the history of faith with Rachel Whitaker, part 2 (ep 3, 06).

In the conclusion of a two-part conversation, historian Rachel Whitaker of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History moves from the Civil War era into the twentieth century and the present day. Whitaker reveals the Ku Klux Klan's deep integration with church culture in 1920s Northwest Arkansas, reading from newspaper advertisements where the Klan pledged loyalty to local churches, describing ministers who invited congregations to Klan events, and documenting the organization's use of scripture and Christian vocabulary to justify exclusion, violence, and forced conformity. She traces the direct line between the social enforcement of early frontier churches and the Klan's more extreme methods, noting that the charges were the same, only the consequences had changed.

The conversation also holds the stories of resistance and welcome. Whitaker tells the story of a Fayetteville congregation that voted overwhelmingly in the 1950s to welcome a Black college student, whose sister was one of the Little Rock Nine — over the objection of 39 members who signed a petition to block her membership. She names the women of Black churches who sheltered civil rights workers, and contemporary congregations doing justice work today. The episode closes with Whitaker's personal reflection on the relationship between faith and institutional power, and her advice to anyone navigating this landscape: read your sacred texts on your own, and if you're Christian, read the red letters.

https://www.theunderview.com/the-history-of-faith-with-rachel-whitaker-part-2

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

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Transcript

rachel whitaker.: 0:02

I think as a historian too, like I understand how much has been done in the name of God, how many evil things have been done in the name of God, not because of any person's individual internal faith but because of how it's been used by mankind, how it's been used by political structures to convince the masses that this is the right thing to do. I have a background in Middle Eastern studies, so the Abrahamic religions, all three of them and others because that's not all that's there. But, I haven't encountered a single religion that at its core is hateful or promotes violence. It's how people use it to justify what they do that becomes the problem. Now we can debate, whose religion is right? All we want to, but at their core, there's not a single one that I have found yet. They all promote love of your fellow human.

mike rusch.: 0:58

Um, You're are listening to the underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place. My name is Mike Rusch, and this is part two of our episode with historian Rachel Whitaker from the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. In part one, Rachel walked us through the arrival of faith in northwest Arkansas. The circuit riders, the early church meeting minutes that functioned as social law, the denominations fracturing over slavery, and the founding of black churches. In part two of this episode, the conversation moves into even harder territory. Rachel takes us into the 20th century where the KKK integrated itself deeply into church culture across northwest Arkansas. She reads from newspaper ads where the clan pledge consecrated devotion to the churches. She describes ministers who preached their virtues of Christ and then invited their congregations to Klan picnics. She tells the story of a white man in Harrison who was lynched by clan members, not for race, but for failing to conform, and she names the mechanisms the same charges, the 1830 churches used to expel people from their fellowship. The Klan enforced with violence, but Rachel also brings the other side. And she tells the story of a black college student in the 1950s whose congregation voted to welcome her in despite the objection of some of their members. She names the courage of women of black churches who sheltered civil rights workers and even more. And then Rachel unpacks something that has stayed with me. From her historical and human point of view from the Crusades to present she talks about the relationship between faith and power. All right, this is part two. Let's get into it. I am curious you mentioned ideology, is there a way to characterize maybe what that ideology was at that time of this deep fracture?

rachel whitaker.: 3:36

I think so many people got hung up. I don't know that you can say that it's any one ideology though. That's the thing is there's so many different factors in the Civil War and even in reconstruction after.'cause there's a lot of violence that, that occurs after that.'cause you have, then you have the Jim Crow laws, you have all these different things. There's so many factors. But yes, there's always that dehumanizing or that othering, not necessarily dehumanizing, but at least othering of the other side of it where, I don't know, it's almost like you lose your empathy and you can't try to at least see it from the other side. I think, I don't know, I think we do this sometimes as historians with Nazi Germany, we just wanna make them all bad guys. And honestly, they're humans, like the rest of us. They make hard decisions, sometimes bad decisions. But like, how did they come to that? That's where I think historians are constantly trying to understand. Why did you make this decision? Why did you do this? And I think that's why in the Civil War, I don't think there's that one answer because I think so many historians have said it's a religious thing, or it's a political thing, or it's a economic thing, or it's, there's so many factors and sometimes it's just 'cause all your neighbors were, it's peer pressure, and you don't wanna be outside that group. So I, I think that might be an, another part of it too, is just that collective identity.

monica kumar.: 5:05

That resonates a lot, Rachel, when you brought in group think and collectivism and then really, I think I find the historical analysis of people who don't do that. I don't join the group think that I feel like history. There's so much to learn that because

rachel whitaker.: 5:23

why didn't they,

monica kumar.: 5:24

why didn't they? Because I will, I always question, I'm always questioning for myself, like, where would, what would I have done during Nazi Germany? What would I have done? And the statistics tell me I would've gone right along.

