This time it’s the National Cathedral, the informal “national church” (and Episcopal house of worship), where stained glass windows commemorating Robert E Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson are being taken down from display.
The discussion around it, what they are thinking of doing with the windows, and what such commemorations truly mean, are all an interesting read.
Washington National Cathedral to remove stained glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson
Confederate windows are probably the most prominent in an American sacred space.
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I've been there. It's a beautiful and impressive cathedral. But it's also strange to see national myths mixed with Christian myths. I wasn't entirely comfortable with that mix. But, as was said in the article, it probably wasn't the least bit controversial at the time. I'm sure it was intentional, given the way it is used in national political life.
+John Wehrle It's gorgeous, yes, and probably the closest to "civil religion" as I'm comfortable with. But this was the right move on their part.
+Dave Hill absolutely. Really, what's happening is the slow death of an American lie that began a decade or two after the Civil War where veterans on both sides held joint reunions at battlefields and often became very close. The causes of the war receded in their minds and it was all too easy to accept the Gone With The Wind picture of the South prior to the war. After all, it's not like all Northerners actually believed in the equality of humanity. They're outrage had been building for a long time because of the stories abolitionists told about slave conditions.
That they felt compassion was one thing. But vanishingly few considered freed slaves their equals in any way. After the cataclysm of the war, white Northerners could focus on their own healing because as far as they were concerned the problem had been solved. And that healing meant Americans (and that could only mean white Americans in most of their minds) coming back together to become a whole nation.
I mean, it is astonishing to think about it but the Reconstruction era ended in 1877. These stained glass windows were basically 70-ish years later? The last Civil War veteran died in the mid 50's – right around this time. And the Cathedral itself had been under construction quite some time already (1907?!) and with services already starting in 1912. If we weren't Americans we might not think of the Civil War as being all that long ago.