Aug. 15, 2015, column:
'Watchman' challenges moral injustice
By Mike Haynes
The only people in these parts who paid much attention to
the unveiling of “To Kill A Mockingbird” writer Harper Lee’s second novel last
month seem to have been English teachers, librarians and a few bookworms like
me.
As with the much-hyped publication of books about a
certain young wizard, stores nationwide opened early to offer “Go Set A
Watchman,” the so-called sequel to “Mockingbird” that the reclusive Alabama
author had written before the 1960 classic and which had been “lost” for six
decades. But when I dragged myself to a bookstore at 7:30 a.m., I was one of only
three people snagging an early copy.
“Not quite Harry Potter, is it?” I quipped to the two
clerks as I exited.
In “Watchman,”
Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the child who became a beloved literary figure in
the first book, is in her 20s in the 1950s. She rides a train from her new
home, New York City, back to the Maycomb, Ala., that we know from
“Mockingbird.”
The new novel did make headlines because of the change in
her father, Atticus Finch, from the heroic attorney later played by Gregory
Peck in the movie version to a less admirable man in his 70s. That racial issue
has been analyzed to death, and while significant, my focus today is church.
In Chapter 12 of “Mockingbird,” the Finch housekeeper,
Calpurnia, takes the young Scout and her brother, Jem, to visit First Purchase
African M.E. Church. One woman member criticizes Calpurnia for bringing white
children to the service, but most of the black congregation welcomes Scout and
Jem.
It’s a poor, 1930s church, “with no sign of piano, organ,
hymn-books, church programs” that the Finches are used to. Reverend Sykes,
prominent in a later courtroom scene, preaches strongly about sin. And maybe
the most telling aspect of the service is how the members support each other,
especially as a collection is taken for Helen Robinson, whose husband Tom is in
jail unjustly.
“Watchman” gives us a glimpse of Scout’s own church,
which she attends while on her visit from New York. Real-life Methodists
certainly will recognize this 1950s southern service. In Chapter 7, Lee writes:
“Immediately after collection, Maycomb Methodists sang what they called the
Doxology … ‘Praise – God – from – whom – all – blessings – flow…’”
Those who gnash their teeth over music styles in the 21st
century should know that worship controversies are nothing new. Jean Louise describes
her uncle accosting Herbert, the music director, after church because he had
sped up the Doxology, causing confusion in the pews. The members were used to a
slower version.
The music leader explains that a New Jersey instructor
had encouraged the change in a music course Herbert had taken at Camp Charles
Wesley: “He said we ought to pep up the Doxology.” The instructor also had
condemned traditional hymns, such as those by Fanny Crosby.
The Finch uncle won’t stand for that: “Apparently our
brethren in the Northland are not content merely with the Supreme Court’s
activities. They are now trying to change our hymns on us. He tries to make us
sing the Doxology like we were all in Westminster Abbey, does he?”
The Doxology argument struck a minor chord with me. I
grew up in a Texas Panhandle Methodist church hearing it sung at a fairly quick
pace. Suddenly one Sunday, my mother, the organist, was dragging the notes at
the end of lines, apparently the way it was written in a new, modern hymnal. I
didn’t hear complaints, but I’m sure there were some.
Author Lee seems to make a point about the triviality of
a music disagreement compared to serious issues facing blacks and whites of the
time. The uncle’s Supreme Court reference probably was to 1954’s Brown v. Board
of Education, which did away with segregated schools.
The new book’s title comes from this church service. The
Rev. Stone preaches from Isaiah 21:6: “For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go,
set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.”
Former Alabama
United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon wrote last month that he believes the new
novel is a Christian one, maybe even a Methodist one in the sense that his
denomination historically has challenged moral injustice. And he suggests that
in addition to other criticism, some of the negative response to the book may
be because “Lee has written as a Christian.”
