Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
An alternate history and an alternate future

An alternate history and an alternate future

Last updated on: February 6, 2019 at 4:09 pm by Fred Clark

An alternate history and an alternate future 2019-02-06T16:09:18-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’m not a big fan of alternate history stories premised on “What if the Bad Guys had won?” Mostly that’s because I’m pretty pleased that the Bad Guys didn’t win and I don’t find the idea of dwelling on the alternate possibility very appealing. I’m glad the Nazis lost. I’m glad that the dishonorable cause of treason in defense of slavery lost.

I get the allure of alternate history in general. The “for lack of a nail” contingencies of history can be fascinating. What if Ögedei Khan’s death hadn’t interrupted the Mongol invasion of Europe? What if McNamara had put in a defensive substitute for Buckner in the 10th inning? What if it was Flash Thompson who got bitten by that radioactive spider? (I loved those Marvel What If …? comics when I was a kid.)

But, again, if I’m going to spend time contemplating how the world might be different, I’d prefer to think about how it might be better, not how it might be worse. If I’m going to read something dystopian, I’d rather it be a cautionary tale about where we might be headed rather than an alternate history suggesting we should just be grateful that things aren’t even more messed up than they already are.

That doesn’t mean I’m looking for utopian alternate histories. I’ve read too much Niebuhr to find utopias appealing. But the contingencies of history also include lots of false starts and wrong turns where the Good Guys failed us. What if they hadn’t? Stretching our imagination in that direction might help us better understand our own failings and blind-spots, our own wrong turns and missed opportunities.

All of which is why I’ve been trying to track down a map or an itinerary of George Whitfield’s third tour of the American colonies. All I’ve found in my initial, cursory search is the suggestion that he traveled “far and wide” or “throughout the colonies, North and South.”

This isn’t for any planned work in progress, mind you. I haven’t the time or the discipline or the chops for that. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about a bit and something I think it might be fruitful to contemplate.

See, the tantalizing aspect of the great evangelist’s third visit to the Americas has to do with the dates of that journey: 1745 to 1748. That means that Whitefield was over here and on the road during 1746 — the same year that the great Quaker abolitionist John Woolman was traveling some 1,500 miles throughout Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and just beginning to compose his “Considerations.”

What if Whitefield and Woolman had crossed paths?

I realize that Whitefield would not likely have been very receptive to anything Woolman had to say. He wasn’t predisposed, theologically or otherwise, to paying much attention to what Quakers had to say.

But John Woolman was apparently an extremely persuasive guy. He spent most of his life changing the minds of people who weren’t predisposed to listen to what he had to say.

Woolman’s journeys in 1746 — along with Isaac Andrews — involved visits to the homes and meeting houses of countless slave-owning Quakers. It was kind of a Jesus-and-Zacchaeus thing: I’m inviting myself to have dinner at your house today. Once there, he would just talk, laying out his arguments for why slavery was wrong — why it was selfish and sinful, based on a God-denying and God-defying “darkness in the understanding.” He would urge these slave-owning Christians not just to emancipate their slaves, but also to pay them the back wages they were owed for all of their uncompensated labor.

And they did. At the beginning of the 1700s, American Quakers were mostly as complicit in slave-owning and slave-trading as other white Christians in the Americas. By the middle of that century, the Friends Societies were officially abolitionist (to the extent that anything Anabaptist can be “official”). And much of that transformation was the result of John Woolman walking thousands of miles, from house to house, knocking on doors and just talking to people.

As far as I know, Woolman never talked to George Whitefield. But what if he had?

Imagine, let’s say, that the world-famous evangelist’s carriage broke an axle somewhere in Maryland or Virginia or North Carolina as he was traveling to yet another standing-room-only mass revival meeting. There he sits, not relishing the prospect of spending the night along the side of the road, when John Woolman and Isaac Andrews come ambling along, offering him the prospect of a hearty meal and a warm bed at the home of a nearby slave-owning Quaker family.

By 1746, I think, Whitefield had already latched onto his great dream of founding an orphanage and farm in the colony of Georgia. Here in our timeline, that involved him believing that this plantation-orphanage could only be financially viable with the use of slave labor, which was not yet legal in Georgia. So Whitefield — constrained by an abysmally unsanctified lack of imagination — believed his only option was to campaign for the legalization of slavery in the colony. He did so aggressively and, ultimately, successfully. For the children.

That might have gone differently if Whitefield had encountered someone like Woolman — someone whose imagination was shaped by the gospel and the Golden Rule rather than the brute banality of Whitefield’s actual, real-world scheme.

I like to imagine Woolman working his holy magic on Whitefield, inviting him to imagine an orphanage that would welcome all children as a picture of and a response to God’s universal, indiscriminate love. But how would this even larger, more beautiful orphanage survive financially? The same way all of Woolman’s fellow Quakers were learning to survive financially, with duly and justly compensated labor.

Basically, I’m imagining Whitefield and Woolman sitting at the candlelit table of some Quaker family in rural Virginia, sketching out the plans for building Koinonia Farm 166 years before Clarence Jordan was ever born.

Koinonia Farm is, after all, right there in Georgia, just a short drive from the site of Whitefield’s former slave plantation.

Where does this “What if …?” alternate history lead us?

If Whitefield doesn’t lead the effort to legalize slavery in Georgia, does that ever happen? Probably, eventually. The sums of money available to anyone willing to steal the labor of millions while selling off their children was just too tempting to resist for too many powerful people.

But with Whitefield’s orphanage and his publicity machine behind the effort, Woolman’s proposed “free produce” movement might have gotten off the ground during his lifetime rather than percolating slowly for another generation. Abolition might have been accelerated by decades, saving and liberating millions of lives.

Yet what I’m most intrigued by here is the road not taken, the road never taken. I’m thinking of the beautiful possibility of something that our timeline, our real world, has never seen: The potential existence of an evangelical Christianity that was not intrinsically and inextricably bound up with racism.

Here my imagination fails me. I cannot envision such a thing because I have never seen such a thing. The real world has never seen such a thing on any meaningful scale. Is it even possible? I don’t know.

But what if?

Previous Post

February 5, 2019

Postcards from the class & culture wars (2.5.19)

Next Post

February 7, 2019 Milgram's gatekeepers

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Paul tell Timothy to flee from in 2 Timothy?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Evil desires of youth Persecution The love of money False teaching