VCU news

By Dina Weinstein

To overcome the zero-sum mindset that permeates modern society – where one person’s gain must mean another’s loss – the words of Abraham Lincoln can ring as true now as they did more than a century ago, a Lutheran pastor told a Virginia Commonwealth University audience last week.

Peter W. Marty, an Iowa-based retired pastor and editor/publisher of The Christian Century magazine, delivered the VCU Department of History’s 30th annual William E. and Miriam S. Blake Lecture in the History of Christianity on April 3 at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. With a theme of “The Wisdom of Lincoln for a Zero-Sum World,” Marty drew contrasts between the actions and rhetoric of today – whether seen in pets or politics – and the sensibility that the 16th U.S. president exhibited during an existential crisis in America.

Marty noted how his lovable pet dog gobbled his kibble, even when there were no predators nearby – and when resources are abundant.

“What this dog of ours brought into every day was the logic of scarcity,” Marty said. “It’s a logic that plays heavily into zero-sum behavior. We convince ourselves in any realm we inhabit – medical, social, racial, religious, economic, political – that we’re dealing with a fixed quantity of resources or prosperity or potential for well-being. Our psyche takes some ugly turns. And for some people, it even takes an aggressive or angry turn.”

From a Christian perspective, Marty touched on topics that are often viewed as zero-sum propositions – envy, eternal hell and racism, among them – and questioned why one’s appreciation for what one has in life should depend on someone else having less.

“Is this a world of expanding possibility, where the pie is growing and the opportunity for all to benefit is real? Or is it a zero-sum world we live in where the pie is, if not, shrinking – certainly appears to be?” he asked. “Is the world we inhabit and the circles we move in full of abundance, or are we threatened by scarcity? Is your own vision for America an expansive one, or is it a more shrunken and constrictive one?”

Marty cited the dangers of framing issues around scarcity. He reminded the audience how segregationists closed public schools and swimming pools rather than accept integration, and how modern issues – from immigration to global economics – are often framed by zero-sum thinking, with a world view based on constrictive scarcity as opposed to expansive camaraderie.

In contrast, Marty pivoted to Lincoln’s rhetoric as an inclusive counterpoint. In speeches using words like “all” and “both,” the president who served from 1861 to 1865 outlined a collective imperative for the nation amid the horrors of the Civil War.

Marty spotlighted Lincoln’s famous, sermonlike second inaugural speech and its resounding conclusion: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Marty noted how Lincoln, in his speeches, never used the first-person singular pronoun, (I, me), preferring to speak of we and us. Lincoln also took cues from biblical stories of nation-building and survival, and the strong need to “cling to the highest of morals and cohesion.” He viewed the entire nation, together under God’s judgment, as culpable for slavery and war – not one side versus another.

“Nothing in his writings, if you dissect them and analyze them, ever speak of winning,” Marty said. “That’s because the language of a winner suggests there is a loser. And the sense of national identity that Lincoln prized was much more oriented toward the kind of covenantal understanding, quoting Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, where certain social goods are cherished, and by social goods, I mean … caring for victims, cherishing justice, pursuing peace.”

In 1994, the first Blake Lecture was presented by Marty’s father, who was professor of church history at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Lecture organizer and History Department professor and chair Andrew Crislip, Ph.D., said Marty was a logical choice for this year’s 30th annual gathering (COVID canceled the 2020 event) because of the family connection and the pastor’s work as a publisher of a thoughtful, general readership periodical.

“Peter Marty at Christian Century really models how to bring scholarly voices together with the community,” Crislip said. “A lot of what he said resonated with my work on ancient Christianity, especially the way he spoke about envy as a motivating source.”

When Marty spoke about segregationists who filled in a pool instead of opening it to people of all races, Crislip saw the connection to his research on Saint Abba Shenouda the Archimandrite (348-466 A.D.), who wrote sermons attacking his monks for being envious. “You fill up springs,” he wrote – meaning they destroyed water sources so that no one can use them, which reflected a model of envy.

“When I heard Peter talk about closing swimming pools, filling them up out of envy,” Crislip said, “it made me think: Wow, we are still dealing with some of these deep human conflicts.”

The lecture was attended by namesake William E. Blake, Ph.D., now 95 and a retired history professor emeritus. And carrying forward the spirit of sharing wisdom, Sam Ulmschneider, a teacher at the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School, received the VCU History Department’s Graduate Alumni Achievement Award for his ongoing research, classroom teaching and impact leading students in the “We the People” civic education program.

“I teach Lincoln. I really enjoy teaching his speeches. I slow down all of my courses so that I have time to actually read the whole of at least a few Lincoln speeches with my students,” said Ulmschneider, who earned his master’s at VCU in 2008. “And this gave me yet another angle that I can use to provoke a discussion or ask students to think about.”