Multi-Generational Trauma and Christian Disunity

One of the deadliest days Catholic-Protestant tension: Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre by Francois Dubois. Wikipedia Commons.

I often encounter so much resistance from Christians to the cause of Christian unity.

I am often left baffled.

In my humble opinion, there doesn't seem to be enough theological justification for this resistance. There aren't enough cultural reasons, either.

That's certainly debatable, of course. Many would challenge me on this.

But I still get a sense that there is something else going on—some people have an almost visceral reaction toward other Christian groups that is hard to explain through merely doctrinal differences alone.

So what is driving this?

It's like there's an invisible force. Or a ghost, perhaps.

Well, in a sense, I think this is true.

In this blog we often explore the symptoms of a fractured people—in particular, divisions in Christianity. Those fall along doctrinal lines, national origin lines, racial lines and class lines. But they also fall along historical lines.

I'm amazed by how many Christians want to be isolated from other Christians. For example, there are many evangelical Christians in the rural U.S. South who just want to be left alone. They don't want any relationship with any other church, even within their own denomination. Is this just personal preference or is there a back story? Is this what Jesus asks for those who follow in his way?

Perhaps we today don't have a living memory of persecution. Perhaps we don't remember being abandoned or being rejected or having to uproot our family and travel westward to a new country just to get away from all the strife back in Europe. We didn't personally experience the nasty and cruel ways various Christian groups treated each other—up to and including wars and death.

But somewhere deep down in our bones we feel the result of this wound. The memory may be gone but the trauma—and the coping mechanisms—remain. We are only at the beginning stages of understanding how experiences of trauma can be passed down to subsequent generations. But we know it experientially:  Once you start attempting to heal any of these divisions it becomes abundantly clear right away that past is prologue.

Coco

The Disney Pixar movie Coco does a fantastic job of showing how this multi-generational trauma works. This family in Mexico that just seemed to hate music. They did everything they could to avoid music and punish harshly any family member who attempted to play music. Nobody remembered  why and nobody really bothered to ask. It's just the way it was. They just hated music and wanted to be left alone.

[spoiler alert follows!]

As the movie progresses, we discover that the reason this family hates music is that a great-great-grandfather was presumed to abandon his family to pursue a life on the road as a musician. He left a wife and young daughter to fend for themselves, never to see them again. Through great difficulty and innovation, his wife built a new life—but utter contempt for music and anything related to it was painfully stitched into every moment of their lives going forward. I imagine every sound of music brought with it painful memories and grumblings which her daughter and grandchildren picked up on. I imagine they didn't want to see her in pain so they also did everything to shield her from music. Music brought her pain, and it was painful for her daughter and grandchildren to witness this, so music ended up bringing them pain, too—they appropriated her pain. Hating music just became part of the family ethos.

We eventually find out the truth is still more complex—the father intended to leave the road and come home but was murdered by a jealous music partner who wanted his songs to himself. Tragic misunderstandings often play a huge role.

Christian Prologue 

How much do the historical treatments of Christians to one another matter today?

They matter a lot—it is the pain on which so many of our patterns and attitudes have been built. The pain and coping patterns remain long after the original incidents are forgotten.

I can prove it. What happens when you read the word "Viking"? Do you imagine an adventurous seafaring people from Northern Europe? You probably imagine brutal terrorists. Their descendants today are the quite peaceful Scandanvian people. But yet to this day the word "viking" conjures up foreboding. That's because for a period of time the Vikings terrorized much of mainland Europe. Their time attacking coastal Europe was a long, long time ago. Yet this period was sufficiently brutal and psychologically traumatizing enough to carry their reputation forward to the present day.

The church of the western Roman Empire (now called the Catholic Church) actually attacked and sacked Constantinople, the seat of the eastern church (now called the Orthodox Church). Certainly wars between Christians have been common throughout the years, but this was more explicitly tied to religious divisions itself, at least on the surface. It was a thousand years ago but if you unpack the layers of frosty relationship between Catholics and Orthodox, you will quickly notice the impact of this and other similar events.

Catholics murdered Protestants. Catholic and Protestants murdered Anabaptists. And many Christians persecuted pagans, Jewish people and Gypsies.

A colleague explained to me how the Civil War, for example, split denominations in many ways. The different experiences in the North and the South—the suffering, the years of hunger, the humiliation of loss, the feeling of abandonment by their brothers and sister in the faith on the other side of the Mason Dixon line—have left lasting scars that remain to this day. Many today on one side don't even know why they have such feelings toward those on the other side, but they know they do.