rachel whitaker.: 5:37

Most people did.. And even Nazi Germany, starts out as a Christian movement. It's a Christian nationalist movement. I think 95% of Germans at the time were Christian, like one denomination or another. And they used not, used their Christian beliefs to justify a lot of what happened during and after. And and that's so hard for me but I also know that given that moment, like if I were put in that position, would I, or would I not say yes or no, would I fall into that and. I would like to think, I would say no.'Cause there's a lot of things I'm saying no to right now. Yeah, but that's because there's usually a face that I have in mind when I think of that other, that everybody else is turning against. I have those friends, I have those, sometimes it's me, sometimes it's not even the friend. Sometimes it's me that I'm like, oh my gosh. Like I would be part of that. But I don't know. Gosh, I don't know. In Nazi Germany. And I would like to think that I would stand up, but I don't know.

monica kumar.: 6:40

Yeah, no, the same. And one of the, one of our earlier episodes, Mike and I had so many 10, so many tension conversations around what is faith, what is what is ideology, right? Yes. What does politics and what is nationalism? And I, for me, and I will only speak for me, these are all questions of, these are all internal sacred faith questions. Yeah. What do I believe? What is God inside me? What is God leading me to? Leading me to believe, to love to care. And then as soon as it becomes external, that feels open to interpretation and it feels exactly like it can be collectively moved, but. I feel like I'm more and more sitting in quietness and stillness and just saying, okay, find your faith.

rachel whitaker.: 7:25

Yes. Yeah. The faith is the important, I think, important to me in a lot of ways. I and I, but I think as a historian too, like I understand how much has been done in the name of God, how many evil things have been done in the name of God, not because of any person's individual internal faith but because of how it's been used by men. And I say that like in mankind, I'm not picking on men but how it's been used by men, how it's been used by political structures to convince the masses that this is the right thing to do. And I haven't I have a background in Middle Eastern studies, so the Abrahamic religions, all three of them and others because that's not all that's there. But. I haven't encountered a single religion that at its core is hateful or promotes violence. It's how people use it to justify what they do. That becomes the problem. Now we can debate, whose religion is right? All we want to but at their core, there's not a single one that I have found yet. And there could be one, like there, somebody might surprise me, but at their core, none of them are violent or hateful. They all promote love of your fellow human. And probably some version of, what we have in Christianity, or at least in Protestantism, the love your neighbor and love God. Like those, that's the new covenant. Everything else goes out the window. Islam has that, like there's one God, and then everything else that's in the Quran, in, the sur is the Hadi. All of that is about how you love God and how you love your neighbor. Is Judaism's the same thing? It's just how people take it and do something with it.

monica kumar.: 9:12

and it reminds me of something you brought up earlier. It's, it's when it is utilized and used as a system of power. Then it, for me, for me,it feels like it's moved so far away from faith.

mike rusch.: 9:27

Maybe a question around this time too. I think it's easy obviously to focus on the parts of our history and we should we we need to make sure we're absolutely doing that where there is conflict and maybe where the church was on the wrong side of things.

rachel whitaker.: 9:39

Sure.

mike rusch.: 9:39

But I'm curious from our, record here in Northwest Arkansas, do we have stories or examples of when the church. Like it was on the right side.. We talked about the Methodist Episcopal South, but there was a Methodist Episcopal North.

rachel whitaker.: 9:51

Episcopal North,

mike rusch.: 9:51

yeah.

rachel whitaker.: 9:51

And not very many, but there were,

mike rusch.: 9:53

I'm curious what you find in our record about that story.

