Why I Ignore Mother’s Day at Church

On Saturday, the day before Mother’s Day, a pastor friend of mine asked me if and how I was going to recognize Mother’s Day. Things like this are common distractions to pastors: special days for mothers, fathers, children, grandchildren, dogs and cats, take up valuable time. This led to a discussion about the roots and history of Mother’s Day and whether this is something that should be recognized in a local church.

At the outset, two things shape my thinking on Church observance of Mother’s Day.

1.    It’s a distraction from the biblically stated purpose of the gathering of the church-to honor God, His Works, and His Word. My first pastorate was in a church which had a tradition of giving a rose to the oldest mother, youngest mother, most recent mother, mother of the most children, grandmother of the most, great grandmother of the most, and the meanest mother [just kidding!] This took up half the church service and generated an immense sense of arrogance since the same woman got the flowers for oldest, most children, grandmother of the most, etc. every year, and had for many years. She was also the woman who grew the flowers.  (Church life must appear to be really bizarre to outsiders!) She was also arguably the meanest (not kidding!)

2.    Mother’s Day is not related to Christianity or Bible study per se. Special days related to the history of Christianity (Christmas, Resurrection Day, Reformation Day), or the foundation of our national religious liberties (July 4, Memorial Day, Veterans Day), remind us the our freedom (spiritual and civil) is not free: we have spiritual freedom from the death of Christ on Calvary; and politically, through the lives given on countless battlefields. Following the Reformation in the sixteenth century, and wars of religion in the seventeenth century, along with the continued unity of Church and State in Europe, the U.S. established a government where the freedom to worship was not to be interfered with by the Federal government. This too seems appropriate, that we not take our liberty to assemble and proclaim the gospel for granted.

Our liberties were won and maintained on countless battlefields. Not that we are warmongers or that we should promote war for its own sake, from some misguided sense of honor or glory, but that, as Bible believers, we understand that we live in a fallen world, a world ruled by Satan, who wishes to eradicate the truth and destroy freedom, especially when it leads to freedom to own and study the Bible and to proclaim its eternal truths. We live in a world where sinful, evil men seek to stamp out the Truth of God’s Word and to tyrranize those who believe it. We recognize that there are times when freedom must be defended against tyrants and violence is necessary to defend Truth. Jesus even made sure the disciples were armed with swords for self-defense when they went to Gethsemane (Luke 22:36-38). The freedom we have to stand in the public square, to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to teach the whole counsel of God was won on both the battlefield of Golgotha, and the battlefields of history.

Thus, pacificism, the rejection of war and the need to use violence to win and preserve freedom, is inherently a concept developed from a misunderstanding of man’s nature (he is not really evil), a misunderstanding of the solution of Calvary (Jesus died as an example-not a substitute), and a misunderstanding of the gospel and the mission of the Church in this dispensation.

So, you ask, what might all of this have to do with Mother’s Day? I’m glad you asked.  How these ideas are intertwined in the history and origin of Mother’s Day is a fascinating story.

In the 19th century the vibrant Christianity that came out of the 18th century in America, was weakened and crippled by the adoption of false doctrines which minimized total depravity, the need for the vicarious payment of a judicial penalty, the belief that man and society were both perfectible, and that addressing this perfection was the goal of the Church. The influence of Arminian theology, the New Divinity theology of the Second Great Awakening, the outright Pelagianism of Finneyism, and the rise of Unitarianism and Transcendentalism along with  the leaven of 19th century German Rational Protestant Liberalism transformed much of American Christianity into a non-biblical, postmillennial, socially activistic religion which sought to bring heaven to earth through politically engineered social change motivated by a works based view of salvation which at its core rejected sin, the need of a vicarious savior, and the anticipation of Christ’s return to set up His kingdom. [One of the many negative results of the Second Great Awakening was that it changed the way Americans looked at man, society and of course, government and the role of government]  The forerunners of the religious left and its descendants have been extremely dedicated to establishing their version of a theocracy in the U.S. In their system, salvation was redefined in social and political terms, which included disarmament, pacifism, and eventually, the removal of gun-rights. Postmillennialism, with a secular and works based orientation, joined with the Utopianism of the Unitarians and Transcendentalists to transform the landscape of churches in America.

One result of this massive religious shift was the American War Between the States. Egged on by the irrational, works oriented, utopic theology of Charles Grandison Finney wedded to the secular utopianism of Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcott’s (including the first family of the new, utopic “evangelicalism,” the Beecher family: Rev. Lyman, son Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe–the latter two were radical abolitionists), southern hotheads reacted with equally damning arrogance leading to the conflagration. The synthesis of this pseudo-Christianity (no total depravity, inherent sinfulness, or substitutionary atonement) fostered an unfettered arrogance that sought to bring in the kingdom of God and to truly institute a theocracy based on the arrogant moralism of these two step-siblings (liberal Christianity and secular Utopianism).