Think of how much fear and misunderstanding Christians have for Muslims. Some of this is just stirred up by political forces today. But this negative view of Islam has its root in history. Europe experienced serious defeats during the Crusades. Empires of Muslim people made inroads into Europe in Span, Turkey and Southeast Europe. This menacing, looming shadow was just beyond the sea, ready to strike at any moment. Perhaps they see Christians the same way—it's all perspective.

Actually, Muslim people are as normal and peaceful as people in any nation. But we've been kept apart for so long where fears turn people into caricatures. Just like walking through a dark forest on Halloween, where every noise makes you worry there's a giant or monster right around the corner. This is what fear does. This is why it's so important to get to know people in the present day to dispel those fears and to make sure political forces aren't using those fears to manipulate us.

Going Forward

Even when memory of an event is long gong, the reaction to that pain is often still with us. It may still be in the drivers seat, whether we know it or not. It's actually harder when we are unaware of it—because we are triggered and reacting and there doesn't seem to be a logical reason for it, but logic is not enough to build the bridge. We have to find out what's driving out reactions to one another.

When you start reconciling with people from another group, you may start crying over pain from centuries ago—pain you never even dreamed was relevant to you at all. That's how multi-generational trauma works.

That is why we can't enter a dialogue as isolated individuals. We all come with a history and out of a context, and we all need to respect that. Unity requires lots of reconciliation with the past. It requires lots of apologies and amends and at the very least an awareness of its impact on us today. Even a thousand years later, the pain doesn't simply just go away on its own until it is lovingly healed.

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This is part 3 in a series around remembering the voices from the past: All Saints Day, All Souls Day and Day of the Dead in Hispanic cultures. Reformation Sunday in Protestant churches. How do narratives we have inherited from the past—accurate or not—affect who we are today?

Part 1: A Tale of Two Americas
Part 2: Family Separation: My Personal Story

Family Separation: My Personal Story

My grandmother immigrated to the U.S. on the SS George Washington.

I hesitate to write the above headline, because the story I'm about to tell is not anywhere near as traumatic as the family separation currently happening to asylum seekers at the U.S./Mexico border. Nor does it compare to the brutal family separation that occurred during slavery, the disappearances during Jim Crow, in Native American "boarding schools" or currently in a culture of mass incarceration and immigrant detention. I hate to compare one person's trauma to another's, but some hesitation is warranted here.

Nevertheless, I think my story does a good job of showing how separation of any kind leaves long lasting trauma that affects our behavior and attitudes for generations to come—and how this trauma needs to be healed before full unity and wholeness in society or our institutions can be achieved.

***

My grandmother immigrated from what is now modern day Slovakia to the United States (Ohio) in the early 1920s. She was 17 years old. She remembered saying goodbye to her mother. At that moment, she instinctively knew that she would never see her again. That turned out to be true.

She did return once to see her family back in Europe in the 1960s. She saw her brothers, sisters and extended family. I'm sure it was wonderful to have that reunion. It must also have been bittersweet to realize all the life together they were not going to experience.

Her first born son Emery joined the Navy and went off to the Pacific theater of World War II. He was 17 or 18—the same age as my grandmother when she left home for good. While overseas, he married a Philipino woman. They had three children, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They moved around a lot but always stayed in the Pacific rim. They settled on Hawaii, which was a halfway point for their respective families—and close to neither!

Growing up, we would see them as often as once every year. Their visits were full and fun. We actually saw them more frequently, and had more in-depth interactions with them, than some of my other aunts and uncles who lived a lot closer. We made sure to make our limited time together count. But there was always a pain. Uncle Emery and Aunt Betsy just couldn't be a regular fixture. We didn't see them at random weddings, funerals or 4th of July cookouts. We didn't just run into each other in the grocery store. No matter how close we were, the miles between us were always there. I have only seen some of my cousins once in my life.

These experiences of immigration brought out the best in people. It helped them to be daring, entrepreneurial and full of vigor. There is an energy that immigrants have that is hard to find anywhere else. But in these cases, it also brought lasting wounds for both themselves and their families. Some of those wounds have remained for decades, and it's the 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants who have to do the work to restore and heal.

Fast forwards several decades: I come of age. Without considering any of this history, I am surprised by how much hostility my family has to any of my plans to move around. Go to a faraway college? Move to another city? Move out of state? Travel abroad?? All those ideas were met with anger, resistance and disapproval. I actually hid those plans from my folks up until the last minute because I just couldn't bear all the guilt and negativity, which I saw as an affront to my own ideas and initiative. And it was. But today I see some of this in a new light.

I'm sure a lot more factored into my family's reactions than our immigration history, but I bet they factored in a whole lot more than any of us ever realized.