rachel whitaker.: 9:56

Sure. So definitely in the black churches the women, God, the women, we need to celebrate the women in church especially in the black churches. They are the glue that hold those communities together. They ostracize men if they voted against their best interests, but they also are the ones who invited the civil rights workers into their own homes. They fed them, they sheltered them when they came here during the Civil Rights movement. And we did have that even in northwest Arkansas. We normally think about that more in like Mississippi burning kind of terms, but here we actually, we had groups that came. And and it was those ladies in the churches especially the black churches who were doing that. In Fayetteville, there was a Christian Church. It's Fayetteville First Christian, and they they had a rule that, and this is in the 1950s, that if you were a member of another Christian Church somewhere else, and you were going to college at the University of Arkansas, then you could come in through letter and join their congregation while you were there. And it wasn't you giving up your membership elsewhere, but you were welcome to take part in all parts of that congregation through a letter saying that you were a member of someplace else. So the minister welcomed a young girl who was a college student into the congregation. There was also a rule that said that if the minister allowed somebody into the congregation under these rules, then they could object and they would have to hold a vote on whether or not this girl could join the congregation. And 39 people signed a petition. To block this girl from joining the church because she was black. The minister was like, fine, we're gonna vote on it. I trust my congregation. They overwhelmingly voted against those 39 people and they welcomed that girl into the church. Her sister was one of the Little Rock nine at Central High School. So we have that moment where, we have the petition, we have the names. I'm not gonna name names because some of these people are still around 'cause this was the fifties because we have that moment where this, the rest of the congregation just overwhelmingly said no. She's a child of God. She belongs in our congregation. This is, and they let her into the fold. And I, I think that's important. They also first Christian Church in Fayetteville also hosted some Vietnam refugees so that they could go to school, they could stay together as siblings. And I, I think that's, that there are a lot of good churches in the area, but I think it is easy to hear. We like the gossip, we like those awful stories because they are, we want a clear villain. And sometimes it's a lot more complicated than that. But yes, there are good examples in northwest Arkansas of what a church should look like. And Biari. As a Muslim man, he's a businessman here in northwest Arkansas. He built the synagogue. Like how often do we talk about Muslim and Judaism, like in a good way together. So yeah I think there's good here in Northwest Arkansas.

monica kumar.: 13:11

I was just gonna share, like personally, Rachel, we moved to Northwest Arkansas 12 years ago and I've never been, I grew up in London. I've never been in a community that. That it's like I've never been in a place that feels so like churches and the Christian faith, like foundational in it. Yes, because before that I lived in San Francisco and I remember being really nervous and worried that we would not fit in as people who are brown as people who for myself, I wasn't from the country, so I wasn't American and I was really concerned for my son who's four and just the experience that he would grow up in and. Almost, the majority of our friends and the people that welcomed us and built com and helped us build foundations of community in northwest Arkansas. Were Christian and are Christian. And my experience as someone coming in it I, I think it's really important for me to, to share that, like I had my own biases when I walked in and my own assumptions about what A Christian sort of foundational Christian community might look like. That had a lot of churches and people, people are committed to Sunday service, sometimes Wednesday services, sometimes more than that. And yeah, it, I'm not the same person as I was 12 years ago in a really good deep way because of. The community, largely Christian community that I have connected with and grown to love and call friend, friend. Yeah. So I think that there's there's also the quiet social infrastructure of Christianity in the church. There is the the building of hospitals and there is the the schools and we see that. But there's also just, neighbor, the neighbor,

rachel whitaker.: 14:56

neighbor part. Yes.

monica kumar.: 14:57

The neighbor part of it. And the infrastructure that's built that's social and connected and that really and truly integrates a sense of belonging and love and care. And I wanna uplift that because that has been my personal experience. I know. I can speak to that. Yeah.

rachel whitaker.: 15:12

I think it's, I think also it's the individual people and I think that's where I'm at. On my walk on this is there are really good individual people, even whenever there are some really bad things going on in the name of God or in the name of whatever church denomination, there are really good people still there who want to do the right thing, who really do care about other people. And I think that's the part that has given me hope and has kept me holding on as long as it has, is the individuals.

monica kumar.: 15:46

Yeah. And that is not to say that I have not experienced incredibly hard experiences And that is also true. And the two can both be true. And I think that. As a community, as a, as people. And I feel as a country, we find it really hard to hold an and perspective.

rachel whitaker.: 16:07

Right.

monica kumar.: 16:07

Two things can be true. That we can, and there can be tension there, and we can sit with that and grapple with that. And I feel like one of the things that historians like you help us do is make sense of that tension. And I love when you bring into the room we could have taken a different pathway.

mike rusch.: 16:25

You guys really want to get to like the current day. One of the, one of the periods in our history, early 19 hundreds, 1920s we moved to this era, this Jim Crow era. And I think one of the things that has been hard for me to understand is is that sometimes I feel like the history is when we talk about the Klan, the the KK, K there seems to be, and this is totally my impression, right? Which is why I'm coming to you to for what the record looks like. Is that there's this idea that well, it was a social organization and it wasn't that bad and everybody was a part of it. And it wasn't till you know, later that it it got really problematic and that, and everybody that influenced it in that society. They, they, They had already left at that point. Sure. That feels like a prevailing narrative. I don't know if that's true or not. So I come to you and ask, like when you look at the history of Northwest Arkansas and the integration of organizations like that, which still exists today in our state today and are active. I'm curious when you look through the long view of history here, back, maybe back to the origin, maybe give us a place to start with what the reality of these organizations were and if you can come all the way as far forward as you want today.