N.B. The problem with American abolitionism was not its desire to end slavery and slave trafficking, but the adoption of an “end justifies the means” solution based on a faulty view of God, man, redemption, the church and the State. By way of contrast, observe that in England the abolition of slavery was accomplished by men like William Wilberforce, John Newton, and Granville Sharpe. They had a theology based on Truth: total depravity, substitutionary atonement, and premillennialism. Theology makes a difference, so they did not adopt an ends justifies the means arrogance. No arrogance, no arrogant reacion. So the result in England lacked the violent element which the moral/religious arrogance in America produced and from which we still suffer. This is why a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong.

So how does this relate to Mother’s Day? The first American Mother’s Day originated in the mind of the Unitarian, transcendentalist, activist, radical abolitionist, song propagandist Julia Ward Howe. You may think this sounds harsh, but not if you know her beliefs or exegete her song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic (see the analysis below), against the backdrop of sound, biblical orthodoxy, in conjunction with her arrogant, anthropocentric, Unitarian, radical abolitionist and radical feminist beliefs. After the War of Northern Aggression, she was overwhelmed with the tragedy of so much loss of life that she developed the idea of mother’s day to promote pacificism and honor mothers by calling them out to unify in disarming the world.  Some say she was also influenced the work of a young mother in West Virginia named Anna M.J. Jarvis who had attempted a small scale organization of mothers in Virginia in 1858. It seems that after Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, Anna M. Jarvis, influenced by the then failed attempt of Howe to get a Mother’s Day observance going, was able to resurrect the observance in 1907. It, too, was to promote pacifism and mothers.

Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Honoring father and mother is biblical, but we should daily honor our father and mother. A right thing done in a wrong way is wrong. Pacifism is not biblical and is the path to slavery. By comingling pacificism with motherhood Howe was furthering a religious-political agenda. This same agenda was also picked up by Anna Jarvis. Jarvis was an idealist who also connected pacifism to her honoring of her mother. Then she convinced the pastor of her Methodist Church in West Virginia to proclaim an official Mother’s Day. But we must remember that the Methodist Church by this time, was no longer the church of the Wesley’s and Whitefield, but a church infected with the pox of 19th century German rationalism, which had adopted the same religious-theological agenda of man bringing in a utopic kingdom of God on earth.

By the 1920s the florists had co-opted the Mother’s Day idea and commercialized it.  (The florists were savvy enough to realize that American’s weren’t going to buy into anything linked with pacifism).  Jarvis fought the commercialization by trying to copyright her idea, and by suing the Florists, to no avail. So today we have a day to honor Mother’s, but one with a shadowy ancestry of theological and political baggage.

It seems to me though, that if history matters, and context matters, and words, ideas, and theology matter, that perhaps we ought to have second thoughts about this. At any rate, knowing the history, we realize that such an observance is probably not something that should find a place in the worship service of a Bible centered church.

For these reasons I think it is best to not distract us on a Sunday morning with a worship of Moms instead of God.

But you better NOT forget that card!

And now you know (as Paul Harvey would say) the REST of the story. But please keep reading… there is even more!

N.B. Julia Ward Howe was also the one who wrote the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  If words and theology matter, no Trinitarian, premillennial, Christian from any region of the country, should ever sing this song.

Please read the following written by a Baptist pastor in Michigan.

Dr. John Hosler holds two undergraduate degrees in Bible and Pastoral Studies and a B.S. in History from Martin University; an M.A. in History/Political Science from Butler University; and has earned an M.Div. and Th.D from Trinity Theological Seminary. He has served as an adjunct college instructor and full-time pastor since his early twenties. His two greatest academic passions are the clarity of the gospel and the sole authority of Scripture for faith and doctrine. Pastor Hosler, along with his wife Susan, have served at Napier Parkview since October 2002, and came to us from ministries in Chattanooga, TN and Indianapolis, IN. - here is Pastor Hosler’s article:

Battle Hymn of the Republic, Examined - Or - Should Christians Sing What They Don’t Believe Just Because It Is An Old Hymn? — By Pastor J. O. Hosler, Th.D.

1. Do we believe that the American Civil War was the Second Coming of Christ and the Battle of Armageddon?
2. Do we believe that the evening campfires of the Union soldiers were actual altars to Jesus Christ?
3. Do we believe that the Civil War was the “Day of the Lord” prophesied in Scripture?
4. Do we believe that we receive the grace of God only to the extent that we brandish literal swords against the enemies of God?
5. Do we believe that Gen. 3:15 speaks of the Messiah or of soldiers in the Union Army?
6. Do we believe that answering the call to serve in the Armed Forces will enable us to avoid condemnation at the Judgment Seat of God?
7. Does Christ’s death on the cross inspire us to preach the gospel or to take up literal swords in a holy Jihad and die for the cause of political freedom?