You see, nowadays communication and travel are different. It is relatively easy to get a plane ticket. Highways are well-developed. Phone calls are cheaper, if not downright free with you plan. Social media and video chatting are everyday realities rather than something only imagined on Star Trek. And the Soviet "iron curtain" no longer divides the world. 

But somewhere embedded in my family's consciousness is the idea that people who leave never come back. It's a permanent separation. You might as well be dead to them if you are going to leave your hometown. When I was about to make an out-of-state move, I watched them steel themselves emotionally as if they were preparing for a funeral. Their reactions seemed so over the top, so out of proportion—but today I see it differently. Their reactions were based on the 1920s rather than the realities of 2020.

My experiences are not unlike those of the character Miguel in the Disney Pixar movie Coco. The movie does a phenomenal job showing how trauma can continue to impact people in a family generations after the initial incident occurred, even when the initial incident is unknown to present day people. My family's fear of dividing the family was putting us at risk of causing a rift in the family again.

Multi-generational trauma is a significant factor at the foundation of just about every division in society.

Many people today don't understand why we should do anything to atone for slavery, for example. Or the brutalities of colonization. Many don't understand why we would bother do expend energy trying to mend Christian disunity, especially when some of the wounds are 500-1000 years old! But the more we come to understand how multi-generational trauma works, the more clearly we understand the imperative to do the good, ole fashioned Christian work of seeking forgiveness, atoning for wrongdoings and working toward restitution. Very few things are simply "in the past." People say that history does not impact them, but it clearly does, whether we realize it or not.

Multi-generational trauma impacts the Christian family tree as much as it does any other family. We'll explore that in the next post, stay tuned!

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This is the second part in our series commemorating All Saints and All Souls Days, as well as Day of the Dead in Hispanic cultures. Reformation Sunday in Protestant churches. The voices, experiences and wounds of people in the past have a greater impact on us today than many of us even realize. On the path toward unity, we have to consider the role of multi-generational trauma plays in our divisions.

Part 1:  A Tale of Two Americas

A Tale of Two Americas

This blog focuses on issues of unity, especially among Christians. We look at how disunity manifests itself along theological, racial, cultural, economic and nationalistic lines in our society.

We want to follow the gospel mandate to repent, repair the damage and offer restitution on the hopeful path toward reconciliation. That is a page from good, old fashioned Christianity! But one giant obstacle in the way is a poor self understanding. We can't do any of this well if we aren't honest about ourselves or the situation. This may require shattering some long-held golden calves. But I believe we can do it.

As the churches following the liturgical calendar move toward commemorating All Saints Day and All Souls Day—and Day of the Dead in Hispanic cultures—and Reformation Sunday in Protestant denominations—it is a good time to ask: Who are we? Where did we come from? What narratives do we tell of our past that define who we are today? Who do we want to be going forward and where do we ultimately want to go?

There are two Americas.

We have a very difficult time admitting it. But in order to be healthy and whole and to become the people we want to be (and think we are), it is necessary to come to terms with this. The truth will set us free.

We have indeed been an experiment in freedom and equality. When the U.S. was founded, we attempted something no other nation in the modern era has ever attempted, at least not on the scale we were attempting. Smaller communities were the model but there was never anything so grandiose. And yes, through the years, very often our stated ideals of freedom and equality have pushed us (often kicking and screaming) to live them out more fully.

However, perhaps more importantly, you could say instead of "freedom and equality for all" what we have instead created a pocket of power and privilege for a few in the guise of freedom and equality for all. As noted evangelical writer Jim Wallis often says, racism is "America's original sin."

There are other words that can accurately describe American society:

Apartheid.

Caste system.

Rigid social hierarchy.

Forced labor camps.

Forced patriotism.

Genocide.

Privilege.

Concentration camps.

Internment camps.

Forced family separation and re-indoctrination of various groups (slaves, natives, migrants, immigrants).
Militaristic empire.
Colonizers (both neocolonialism and good ole fashioned regular colonialism).

All of those are accurate and factual descriptions. 

"We don't like those words! That's what other countries do, not us!" We tell ourselves: "Sure, we've made a few mistakes along the way, but we're not like them!"

But when your idea of freedom and equality for all is to do the following, perhaps we are not being honest with ourselves:

1. "Clear the land" of the first nations people and cultures already here as if they were simply annoying weeds.

2. Kidnap, capture, and import slaves, dehumanize them and write the laws to regard them as property—and then even after slavery to keep them in forced segregation and oppression—perhaps in unconscious fear that if granted true equality and freedom they might do to us what we did to them.

3. Beat down on successive waves of immigrants who might steal the power and privilege we have amassed for ourselves—also perhaps in unconscious fear they might do to us what we did to them.