rachel whitaker.: 17:34

Sure. So the Klan, the original clan, Nathan Bedford Forest Clan, the federal government says this is illegal. This is a bad thing. It's not a matter of freedom of speech. This is a hate group. They shut it down. It doesn't have a very long history. It goes underground. They named themselves some other things. It doesn't disappear. Let's be honest, it's still there. But the 1920s, you have this rise of what we call the second coming of the KKK to add that like Christian narrative and vocabulary to it. But it actually starts out as a northern movement and not a southern movement. We generally think of it as a southern movement. And they do they market themselves as like a benevolent society, like the Masons or the odd Fellows, or it's just another secret society that everybody wants to belong to. But they would go and they would go to the city governments and say, we wanna start a clan here. Do you guys want us to help you with like law and order? Fayetteville says, no, we're good. We don't need you. They go ahead and they form one and they have a hundred people within the first few months. So you know, they're hosting barbecues and parades usually around 4th of July or decorations day, what we now call Memorial Day. So when we think of those celebrations, even like the KKK is a part of those kinds of. Big things. They built parks at Lincoln and in Rogers the one at Lincoln was specifically set aside as a clan. Like timeshare, it was $5 a year for your membership. This is new information, not a whole lot of people know about. I just come across it not too long ago. And then, but then you start listening to the, like the rhetoric that they're using. And so they're using the Bible, like they're quoting scripture a lot of the times out of context. Like anybody can do, but they're using scripture. But who's gonna argue with that? If you're gonna be using scripture to justify what you're doing who's gonna argue with the Bible? Like in a Christian community they promote a hundred percent Americanism, whatever that means. They're really consumed with the loosening moral fabric of society. So they want women in the home raising babies, and they want men being men. And they're, prohibitionists, they want women to be modest. They're anti pornography and anti smut. They they're ultranationalists. So nationalism is like a at its core, it's just a pride in your own national identity, right? But ultra nationalism is this much bigger thing where your country is the best country in the world. And that's not just because that's what you're familiar with and you love your country, it's because nobody else can compete with this. So they they get to the, they publish in the Fayetteville Daily Democrat " to our churches of which we are members. We pledge a deeper loyalty and a more consecrated devotion assuring our ministers that this organization founded it is upon the Christian religion and pledged in service to Christ stands as your coworker in all you seek to do." The clan publishes this in the newspaper and sends it out to the churches in the area. They're a Christian organization. That's how they're promoting themselves. They're opposed to birth control. They think birth control's horrible until we get into the eugenics movement and they realize, oh, we can make sure other people are not having babies.'cause we want to outbreed those groups. The ladies in the community that, like the young ladies that their dads remember of the KKK, they would have these luncheons and these picnics that they would host and they'd have all the single ladies. And then they would bring in all the young men in the KKK and it's a husband hunting picnic. This is how they're going about this. So like, so you have them like doing all of these things that look very Christian, look very like on the surface. They have in 1924 at Alpena, at the group meeting, they have this minister Bradley who comes in and is their main speaker for the night. So the church is involved in this. They showed up at sulfur Springs, I don't know if I wrote down the date, but showed up at Sulfur Springs. Seven men, full regalia, hoods, everything. They show up to this church. It's a Methodist church. They walk in as a parade. Singing the Battle hymn of the Republic. Come in, make a donation and a speech to the minister. Tell him that we're here to support you. Walk back out very and like this was happening all the time. So like on the surface, they look like they fit with everything else that everybody else in society wants. It's a good Christian organization. They want, this morality, they want, they quote scripture but they're antisemites because they don't think that Jews have a home. So they don't, they can't be trusted. Catholics aren't Christians because they owe their loyalty to a Pope and not to Jesus Christ. They don't like black people. That ultra nationalism is a problem too because it's anti-immigrant. It's promotes xenophobia. And this is all like, really horrible because it's also being promoted as a Christian organization, and it's entering into that rhetoric in the churches. It's entering into that like decision who is moral and who is not moral, and how do they fit into this organization. Or this, they, their propaganda that they're using rewrites history. Like they're erasing all of the the things like slavery wasn't that bad. The, there's some horrible things. So they're very ingrained in our communities. They're very ingrained in our churches. They even told citizens you might have to give up some of your rights just to make the country safer. These things linger for a while.

mike rusch.: 23:35

I think my response is just holy but I can't probably publish that. I

rachel whitaker.: 23:40

Yeah. Well, and they were also at Christmas they some of the communities would have these baskets that were filled with the meals for the poor families that couldn't afford the meat or whatever. And this one year they had I think they had 80 of 'em that they couldn't, like the organization, Christian Aid Society or whatever that was supposed to be doing it, they couldn't get the funding for all those. And the KKK in that community came in and wrote a check and said Here so everybody can have a Christmas this year. And so again, I think we're back to that like tension between. There are good things, but there are also really bad things and people have a hard time with going, yes, they're doing some really good things, but at the same time, what do they really stand for? And these are my neighbors, these are my family members. They're, they're really good men, but they have some really horrible things that they stand for.