These are questions we need to ask when we sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Introduction: When patriotic holidays approach, a favorite song will be one that challenges sound Bible doctrine. It is not a rap song about violence or perverted sex. It will be a so-called Christian anthem known as the Battle Hymn of the Republic. This song will hold a prominent position in nationalistic celebrations and Christian services. Many Christians understand its stirring words to be an image of a victorious Church dominating the world and bringing in the Kingdom of God (post millennialism). But let us take a closer reading of the song.

I. A hymn is a song which incorporates theological truth into its text such as A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Great Is Thy Faithfulness and How Firm A Foundation. But the Battle Hymn is not about Christ marching against sin or the church being victorious over evil.

A. The Battle Hymn was written in the fall of 1861. While in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe watched troops marching off to war singing John Brown’s Body and she determined to write a more inspiring war song. The Atlantic Monthly paid her five dollars for the song.

B. She was born into a prominent New York City family in 1819, a strict Episcopalian Calvinist home. Her mother died when she was young and she was raised by an aunt. When her father died, a more liberal minded uncle became her guardian. This caused her to grow more liberal religiously and socially.

1. Thus, inn her younger years she rebelled against her parents’ strong Calvinism but ultimately married a Boston reformer, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. He had become a radical Unitarian who had moved far from the Calvinism of New England. She adopted his tenants of Transcendentalism, then Unitarianism, and it was from these beliefs that the Battle Hymn was written. She believed that religion was a matter of deed, not creed

C.   The Transcendentalists became the core of the radical abolitionist movement. Many Baptists in the North were part of a less radical abolitionism.

1. Dr. Howe and their Boston pastor, Rev. Theodore Parker, were members of the Secret Six who financed and armed the anti-slavery terrorist John Brown. Rev Parker often wrote his sermons with a handgun on his desk, ready if necessary to defend the runaway slaves hiding in his cellar

2. After his murderous rampage in Kansas and at Harper’s Ferry, Mrs. Howe lamented, John Brown’s death will be holy and glorious. John Brown will glorify the gallows like Jesus glorified the cross.

II. The Battle Hymn of the Republic can only be understood within the framework of the Transcendental-Unitarian creed. The First verse reads: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.

Mrs. Howe applied the apocalyptic judgment of Revelation 14:17-20; 19:15 to the Confederate nation. She pictured the Union army not only as that instrument which would cause Southern blood to flow out upon the earth, but also the Union army as the very expression of His Word [sword] itself.

The Transcendentalist-Unitarians believed that the evil in man could be rooted out by government action. The South was evil and was thus deserving judgment of the most extreme nature-its own Armageddon.

III. The second verse presents the Union army as the abode of their vengeful God: I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on.

A. The third verse is so contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that many hymnals leave it out altogether: I have read the fiery gospel writ in the burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with My contempters, so with you My grace shall deal; Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel. Since God is marching on.

1. Mrs. Howe proclaimed a gospel of judgment pictured by rows of affixed bayonets.

2. Taking God’s promise of deliverance of Genesis 3:15, instead of applying it to Christ, she applied it to the Union soldier who would receive God’s grace by killing Southerners. This was a different gospel and yet the Apostle Paul said, But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8).

IV. Verse four returns to the prose of the Apocalypse with trumpet and judgment seat imagery: He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. O be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

Civil warfare was the instrument being promoted for determining the hearts of men. A man’s positive response to the call for enlistment in the Union army was the action which would reveal their standing before God.

V. The fifth and final verse gives the ultimate expression of an unbiblical theology proposed by radical abolitionists: In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

To Julia Ward Howe, the work of Christ was incomplete. It was up to men through civil government to bring about a utopian society.

She was quoted in her biography, “Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian church and accept the fact the Christ was merely a great teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than any other man.”

VI. The Battle Hymn theme is a political-patriotic song about the destruction of the South, written in religious terminology.

A. Mrs. Howe created the idea that the North was doing God’s work and paints a picture of a vengeful God destroying His enemies-the South, and elevating the North’s cause to that of a Holy War. In doing so, Howe portrayed the South and its people as evil and the enemy of God and it worked.

B. As a Unitarian, Julia Howe believed the Unitarian doctrine that man is characteristically good and that he can redeem himself by his own merits without any help from a savior who is God incarnate. She rejected a literal hell when she said: I threw away, once and forever, the thought of the terrible hell which appears to me impossible.

C. She also rejected the exclusive claim of Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6) when she said, Having rejected the exclusive doctrine that made Christianity and special forms of it the only way of spiritual redemption, I now accept the belief that not only Christians but all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption. Christianity was but one of God’s plans for bringing all of humanity to a state of ultimate perfection.

Conclusion: The Battle Hymn would be more appropriate to inspire a Moslem to engage in an Islamic Jihad rather than to encourage Christians to take up arms to spread the cause of Christ.

To visit Pastor John Hosler’s Church web site at — http://www.napierchurch.org.

Those who know Mrs Howe’s theology and what she meant when she penned those words usually don’t let this song be sung in their churches

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