A Devilish Cancer in our Church

Salem Village, Massachusetts, 1692. After a round of "fits" by a group of young girls, the villagers began to suspect that something much more sinister was at work. Fearing that the underlining cause of all the raucous behavior was the demonic influence of witchcraft, the villagers set about to determine who had consorted with the devil. The final result is that nearly no one in the village was safe from such accusation, and twenty people were executed for being unrepentant "witches," including one minister. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM

Most people know this story from Arthur Miller's classic play The Crucible from the 1950s. Others might only know the play through the film based on the play starring Winona Ryder (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115988/). Nevertheless, the story is as compelling as it is enigmatic, perhaps why it is so compelling. We are drawn to look at it, like a train wreck--or a shorn, rehab-hopping Brintney Spears. We do not know why we are so fascinated by its macabre characteristics, but we are. And the saddest part of all, to me at least, is that when looking at the Salem trials, we are in actuality looking at ourselves in costume but are too blind to realize it.

In preparation for my comprehensive exam in Early United States' History, I read a fascinating study of the Salem witchcraft trials by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum entitled Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BOYSAX.html). In this book, Boyer and Nissenbaum argue that the reason that the accusations of witchcraft were so high is that the lower class villagers were exercising their means of gaining social equality with the more wealthy villagers. Interesting thesis, nonetheless. But the most interesting notes that the authors make is their comparison between the Salem witchcraft trials and the Northampton revivals under Jonathan Edwards that supposedly started the "First Great Awakening" (if there was such a thing, don't get me started). In both instances, a groups of youth experience enthusiastic "spiritual" encounters. Whereas Edwards took this and ran with it to preach that God was stirring the young hearts of Northampton, Salem villagers feared what such a young crowd could do to disrupt the social order. In the process of the trials, villagers focused their energies in pointing the finger at everyone else and less at inspecting their own lives. Please allow me to insert a lengthy quote from Boyer and Nissenbaum's book:

"Public confession--the attendance of the community was crucial--was a ceremony through which a deviant individual might be transformed, forgive, and reintegrated into the community. The offense of witchcraft was certainly too serious to premit confession alone to stand for justice. Still, whenever it was possible in 1692--whenever an accused witch confessed in the course of the public examination--this ritual was attempted, and it seems to have had some temporary therapeutic value for everybody concerned. In 1692, if we are correct, this familiar ritual would have taken on a particular resonance for the accusers and on-lokers, since the confession they had drawn from the mouths of the accused was surely one that on some level they themselves longed to make. By first projecting upon others the unacknowledged impulses which lay within themselves, and then absolving those they had accused, the accusers could bring such impulses into the open air, gain at least temporary mastery over them [the impulses], and thereby affirm their commitment to social values in which they very much wanted to believe. It is surely no coincidence that not one of the confessing witches was hanged." (p. 215)

Thus Boyer and Nissenbaum (to be sure, they are not Christians) recognized that the most important part of social healing was that each person recognize his or her own feelings of ill will and to apologize to the community.

Why can we not do this even today? We look back in time and cast judgment on the Salem Puritans, but to a lesser degree we are still pointing our fingers at others who have hurt us without looking at how our bitterness is hurting others. I heard and interesting story about Tasmanian devils a few weeks ago. Thousands of Tasmanian devils are dying of ravenous cancer that infects the devils' mouths. For a long time, scientists could not figure out why the cancer was spreading so quickly. They they learned. When Tasmanian devils fight, they bare their teeth chomp into one another's faces. In the process, cancer spreads from a bitten devil to his assailant. The aggressor in turn is infected with the cancer. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0227_060227_tasmanian.html

I think on some level we all have a little Tasmanian devil in us. The only thing is that our anger at one another is a cancerous sin. When we attack a backslider in our church or a spokesperson for an opposing view than our own regarding church affairs, we bare our teeth and sink them right into his or her sin. In return, we sin because of how we are so quick to judge or to hate. I make it my prayer that I never bare my teeth in sin at someone else. Instead, I hope to be that confessor who comes before my church, my family, and my God and repents of the ill feelings I have harbored against someone else. I hope that is your prayer also.