monica kumar.: 24:28

Rachel, can I ask you going a little bit back to the power conversation and linking it here, can you share a little bit about how the clan then helps reinforce that church power and hierarchy and specifically the people that are holding the power in the church? Because it's not normally regular congregants.

rachel whitaker.: 24:50

No. It's through violence. Quite simply they are going in and if a man is beating his husband, they will drag him out of the house and they will beat him. But if she might have it coming according to them because she's maybe promiscuous or somebody has rumored that she's cheating. So these are moral codes that are coming from the Christian culture, and they're going in and reinforcing this. And if you're challenging the church's authority, or you're questioning what's going on, then they're gonna come after you. So you have those early churches, right? The 1830s and 1840s. They're ostracizing you and judging you and shunning you. These guys are taking you out and beating you or lynching you, we, so they're the same things, same charges, but the way they're dealing with them is very different.

mike rusch.: 25:43

And this is we're talking about northwest Arkansas, right?

rachel whitaker.: 25:46

Sure, yeah. So Harrison, 1928, April of 1928, there's this Mason, right? White guy. White guy, not black mason, white Mason. It like it causes a problem because he's a white guy. He's a prominent member of the community, and he's a mason, but he's been charged with I don't know, beating his wife or something. They come and take him in the middle of the night and they tell his wife and his daughter, they're gonna bring him back. He'll be fine. They just wanna have a word with him. The KKK does this. They take him off, they find him lynched later on. It's not just black people, they're lynching. That's what I think people don't realize is this is across race. This is control and conformity, force conformity. And they're, they take him off. And so it causes this problem because this guy's a little more prominent in the community. He's a master mason. There's a lot of things about this hold on. We don't do this to our own kind of moment. And so like Harrison's, KKK goes a little more underground and they have these hearings and it's published in the newspaper. And like all the guys that they're interrogating and putting on the stand and everything are members of the KKK, but they're like, no, we did this on our own. It has nothing to do with the, they're protecting the institution of the KKK while they know they're probably going to go to prison for life or even be executed for this murder. And yet they're protecting the K, KK the same way. So I like, yes. Does that answer your this is how they deal with this. It's extreme.

mike rusch.: 27:14

Were there churches that were opposed to the clans speaking out in against it? Did we find record of that?

rachel whitaker.: 27:22

You do. Especially like in that early when the KKK came into Fayetteville and they were like, yeah, we don't need you kind of thing. The ministers were like, you, you really shouldn't do this. But then you also have other ministers who were like, this one guy, he gives a, a sermon and the title of his sermon, the newspaper publishes this it says, "what Ye of Christ?" That's the title of his sermon. And he talks about the virtues of Christ. And then at the end of the sermon, he invites everybody to go to the uh, KKK parade and Feedin because it's gonna be a swell time. And and then the few weeks later they publish, or a week later they published in the newspaper that like over 600, 700 people showed up to this, and Fayetteville's not a big town, massive town like it is now. So this is, this was a big deal.

mike rusch.: 28:10

This sounds like a significantly influential cultural institution.

rachel whitaker.: 28:15

They are. How much of this do you hear from the pulpits today? How much of this do you hear from people who claim to be Christian? The anti-immigrant status, the ultranationalist, women should be a certain way. But it's not just the comment it's the. It's the tone behind it, the the anger, the aggression that like, why is nobody doing something about this? Because I think some, I think that's where we get this gets complicated is some of this already is there in the Christian rhetoric. It's how you approach it, how you deal with it or how you address it. That becomes more the question I think because most Christian faith I think point mostly to that love your neighbor and love God. But also, like Christ says, if you see a woman who you think is dressed immodestly, it's your sin not hers because she's just living her life. You're supposed to gouge out your own eyes for looking at her that way. But we don't talk about it that way necessarily. And so like at what point did we shift and you start seeing some of this in this time period, and I don't know that it's all the KKK, but I do think that you see a lot of this rhetoric repeated in a lot of sermons and in a lot of places that are supposed to be the Christian sphere. And you're like, that's not biblical sense. I've read this before. I wanted to do to my students one time this is this Christian rhetoric or is this, the KKK, just to give them a con, what they did with the Pokemon and the prescription thing that you see on TikTok and stuff. But at what point do you know your scripture, like your own traditions well enough, or are you just buying into what somebody else is telling you is? And so I think that's where we get into some of this. But yeah, it's it's a horrible influence.

