I was homeschooling my children in the elementary grades when I first heard the term “revisionist history.” The connotation was negative and referred mostly to those who were rewriting the story of America to make the Founding Fathers look bad. As time went on, I began to hear it used in reference to a LOT of different story revisions – some of them that I wholeheartedly agreed with. So, the term became confusing to me. Was “revisionist history” good or bad?
It’s neither, in and of itself. It is just the revising of historical narratives and assumptions to fit a particular worldview or political agenda. Whether you see it as “good” or “bad” depends on which side of history and the assumptions you stand.
But the term “revisionist history” makes an assumption that I don’t think we can swallow. It assumes that there was one correct story, and then someone changed it to suit their political, religious, or ideological narrative. But I wonder if that is even true.
The thing about stories that we experience is that we experience them through the filter of our own lenses. Sometimes those lenses are cloudy, filtered, immature, or misshapen. And then we tell the story as we experienced it. It may not even be completely true. But it was how we experienced it, and that is how we pass it along.
Someone else may have experienced this same event, but using a different set of lenses, they remember the whole story – and it’s meaning to their life – in a completely different way. If you want to experience this in real life and you have children (or siblings), choose an event from your family’s history that had particular emotional import and have each person record their version of the event individually out loud. When you compare the stories, you will see what I mean.
So, who’s right and who’s wrong? Well, maybe no one. And this is where we get into trouble – thinking that every story just has one side, one narrative, one motivation, and one impact. That is almost never true.
This concept is illustrated sharply in the events in the United States over the past couple of weeks. There are many pieces of evidence (videos, newsreels, individual posts, writings, etc.) that a large number of Republicans saw January 6th as their “1776 moment.” This was even tweeted by several Congressmen and women. In the wake of that day, they are staunchly proclaiming that they had no intention of inciting a revolution – but they didn’t really indicate which other event in 1776 they were referring to.
But see, the story of that day will be told down through history in one of two ways. One set of people will talk about the dark day that our free and democratic nation was nearly lost in an attempted coup by rebellious radicals led by a narcissistic, hate-inducing despot. The other set will talk about how they were part of a glorious movement to right an extreme injustice and take back democracy from marxists – and almost succeeded.
So, who was right?
Well, let’s go back to the throwback reference to 1776. What was that story? Maybe you, like I, learned the story of a humble group of oppressed colonists who fled Europe in search of freedom and eventually rose up to throw off unjust oppression. In the case of the Revolution, it required violence to succeed – but it was worth it in the end, because… freedom! Or, maybe you heard a different version, the one where rebellious citizens refused to pay taxes to the people who sent them on their quest and then turned on the peace-keepers and soundly trampled them, thereby establishing their own kingdom where they could freely oppress others instead of being oppressed.
Which one is true?
Or might both of them be true…??
We are all a mixed bag. Our best motivations are tainted by our sin and selfishness. Thus, working to find the one “right” interpretation of history may be futile.
This is really true of most of life. Life is full of nuance and shades. There is very little that is black & white. Sometimes we have to embrace a little bit of both and be okay with that. Am I saying there is no absolute truth? Absolutely not! There is indeed absolute truth – but there are also things touted as absolute truth that are merely the interpretations of truth told to us by those in power.
This is why I love The & Campaign. Their mission is to help Christians walk in the tension of justice & mercy, of truth & love, and of finding a little bit of “right” in two opposing sides.
I think one of the most egregious errors the modern Church (or maybe the Church down through the ages) has made is to live in the poles. We have got to learn to live in the tension in the middle. We were made for the balanced middle, and our insistence on dragging everyone to a pole is what is widening the chasm between brothers and sisters in Christ. But to accomplish this middle-dwelling posture, you have to be willing to do three hard things:
1. Admit you don’t have the whole picture
2. Seek to understand the other side of the picture
3. Be very, very comfortable in the uncomfortable unknowns
Here’s a practice if you want to start living a more nuanced life:
Find someone who thinks completely different from you on an issue you hold dear (let’s start with something like Black Lives Matter, or abortion, or being pro-life, or the death sentence – just to start off easy…) and ask them to articulate their position. Do not ask questions. Do not make comments. Just listen. Seek to see through their lens. And when they are done, stand up, hug them or shake their hand, thank them for being vulnerable and helping you learn, and walk away. If in your pondering later you have questions, maybe email or text them those questions, and allow them to respond. This is a learning practice – not a convincing practice. You might be surprised at what you hear and learn.
Let’s all seek to find a more centrist position, before we tear ourselves apart. Becoming more centrist does not mean losing your Gospel convictions; but it might mean that you find out some of your convictions were not as “Gospel” as you thought.