Engaging in fiction, even older classic writers, can provide insight for pastors. The received stereotype of the village pastor, for better or worse, produce expectations, which should cease, nevertheless continue. Once upon a time, the minister provided stability by the expectations he ever-lived to perpetuate. The parson’s ghost often surfaces in the whispers of parishioners in rural communities today. Expectations in Oldtown parishes often catch pastors by surprise. But first, a short word about Harriet Beecher Stowe the author of Oldtown Folks…
The Romantic Irony of Harriet Beecher Stowe
Oldtown Folks, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1869, is a treasure-trove of caricatures. Stowe writes from the vantage point of nostalgia. The voice of an older man wishing to preserve the memories of his New England childhood tells her story. Stowe cannot hide the romanticism of her era which often frequently breaks through as humorous critique and commendation. There is an intentional irony which pervades her writing that is both enjoyable and thought provoking.
Before we consider the Oldtown Parish, we might do well to understand Harriet Beecher Stowe’s background. Stowe was a prolific writer during the years preceding the American Civil War through the end of the Gilded age. Stowe’s husband (Calvin Ellis Stowe) was a professor of Biblical Literature at Lane Theological and then religion professor at Bowdoin College and finally at Andover Theological. Harriet grew up in the nurture of the New England Theological tradition. Her father was Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian pastor and temperance leader. Her brother was the famous Brooklyn pastor Henry Ward Beecher.
Harriet’s most famous work was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which attacked slavery. Not only did she fight slavery, she also severely criticized the received Calvinism from her New England forefathers. Her brother, at times creating scandal, also diverged from his upbringing by preaching a love-only gospel suited more to the growing liberalism in the Romantic period and the widening distance from their received, however distorted, New England Calvinism.
Expectations of the Minister and Wife
Stowe, a remarkably gifted writer, lets loose her arrows aimed at the problems of the past and her present. Since these issues tend to resurface in every generation, we should consider the potential misconceptions, which may arise in people’s perception of the minister and wife. Harriet writes:
” In those days, of New England, the minister and his wife were considered the temporal and spiritual superiors of everybody in the parish. The idea which has since gained ground, of regarding the minister and his family as a sort of stipendiary attachment and hired officials of the parish, to be overlooked, schooled, advised, rebuked, and chastened by every deacon and deacon’s wife or rich and influential parishioner, had not then arisen. Parson Lothrop was so calmly awful in his sense of his own position and authority, that it would have been a sight worth seeing to witness any of his parish coming to him, as deacons and influential parishioners now-a-days feel at liberty to come to their minister, with suggestions and admonitions.”
Oldtown Folks, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Old Town and the Minister.”
In Stowe’s mouth, “now-a-days” is funny because it sounds contemporary even though she was writing over 150 years ago. Her point, however, should be well-taken. Distance does not always create deference. Sometimes distance creates unhealthy power structures. Familiarity and deference is a formula which is nearly impossible to achieve. Still, to smell like the sheep is a worthy goal. Time with the flock creates capacity for reception of the Word. Familiarity, in most cases, allows deacons to converse and not to critique. There are ways to overcome the expectations of oldtown parishes.
The Oldtown Parish Meeting-House
In those days “going to meeting” was a way of life. According to the young narrator, most could not afford to be absent from church. If they did not come for the sermon, they most certainly came to see the new bonnet on the minister’s wife. To miss seeing the spectacle would be to lose opportunity to converse during the week. In a community with little worldly entertainment at their fingertips, the duty of “going to meeting” brought the whole village into one sheep fold. To be absent from meeting could be a very lonely experience. Horace describes the eerie lonesomeness of absence from the assembly:
“I remember in my early days, sometimes when I had been left at home by reason of some of the transient ailments of childhood, how ghostly and supernatural the stillness of the whole house and village outside the meeting-house used to appear to me, how loudly the clock ticked and the flies buzzed down the window-pane, and how I listened in the breathless stillness to the distant psalm-singing, the solemn tones of the long prayer, and then to the monotone of the sermon, and then again to the closing echoes of the last hymn, and thought sadly, what if some day I should be left out, when all my relations and friends had gone to meeting in the New Jerusalem, and hear afar the music from the crystal walls.”
Oldtown Folks, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The Old Meeting-House.”
In subsequent passages, Stowe gives recognition to the strong point of the Blue Laws and Puritan strictness of yesterday. In spite of the “rude and primitive” meeting house, Sunday created a weekly union of all the classes in the community. Sunday worship was a truly magnetic power to keep society respectable. Given the necessity to spruce up and be presentable every seventh day, Sunday worship ensured community standards. Certainly, there was a benefit of a community parish. Not only did it provide opportunity keep up appearances, it also guaranteed a reliable audience to receive biblical instruction. In an era of limited group communication, everyone heard the same messages and messaging. Stowe critiques this singular pulpit by introducing theological controversy when characters visit alternate parishes and come back chattering about new doctrines.
Expectation and Waiting on the Word
While dressed in humor, Harriet Beecher Stowe shows the drastic change in her day, which is only magnified exponentially in our own. How wonderful might our day be if the sheep waited with reverence to receive God’s Word. Perhaps these expectations in oldtown parishes could continue? Hear, hear:
“The mixed and motley congregation came in with due decorum during the ringing of the first bell, and waited in their seats the advent of the minister. The tolling of the bell was the signal for him that his audience were ready to receive him, and he started from his house. The clerical dress of the day, the black silk gown, the spotless bands, the wig and three-cornered had and black gloves, were items of professional fitness which, in our minister’s case, never failed of a due attention. When, with his wife leaning on his arm, he entered at the door of the meeting-house, the whole congregation rose and remained reverently standing until he had take his seat in the pulpit. The same reverential decorum was maintained after service was over, when all reminded standing an uncovered while the minister and his family passed down the broad aisle and left the house. Our fathers were no man-worshippers, but they regarded the minister as an ambassador from the great Sovereign of the universe, and paid reverence to Him whose word he bore in their treatment of him.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oldtown Folks, “The Old Meeting-House.”
In each of these snapshots, Stowe provides commentary upon the generation at the end of the eighteenth century. In these vignettes, one can see how a Second Great Awakening might occur, or perhaps a Third should the positive stereotypes return. Yet, in the Oldtown Parish, one can see how spiritual abuse might occur. The tension of familiarity must stand against a reverence for the Word of God. Modern pastors would do well to consider the privilege, perils, and expectations of Oldtown Parishes.
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Good point about balance. Always needed. Sounds like a good read.
Thank you.