Different Words for Different Folks

One of the ways we perpetuate these divisions is that we use different words for ourselves than we use for others. The U.S. was populated by migrant workers, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. But we don't like those words, so we call ourselves "settlers" instead. How come Mexicans crossing the border today without documents aren't called "settlers"? They meet that definition as well as any European from three centuries ago did.

The U.S. started as genocide toward native people and continued with a string of forced labor camps (what we usually call "plantations" (you know, where slaves were imprisoned)) where the inmates were subject to brutal life sentences and continual torture—and so were their families for generation after generation.

In all this, the U.S. has then maintained a rigid social caste system. On top of the social caste system are white (preferably northern European), Christian (preferably Protestant) heterosexual, cisgender males. There are some anomalies and complexities in this that must be named but that is the overall system.

At Home and Abroad

Whatever freedoms we may legitimately enjoy here, we brutally deny to most everyone else on earth. Seriously, for every place on earth that we hold up as an example that we have genuinely helped become a democratic, freedom-loving society (er... usually by force), there are probably a dozen more where we have installed and supported autocratic regimes—keeping the third world poor and vulnerable so our corporations can exploit the people and land without resistance or interference. It was actually a Catholic Maryknoll missionary priest who played a large role in uncovering these maneuvers.

The refugees and asylum seekers currently at the U.S./Mexico border begging for mercy were driven in no small way by U.S. policies that wrecked their homelands, either directly or indirectly. This includes the drug wars (Colombia), embargoes (Cuba/Venezuela), destructive trade policies (Mexico) and overthrowing democratically elected governments (Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc).

We maintain that industrial military complex through forced, obligatory patriotism here in the U.S ("Support the troops" who are "making the world save for democracy.") However, people around the world simply do not universally cheer us as their "liberators." Some do, but many do not. So often, we have betrayed the people who have helped us. We get upset when we hear about how communist and socialist governments have attempted to force their systems onto their people, but when we have "brought democracy" abroad is has generally been through force and military rule.

Despite all this negativity, there are bright lights to report.  For example, we have historically settled permanently more refugees than everywhere else on earth combined (not since Trump's restrictions but previously). Granted, that's only a small fraction of the world's refugees. It must be said that we certainly do not take in the most refugees—not by a long shot. But the ones we have taken in we have granted permanent status. That's the difference. It's still a very good mark for the U.S. Granted, we should also ask how many of those refugees we have created in the first place through our policies and practices.

It must also be said that even though historically the U.S. has been a leader in pushing for freedom and equality for all, we are nowhere near the leaders in world freedom anymore. Lots of studies have been done from lots of groups to measure the relative "freedom" of people all over the earth, and the U.S. does not rank anywhere close to the top of freedoms today. This is especially true in post-9/11 America where all the infrastructure for a police and surveillance state has been quickly and firmly put in place. In addition, there is too much disparity in power and privilege along economic, racial and social lines.

Conclusion

I'm sure folks could point to other areas where we have done an exemplary job and other areas where we have been dismal. But that's the point—both have been true. And this is why democracy in the U.S. is always fragile and that fascism and white nationalism are ongoing threats just around the corner. We have always been dangerously closer to that than we usually care to admit—lynchings, McCarthy "red scare" hearings, Japanese internment, family separation of native peoples and "re-schooling," not to mention slavery and native genocide. The list goes on and on. I believe it was Noam Chomsky who made that point—we have always had the infrastructure for fascism, especially in post 9/11 America. We just haven't had a leader or a populace willing to exploit it to its fullest... yet.

A nation of freedom and equality does not have a military many times the size of the next closet competitor with bases in 150+ nations worldwide. A nation of freedom and equality does not mandate saying the Pledge of Allegiance or standing for the national anthem—those quasi-religious gestures would have been abhorrent to our founders. It's not what you do in a genuinely free society. It's just not. By Definition.

So there you have it. A tale of two Americas. We are not all bad. We have done some great things for freedom and equality in the world, even if most of those gains are historical. But it's time we let go of any paternalistic, comic book fantasies about what our country is. We can do this. We need to first be honest about who we are, what we have done and what we are planning to do. Only then can be actually be the people and nation we aspire to be. We have to quit saying "We're #1 We're the best!" We just not. Let's face it—that's kind of juvenile. Life is more complex than that. Besides, Christians in particular should set their gaze on the Kingdom that Jesus announced rather than wordly things, statuses and titles. But admitting it is the first step on the road toward repentance, restitution and reparations and ultimately reconciliation.

A lot of folks say:  "This can't be true because of such-and-such positive thing about America." But that's it—we have two sides and need to acknowledge—fully—both.

Let's go back to church and learn the 4 R's:

Repentance, Restitution, Reparations and Reconciliation.