Fighting Forgetting
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, a plague descends on the village of Macondo, its one and only symptom: collective amnesia. When the first signs of illness come on, one of the book’s main characters — an amateur scientist — begins to write names on every object in his lab. Then, he writes names on every object in his house, and soon others in the village begin to follow suit. They can sense their memories slipping away, and they expect their future selves will need this help.
I have felt a looming fear of society-wide amnesia setting in as weeks pass following the murder of George Floyd. As I consider what to write in this ‘blog any given Friday, I worry that if I stop writing about anti-Black racism, it will send a signal that I’m part of this forgetting. I don’t want to succumb to the pattern — outrage, followed by exhaustion, followed by forgetting — all too familiar to African American people. As a White person, I am allowed to forget about racism; they are not. I stand in solidarity with those who don’t have a choice whether or not to remember racism.
So the question becomes, how can we fight the forgetting? In the movie Memento, a man with a traumatic brain injury is only able to remember information in short bursts, so he tattoos his own skin with reminders. Is that what it will take to cause us to remember that, after having enslaved African people and forced their labor, our nation’s leaders pretended what was done was done? They — we — skipped over truth, reconciliation, and reparations, and now suppress what would be understandable impulses toward uprising through racist sins of omission and commission? Do White people need to tattoo their forearms with the words, “Society quietly told you that you were better and deserved privilege; society lied”?
I find theological help in making sense of this conundrum in the work of dearly departed colleague Gabriel Fackre. A systematic theologian, Fackre offered a theological method that begins with Christ — what does the Gospel say? What would Jesus do? — and then works outward into lenses developed throughout the history of the Christian experience.
Fackre wrote that each new generation (see the outermost circle) has to shine the light of the Gospel on their times. Fackre recommended we point the model above at our questions about life’s meaning, no matter whether we think our predecessors have resolved a question, as there is really no such thing as resolution.
Fackre critiqued what theologians and evolutionary biologists alike would call a “ladder theory of progress.” To say that humanity is moving forward and only forward, and that issues from the past have been handled and crossed off the cosmic list of concerns, is to misunderstand the ongoing nature of creation. God’s creative acts didn’t begin and end when setting the world into motion. God continues to create. The good news is that we can enter creative partnership with God. The scary — thrilling? — other side of the coin is that nothing is ever fully finished. Each generation must take it up anew.
That which prevents our forgetting is Jesus Christ. In the light of Jesus, we can see how far we’re falling short. We don’t need a label or a tattoo. With Jesus’ help, we see the unmistakable disconnect between what is and what ought to be. As the diagram above shows, Jesus must be at the center of the church’s work for social justice. One whose activism is rooted in Jesus finds an infinite power source for the endless work. Are you an activist who isn’t Christian? Or a Christian activist still figuring out the connection between your work and your faith? No problem. Just substitute the word Jesus with “love.”
If progress toward a world that reflects God’s will doesn’t happen linearly, but rather in fits and starts and anew in each generation, we all need a guide. Love provides a plumb line. And if we’re worried that something like amnesia will set in after social outrage finds another target, we look to Jesus and lean into love. Neither love, nor Jesus, will let us forget.
