From Mascot to Trash

It’s a fuzzy memory, but it’s there. On Library Day in the elementary school I attended, I pulled from the shelves a biography of the Marquis de Lafayette. I remember liking the book, reading with fascination the exploits of one of the heroes of the American Revolution.

That was the early 1970s. But if I had been a student in the elementary schools of 21^st century Cumberland County, I probably would have never seen the book, let alone learned that Lafayette was a hero.

According to The Fayetteville Observer, Lafayette was to be the mascot of an effort to teach school children to properly dispose of their trash. I’m not really sure why Lafayette would be the mascot for a program to teach kids to dump their trash, but since he is the name-sake for the city of Fayetteville, it is not too big of a stretch.

But in a staggering administrative misstep, last week Tim Kinlaw, the interim schools superintendent of Cumberland County, canceled the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the initiative. Why? Because Lafayette owned slaves. “I think in lieu of what’s going on around the nation and the sensitivity to issues concerning the history of slavery in the country, there was concern there that it may be offensive to some members of our community,” he explained.

Maybe. Maybe not. But Kinlaw seems to be far more concerned about avoiding hurt feelings than he is about education. What do the students and parents of Cumberland County learn by this decision? They learn that if a person has done great things, but has a blight on his record, that blight erases any good he has done or any potential he may have in the future.

Lafayette was a brilliant aristocrat and visionary leader who rose above his peers by taking a proactive role in securing the freedoms of people he had never met. He became a close friend of Washington, Jefferson, and many of our other Founders, and he used his wealth and skill to lend a hand to the American Revolution in ways that are impossible to catalogue in this blog. And yes, he owned slaves. No one condones that. He was a product of his generation. But what makes him heroic, along with joining the cause of the American Revolution at 19 years old, is that he was also an abolitionist.

That’s right. Lafayette was a member of the French abolitionist group, “Society of the Friends of the Blacks,” and he assisted Jefferson in the writing of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which urged universal rights for all people, which, he clearly believed, meant freedom for all people. He urged Washington to seek the emancipation of the slaves. I could continue, but you get the idea.

My point is that in his fear of insulting “some members of the community,” Kinlaw missed an opportunity, indeed, a moment to truly teach children what it means to be great. Rather than discard Lafayette for his transgression, he could have demonstrated that greatness resides within fallible people, that heroes do not have to be perfect, and that no one has to be hampered by the conventions of their generation when they aspire to greatness.

Imagine if God had operated like Mr. Kinlaw. When choosing heroes, God would have jettisoned the name of Moses, who, as a prince in Egypt, oversaw an economy that depended on—yes–slaves. And, well, he was a murderer. There’s that.

And of course God would have tossed out Peter. After all, he denied Christ. One evening as a coward would have disqualified him from every other chance to serve God.

And Paul? Really? He knew his past better than anyone, and he was shocked at the chance to leave it behind. “‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’—and I am the worst of them. But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:15-16).

The Tim Kinlaws of this world make an example of us because of our past. God makes an example of us so others will believe in His power to forgive. Aren’t you glad that God, in His grace, would rather apply His forgiveness to prove His power than leave us stranded on the dirt floor of a past full of failures?

If you are letting one past failure keep you from greatness, most likely you are listening to what people say about you. Maybe it is time you started listening to God.