If you are close to my age, you may recall the publication of a novel on today’s date of July 11 in 1960 that impacted America’s 20th Century racial understanding equal to Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the 19th Century. It was To Kill a Mockingbird.
Growing up during the era of the Civil Rights Movement, only about a hundred miles northeast of Monroeville, Alabama, the hometown of the author Harper Lee and also the living model for Maycomb, it greatly impressed my fundamental beliefs of humanity.
Overly simplistically, To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of a young girl, Scout Finch, her brother Jem and their father Atticus who live in this small, Southern town in the Jim Crow days of the1930’s. Atticus is a well-respected lawyer who takes a case defending a Black man falsely accused of a monstrous crime. Patently, it is a story of racism, biased legalism and inner emotional struggles.
More importantly, it is also a study of character.
Just two years later, the novel was put on the silver screen with Gregory Peck selected to play the role of Atticus Finch. In the cinema, Finch is presented as embodying such a high and noble character, one is rest assured that he is beyond corruptibility.
As he and his family endure threats and insults from the White community, we can not help but place him high on a pedestal. So perfect is his sense of chivalry and character, he is almost a Jesus-figure. In the end, he wins the case and proves the innocence of the falsely accused.
However, that is far from the end of the story.
Fifty-five years later Harper Lee wrote its sequel, Go Set a Watchman. In it she portrayed Atticus quite differently than Gregory Peck’s version. In Watchman, Atticus Finch’s value system actually proves to be very much in line with the racism of other members of the White community. He is opposed to the efforts of the NAACP as they attempt to bring about justice and equality and even goes so far as to defend the Ku Klux Klan as being more of a political organization than a violent hate group.
When I first attempted reading Watchman, it disturbed me so greatly, I repeatedly put the book down. But reflecting on my feelings I realized that I simply did not want my idealism of Atticus Finch besmirched. I wanted to keep him on that literary pedestal.
From somewhere deep in the memory banks, a sermon came to mind the preacher had entitled “The Five Grossest Men in the Bible.” Very briefly, he described characters from the Bible’s narrative who had: 1) disobeyed God’s direct instructions; 2) had literally taken the word that God had written and in a fit of anger thrown it to the ground to destroy it; 3) committed adultery with a married woman and then had her husband killed to cover his sin; 4) refused to answer God’s call to preach and had in fact gone in the very opposite direction; and 5) had promised to stand by Christ regardless of the cost, but instead had repudiated any knowledge of Him.
In essence they were Adam, Moses, David, Jonah and Peter. The point being that we all, including the very best people we know, have shortcomings.
Even a fictional character such as Atticus Finch is no exception. All of us suffer from defects and all stand in need of forgiveness. If you do not believe some person you idealize possesses fractures in their character, let them run for public office; their opponent is certain to discover and broadcast their imperfections. And in truth, sometimes the gossips’ communication system in a local church can also commit such destruction of life quality.
It would be easy enough to end this writing by citing any number of Bible scriptures which admonish us not to gossip, but that is not sufficient. Instead, our Godly instructions for living the spiritual life is to go deeper. As Paul wrote to the church in Thessaloniki, “...encourage one another and build one another up.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0