mike rusch.: 30:07

I think part of this conversation is in my own mind, like I'm trying to understand like the church within the structure of meaning and power. Like it's own ability to resist its own ability to accommodate. And it doesn't feel like a real clear line to me, although it, I, I think maybe in, I wanna make sure this is representative, historically, but it feels like within our conversation, this is a history of largely accommodation, is that. How do you view that? And I wanna make sure that I'm

rachel whitaker.: 30:37

accommodation for who,

mike rusch.: 30:39

Accommodation of the church to cultural I don't know if power is the right word, but cultural. Who's informing who here, I guess is my question. How do we see this?

rachel whitaker.: 30:49

I don't think

mike rusch.: 30:49

historically,

rachel whitaker.: 30:50

I don't think the church should be powerful. This is me. This is not a historian. This is me. I don't think the church should have power. I think when the power enters the conversation, it corrupts the faith and it corrupts the basic tenets of most people's faith. Just,

mike rusch.: 31:07

You say that as an individual, but that's based off of the history that you've seen. Yes. Is that a fair statement?

rachel whitaker.: 31:12

Yeah I think so.'cause if you look, if you go back to the Crusades, the rhetoric that the West used in the Crusades to justify what was done to the sns, the Turks whoever we thought we were at war with, was used again in the rhetoric after 9/11. You see that same kind of heathen and crusade and infidel and that's being used on both sides. Like it's on both sides. And that rhetoric still has power today. I think I said that as carefully as I can, but as honestly as I can. So yes, I think we have to be careful definitely with it because, church or faith what, regardless of what your faith is I think is how I should say this, regardless of what your faith is, I think it is very influential to the individual and I think when we let outside politics and outside authority and outside forces influence that, then we have to question. Is this really what my faith is about? Or is this a national movement or is this a political movement? Or is this even a philosophical movement and not necessarily about what I actually believe. And I, so yes, I think those outside influences can be very much corrupting,

monica kumar.: 32:41

Rachel, that story you shared maybe, and it was a little bit in humor about the picnic. Yeah, I'm coming back to that really deeply because. What you shared was that, the clan held a picnic and the minister mentioned to his congregation that here be, here's a lovely opportunity for you to go.

rachel whitaker.: 33:01

He's validating their existence.

monica kumar.: 33:04

Exactly, and I just think it ties a lot of the conversation we're having around power. Who is wielding the power? And then are people making individual decisions that are active or are they doing what collectively they believe is the best thing to do or the right thing to do at that time to build community and be a good Christian or, be a good member of a, of a mosque or be a good member of a,

rachel whitaker.: 33:29

right.

monica kumar.: 33:30

Still fill in the blank. And I just think that picnic example is so powerful and connects to what you're saying, and I really appreciate that.

rachel whitaker.: 33:38

And I think it muddies things too because when you hit that crossroads where you can go either way and maybe you're not completely sure about the decision that you should make in this moment, sometimes oftentimes we look to the collective for direction or for assistance and sometimes the group is wrong, but that's not, humans are social creatures by nature. So we do everything as a collective and there's some of us that don't, but as a general rule, we are a social creature. And so I think that those crossroads, I think that's where it gets interesting and I think especially whenever you start talking about faith and having that kind of influence, if you get to that crossroads of right and wrong, that we can look back as historians, with hindsight and with the whole picture. But you are sitting there and you have this moment where you're like, I don't know. They're quoting scripture. Like the church says this is okay, so maybe I am wrong in what I'm thinking. And so you go that path because the collective or because this authority, in sociology we talk about power and authority, and authority sometimes isn't necessarily about the power itself, it's about the knowledge or the expertise in that. And I think when it comes to right and wrong, most of the time individuals look to their faith for the answers for right or wrong. And so that puts a lot of pressure on those leaders in those, whatever your faith is, whatever you're, whether it's a temple, whether it's, a church, whatever. And I think we forget sometimes those are humans too, just like the rest of us. And that's where it gets messy.

monica kumar.: 35:23

Absolutely. Yeah. That, that it is an incredibly precarious, powerful, and maybe I'm not one, so I don't know, but maybe scary position to hold, to be the person who is leading and translating a faith for somebody.

rachel whitaker.: 35:40

Or you hope they take it that seriously?

mike rusch.: 35:42

Goodness gracious.

rachel whitaker.: 35:44

You've made me think a lot for the last few weeks, just so you know. Well,

mike rusch.: 35:48

You have returned that to me tenfold. You know, It's it's interesting because it's not just interesting I'll just speak this out 'cause I think this is part of the question, right? I never know what I'm getting in like, I'm in, I'm in way over my head at this point, Monica, but we're just gonna keep swimming. I guess what we're gonna do. I come here for two things, right? I come here for the like, what do we know objectively from the historical record and then what do we interpret from that, right? And what I hear you doing is yet a third thing, which is, this is how it works itself outta my life too, which is mm-hmm. which I shouldn't be surprised with.

