concept is largely summarised as being any action,
‘which unhesitatingly gives the strength of its love and refuses injustice without a moment’s delay. Its merit lies in making no calculations, distributing everything that it possesses to life and to living men and women. It is thus prodigal in its gift to the men and women to come.[ii]’
While it is an overstatement, if used solely as a definition for home schooling, I don’t think its essence is entirely redundant.
To educate, is to act in such a way as to give an inheritance beyond financial gain. It is to pass on knowledge, faith and character. Reaching beyond the shrine of self and the shelf life of what money can buy in our commerce cathedrals – albeit day-care, shopping malls or senior high school.
Consider the Widow’s offering.
‘Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, truly I say to you, this poor widow has put more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’ (Mark 12:41-44/Luke 21:1-4)
For me, this and Camus’ concept of generosity affirms a hard won understanding acquired in eleven years of retail management: ‘
’it’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with what you’ve got that counts.’’
It’s not an absolute rule for all occasions, but it finds serious traction in the home school arena.
Stepping up as the primary educator this year has shown me that one of the chief purposes of home schooling is generosity.
This generosity begins with God. Where in Jesus Christ we find ourselves being educated inside our educating[iii]. We then discover that we ourselves are being reached for, even as we stumble to reach beyond ourselves.
‘For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs.’ (Romans 8:17, NLT)
Our old friend, Karl Barth reminds us that ‘in Christ, the humiliation God exists as the exaltation of humanity – God does not will to be God without us.’ (C.D IV/2:31 & C.D IV:1:7)
As heirs with Christ we are grounded with inheritance. We, therefore, find ourselves in a state of adoption[iv].
Here I see three certainties:
Provision
Position
Participation
All issued forth from promise. All related to the generosity of ‘God’s sovereign choice’[v] and compassion. All depending not on human will or effort, but on mercy.
God not only wills relationship with us, He painstakingly made that relationship possible[vi].
Camus is right:
‘Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.’ (The Rebel, 1951)
Sources:
[i] Camus, A. 1951 the Rebel Penguin Modern Classics Kindle Ed.
Building a stronghold against our insecurities means being honest with ourselves about our strengths and limitations.
There is the issue of anxiety, of course, but once insecurity is pushed back, the natural response we feel when we experience anxiety can be used to fuel those strengths and improve any limitations.
As Brene Brown (2010) brilliantly highlights in her book ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’, any extreme uneasiness that we may feel is unmanageable becomes instead an energizing motif that motivates us to be free, but responsible, with our vulnerability.
‘Wholeheartedness requires ordinary courage…Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary’[i].
This doesn’t expel with reason and boundaries, in what and how we communicate. Brown’s conclusion involves discernment as much as it involves seeing that extraordinary courage is about being wholeheartedly courageous in the ordinary.
There have been times when I’ve ‘dropped the ball’. I struggle with the echoes of a broken past and I’ve encountered issues with insecurity in communication. These are times when I haven’t kept or been able to keep insecurity and anxiety in check. An example of this is the headline of a post a few weeks back where I misspelled the word ‘disposition’ (since corrected).
I’d like to think that those posts and mistakes are extremely rare, and only exist as an anomaly in an otherwise informative, (albeit eclectic?), sometimes deep but accessible, theological blog. It would be unrealistic and ultimately unhelpful to think that those flaws didn’t exist.
Those of you who are writers with dysfunctional upbringings, or those who are regular readers here will know what I mean.
My point is that we all in some way combat our own sense of inadequacy and no matter how hard we try, the stress caused by that battle, like scars, will sometimes show.
Think about how many times you may find yourself fighting off self-condemnation when we fail to nail that ever elusive ‘perfect’ blog post.
Insecurity can hinder our goals, which for me is seeking to make Karl Barth, et.al, more accessible. If I gave in, I’d post nothing, fearing rejection; that any contributions to theology that I might make is seen as superfluous because of where I come from. However, to give in to this would be a mistake because it means surrendering my strengths, by allowing myself to be overwhelmed by my limitations – some inherited, some conditioned and others of my own making.
{I don’t mean the careful editing process any writer needs to allow room for; I’m referring to the O.C.D tendency that is attached to excessive editing caused when a writer or artist compares their style of writing and content to others we may see as being ”better than” ourselves.}
In the end our writing and the publishing of that work is an act of faith.
In the end it belongs to God. It requires resting broken, fallible words into His infallible hands, for Him to mold and use as He wills.
There, in our nightmares, we who cry out almost breathlessly, ‘Jesus please help me’, will hear the words “Jesus is Victor” spoken back to us; and as the nightmare fades on our hearts realignment with this truth, God, through the Holy Spirit, will teach us how, even in the midst of our breathtaking-tears, we can still find life.
This is where one of Calvin’s statements in his commentary on John finds traction today:
‘Christ’s voice gives life; As Christ is the only mirror of the grace of God, we are taught…that we ought not to judge the love of God from the condition which we see before our eyes’[ii]
Once we neutralize our insecurity by telling ourselves the truth, by trusting in God’s claim on us that says we are capable, accepted, and loved, we begin our journey towards eliminating the obstacles that stop clear and effective communication.
This will, from the beginning, make us better people, more authentic Christians and better communicators.
Sources:
[i] Brown, B. 2010 The Gifts of Imperfection Hazelden Kindle Ed. (p.12-13)
[ii] Calvin, J: 1509-1564 Commentary of John Sourced from CCEL.org (p.364-365)
Building a stronghold against our insecurities means being honest with ourselves about our strengths and limitations.
