Greenville College Academic Chapel - December 5, 2007

Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, who is in heaven.

Ideas are Power

I was asked to speak in this chapel service at the beginning of October, and as I thought about this date, I realized what I was up against: Students who are ready to be done with the semester, who still have to fulfill their chapel requirement, yet are anxiously longing for December 18 to come so they can be home doing something more interesting than listening to someone like me. In spite of those strong desires that I’m sure you have, I want to guide you toward taking a moment to reflect upon what you’re doing here at Greenville College, what you’ve been doing here all semester or however long you’ve been here as a student. What I mean by thinking about what you’re doing here is that I want you to reflect upon how the ideas you have gained as a student have changed your life, and thus, the topic I want to talk with you about is the power of ideas. Ideas (what you pick up in class lectures and read in textbooks) can be so powerful that they can completely alter an individual’s path and lead to remarkable social change within communities and nations.

I’m well acquainted with this subject for two reasons: First, personal experience: the direction of my life has been remarkably altered on a number of occasions sheerly through the power of an idea, and I’m going to share a couple of those instances with you. Secondly, my academic discipline (which is American Studies) is quite fascinated with the whole concept of power (whether it be intellectual, political, social or any other type of power). However, in my discipline, power is most often considered in its most negative terms. You’ve probably heard of this perspective on power through axioms like “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Throughout history, we can certainly site many examples of instances in which power of all sorts has been exerted in ways that have been selfish and even evil. In fact, some forms of power have for decades and even centuries brought harm to others. (An example would be power that reinforced for 400years on the North American continent the continuation of slavery and then for another 100 years [into my lifetime] perpetuated racist beliefs and practices that still linger today.)

While we can’t deny that power can be exerted in overwhelmingly harmful and negative ways, I want us to consider power from a Christian perspective, one that is available to us through our faith in a God who is omnipotent. What does omnipotent mean? (all powerful) In fact, we serve a God who is all – everything – all powerful, all knowing and all loving. He is perfect in all of these areas, and thus He is our perfect model for possessing power. Power that comes from God contains certain characteristics. It is redemptive, full of grace and compassionate understanding. And I would like to emphasize that power, as it is manifested by God, empowers others, and allows them to be more fully the person God intended for them to be.

Placed in this context, I would like to consider with you how ideas, what you gain at Greenville College, are powerful, in the best, most Divine sense of the word. This statement “ideas or knowledge is power” can sound quite cliché, but one of the most vivid examples that helps us to understand the implications of this claim is found in a book my African-American History students read this semester: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Until he escaped from slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass was enslaved in Maryland. While he witnessed and experienced the horrible oppression and subjugation of plantation slavery as a very young child, a great deal of his childhood was spent in slavery with a family who lived in Baltimore. There, he received more humane treatment, and the mistress of the house even took it upon herself to teach him to read. When her husband learned of this, he became very angry with her and told her (here I quote Douglass – but I will edit pejorative language): “’that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.’ To use his own words, further, he said, ‘A (slave) should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would ~spoil~ the best (slave) in the world. Now,’ said he, ‘if you teach that (slave) (speaking of Douglass) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.'" (Douglass continues:) "These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master.” So, from this incident, Douglass took hold of an idea – that for him and for all who were enslaved, knowledge is power, and it changed his life forever and propelled him into seeking freedom for himself and the hundreds of thousands others who were held in bondage.

Similarly to Douglass, I have found ideas to be empowering and liberating. I remember vividly my first real encounter with this concept. I was in Freshman Composition at Asbury College, a 21 year old, non-traditional student who was a freshman. I had sat out of school a couple of years, in part, because it was not an automatic for me to go to college. No other women in my family had gone to college, and so, I floundered for a couple of years. But sitting in Mrs. Moulton’s Freshman Comp class, I grabbed hold of an idea that changed my life. It was from Arthur Holmes book, The Idea of a Christian College. The idea was that “all truth is God’s truth.” This concept gave me permission to consider all sorts of radical possibilities simply because I knew that if these possibilities were truth they would never lead me away from my foundation, from God. It was quite liberating.

In my PhD program at St. Louis University I again encountered an idea that has changed my life forever. This came about through my study of nineteenth century women who were abolitionists (they fought against slavery) and suffragists (so they sought the right of women to vote). I saw two things in their actions and words. One was that to them ideas were so powerful that they were able to overcome barriers of region, class and what we call race. Secondly, I learned from these women (who contributed to bringing about significant and lasting social change in our nation – the end of slavery, voting and property rights for women, to name just a few of the things they achieved) – I learned from them that it is never enough to sit in the privacy of my home and talk about injustices that I disagree with. Rather it is imperative that in a public space, I actively articulate my beliefs. This single idea has transformed my world and propelled me in directions I never foresaw in Mrs. Moulton’s Freshman Comp class.

And so, I ask of you – what are the ideas that God is putting in front of you? How are you allowing them to change your life? I pray that they will empower you and make you a bold light to the world that can never be snuffed out by the darkness around you.