rachel whitaker.: 36:26

I think history is hard Oh. As a discipline to start with. I, this is one of the things that I've always struggled with as a historian because I walk to my own beats. Like I do everything separate from a lot of the group. And as historians, were supposed to be objective. And I think the new school of thought is, you can't do that. You're human beings. You can't ever completely step outside of yourself. You're always gonna have your own experiences that are gonna color how you look at things. But one of the things that I think a lot of the times when we're trying to interpret the historical narrative is people are people. They've always been people. They will always be people. They're always gonna be messy and complicated driven by, whatever motivations. And it, I think for me, sometimes it's different because take the progressive movement, for example, for me, has always been that that linchpin moment where I realized how weird I was, even as a historian. So we look at the progressive movement a lot of the times is like moving towards labor laws and child labor laws and all of these things. And we look at as a good thing. I grew up poor. I had a job when I was 10, I got paid under the table for different things. Those labor laws actually were a hindrance to my family surviving. So I think sometimes my perspective looking at things is a little different. And I recognize that which is helpful, that I do recognize that. But sometimes I don't know how different it is till I talk to somebody else and I realize, oh, wow. Like I have a very different worldview than what other people do. And I think all historians come to that moment. And you always have your own in, experiences that are influencing things, but also those judgment calls. And I think that's where we, I don't know, as historians, maybe that's where the objectivity comes in as we try not to be as judgmental because we recognize, given that moment, what decision would I make. But there are some evil people in history I'm not gonna deny that, but who definitely went out of their way to make really bad choices. But but yeah as a rule, I think that's the hard part.

mike rusch.: 38:46

so as we think through this, these kind of major changes in Northwest Arkansas's history, we move into the sixties and seventies and obviously the emergence of huge new companies that really start to really change the demographics land use, all everything. Right. Right. What do we see within faith communities during this kind of coming maybe out of the civil rights era?

rachel whitaker.: 39:06

Sure.

mike rusch.: 39:06

And into, our modern day. Sure. What, What do you see within this kind of change?

rachel whitaker.: 39:11

So you do definitely see that putting a face and a name and a life to, to that other you've got these new neighbors that are moving into the area. We have the Hmong moving into the area. They're coming from a really horrible experience. They start out in Minnesota and Michigan, and then they start moving into northwest Arkansas into the eighties. But there is an awareness, oops, there is an awareness of what's going on. Globally our newspapers are printing that so you know what these people are coming from, what they're escaping sometimes, or and I think that makes a difference. You also start to see a decline in the eighties and nineties and even into the late seventies of people going to church. The churches that once had, paid choir directors and organ players and, multiple ministers and a church secretary, and, maybe a groundskeeper, a whole bunch of different positions are being, and janitors are now trying to figure out how they're gonna pay for just having a minister or maybe a youth pastor in their congregations. So I think I think there is a shift to their, again, I think it's the same that you see after the Civil War. You're still wanting to hold onto that community. And so maybe you start loosening those restrictions on who's welcome, because otherwise we recognize this is gonna die. And a lot of churches are dying even today. We have the mega churches, but we also have a lot of churches. The church that I. Just left not too long ago. Started out with, like 300, 400 people whenever I was in high school. They have 30 something people on a regular Sunday. They're all on a pension, it's not, church. The churches have changed. The face of the church has changed very much in that time period. The focus on different things has changed. The first Christian Church in Fayetteville the early on they're talking about like a singles group and, all of these different activities they're gonna do for the different people in the congregation. And then, the outside influences are happening and they start talking about, ' cause this is in my lifetime, the 1980s. We get out of Vietnam in 73 and we start talking about the draft is gonna be men and women. They start having classes about how to register for the draft and how to counsel women through this process. And there's different things that, there's social awareness changes in that time period.

mike rusch.: 41:40

From your view as a human being, your view as a historian and knowing where we are today in our culture and this conversation. What would you offer to people in northwest Arkansas as maybe a bit of advice or maybe a an encouragement of how to look at our day and age through this lens?

rachel whitaker.: 41:59

I think advice, I would tell them to read whatever sacred text they believe and stop taking somebody's word for it. But also people are good inherently, I think. I'm not one of those who think people are inherently bad. And I think that if given the opportunity to see the good, to put a face to whatever it is that they're opposed to, that, I think inherently they will make the right decision. I think we are capable of making the right path. I don't think it always has to be the bad path. But yes, I would definitely say read your sacred texts on your own. If you're Christian, read the red letters.

