Monday letters: Flags, other symbols become participants in reality

I stood yesterday at the grave of my great-grandfather. He returned home to Union County, 19 years old, walking bare-footed from Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. He was a Lee, bequeathing to me a family heritage close to Robert E. himself. So far as I know, he never owned slaves, but he fought in the war to defend slavery.

I have spent a huge part of my life and ministry moving beyond that heritage. I once linked hands with many others around the capitol in Columbia to bring the Confederate flag down from the dome. The compromise regarding the flag was insufficient

My wonderful theological teacher, Paul Tillich, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, taught us the distinction between signs and symbols. Signs simply point, he instructed us, but symbols actually participate in the realities they symbolize.

The Confederate flag is a symbol, and no matter what else it involves, it participates in the human oppression and prejudice it symbolizes. That is why we must remove it from places and institutions of power.

William Tecumseh Sherman once set fire to this land we love. We can light different fires, illuminating new ways of hope and joy and peace in this beloved state where the black river flows, dreaming dreams on its way to the sea.

Aiken