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I don’t know if I ever qualified as a “Neo-Confederate,” but I certainly bought into the Confederate mythology in my early 20s. As a freshman at the University of Kentucky, I hung a Confederate flag in my dorm room. I remember my RA (who was black) coming into my room... 1/
...and staring at it. Even as a professing Christian, it was the first time I had ever stopped to think about how that flag was seen by African Americans. I soon took it down. But I still found an interest in Confederate history and the Southern lost cause culture... 2/
I also participated in 2 Civil War re-enactments (Richmond, Perryville) and fought on the Confederate side. I even kept a picture of one of the re-enactments on my shelf. Looking back, I can’t say that I ever consciously connected my Confederate interest with thoughts... 3/
about black people, but I can certainly confess that I was blinded by ignorance, immaturity, and a willingness to find meaning and purpose in a culture that I felt connected me to my ancestors. I remember actually believing that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery at all. 4/
God began to open my eyes to the prejudices in my own heart and my own ignorance when I heard the way that many of my white brothers spoke about black people. The people who I surrounded myself with weren’t just Civil War buffs; they were actually resonating with the... 5/
Confederate ideals. Their suspicion of black leadership, their cultural siege mentality, their willingness to paint Lee and Davis as martyrs, and their constant stereotyping of outsiders, it really affected me and caused me to examine my motives for my pride in a flag... 6/
...that was flown for the right to enslave other people. As I began to actually read primary sources from the antebellum years, all the Confederate romanticizing didn’t add up. Today, as the father of two black children, I’ll have to explain to my children why I chose to... 7/
romanticize and glorify a group of people who treated their descendants like property. And when i see the southern cross on the back of a truck or hear someone lionize Stonewall Jackson as a Patriot, I hear my old self. Today, I still have a great interest in Southern history 8/
That part of me the Lord didn’t change. The difference is that I don’t love southern history as something that helps me explain my reality. I don’t hate Neo-Confederates, I mourn for them. They’re either un-discipled, as I was, or they’re well trained in a brand of mythology 9/
that seeks to make sense of failure. Confederate lost cause ideology is an alluring narrative for those who feel they have been left behind by their world, their government, and their God. It runs from the messy present and finds meaning in a fanciful past. These sinners need 10/
our prayer & our love &the truth, not more volleys & hate.NeoConfederates feel that Americahas lostsomething & they wish to reclaim it. The gospel offers a better narrative, but one that we can all be a part of. In Christ, we don’t have to change the past to reclaim our identity.