mike rusch.: 42:45

Monica, do you have any other questions? My, this is what happened to me last time. I just spoke to Rachel and I don't know what to do with all this. Rachel I don't know how to say thank you, but I am just deeply grateful for the time you've spent your perspective and your transparency and your own journey and your own story, and helping all of us try to make sense of this world we're in today. But really trying to learn from all the people that have gone before us about how to make these decisions about what faith and religion and theology and ideology, and how it all works itself out in the world. I'm incredibly grateful for your time and for sharing a table with us and just, I don't know. I'm sure we'll be back, Monica, and I'll be back with some questions, but just thank you for being a part of this conversation and bringing your wisdom to us.

rachel whitaker.: 43:31

I appreciate you guys letting me be a part of this because I think it is a a very important conversation and it's humbling to know that you guys want me to be part of this and voice any of this.

mike rusch.: 43:43

We don't want you to we need you to, we really do. So,

monica kumar.: 43:48

you just, Rachel, you just made, I feel like every historian's hope maybe is to bring history alive and and make it feel three dimensional and of the world and you just like. I just have so many images and questions and thoughts running through my head and linking things to now and past and present all because of your wisdom and what you shared. And

rachel whitaker.: 44:15

Can y'all tell my advisor that?

monica kumar.: 44:17

You can literally share this with him, but I'm just, we're just humbled and honored to have spent this time with you and I feel like I could spend two weeks with you and still not have enough of, of your historical knowledge, but also your personal perspective is just so grounding and thoughtful. And I really appreciate also how you really held you really tried to hold a neutral tension in the conversation and really balance the conversation. And I hope that I do that, but I, you just modeled that so beautifully and I wanna acknowledge that because that is something that I'm always thinking about. How do we do that? Because yeah, seeing the humanity in every human and ev every person and then see, see I am also someone who thinks that we are all inherently good and the world is, moving towards goodness. And I believe that, I think the, the arc of the universe is towards morality, justice, and equity. And I appreciate you. You sharing your perspectives, sharing your incredible expertise, but just really bringing your incredible heart into this conversation. Thank you.

mike rusch.: 45:24

Rachel, thank you.

rachel whitaker.: 45:25

I'm sorry I traumatized you, Mike.

mike rusch.: 45:26

You don't traumatize me. You cause me to think about the world in a better way. I'm grateful

rachel whitaker.: 45:31

it makes you feel any better. Angie would walk in for the last couple of weeks and I'd be sitting here going, oh my gosh, Mike is making me think. She goes in a bad way. And I'm like, no, in a good way. I don't normally have these kinds of moments, but I was like, oh my gosh. And a couple of times I think my hair was standing straight up because I was, oh my

mike rusch.: 45:48

goodness. Well, I apologize for that.

rachel whitaker.: 45:49

No, this was good. But I wanted to do right by it and do justice by this topic because I do think this is important and I do think it has to be done right. That's right. Because it is such a divisive topic these days and it talks to so much of what's going on politically in, in our nation and to our identity, but also internationally with some of the things that are going on. So I applaud you for taking on this topic.

mike rusch.: 46:19

We'll see how it works out.

monica kumar.: 46:20

If it works out.

mike rusch.: 46:21

If it works out. I know. All rachel, thank you very much.

monica kumar.: 46:25

Thank you both.

mike rusch.: 46:29

Well, we are so very grateful to have Rachel back again this season and for her willingness to not only share what she sees in our historical record, but sharing with us how her own story of faith weaves through all of it. We ended with Rachel's piece of advice. She said, read whatever sacred text you believe and stop taking somebody else's word for it. And then she said, if you're a Christian, read the red letters. I keep coming back to that statement. Is this the difference between faith and theology or the influence of the institution? Could this be the work of discernment and how is this either represented or not represented in those meanings from the churches that Rachel referenced. I believe this conversation with Rachel is foundational to what we need before sitting down with faith leaders this season. She is giving us a view into the historical record, not as a catalog of events, but as a pattern. And that pattern is not clean. It never was. Rachel has showed us what people who lived inside of it, including herself, have always been trying to figure out where the institution ends and the faith begins. And I will admit, this is the question that I'm also wrestling with, and I'm curious if you are also? I know that we have just scratched the surface. But I think we are ready to enter into these conversations with faith leaders and as we enter these conversations, we do so knowing that these are the pastors and priests and faith leaders who carry these traditions forward in northwest Arkansas today. They are the people standing on this ground today, not the ones who created that foundation. However, today their decisions determine how faith and religion theology,, their own institutions, and ideologies are continuing or repairing that history. And that is shaping who we are today and who we are becoming. So thank you again to Rachel and to everyone listening, I wanna say thank you. Thank you for being the most important part of what our community is becoming. This is the undeview, an exploration in the shaping of our place.