“I raise my
eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the
Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”[1] These faithful
words, became a daily inspiration to reverend David Blythe as he laid the path
for education and empowerment in Pikeville Kentucky. As a young and passionate
Presbyterian minister, Rev. Blythe doggedly believed that if the people of the
mountains were given the same opportunities and training as the more affluent
sections of the nation, then mountaineers would thrive. He knew of the innate
giftings of the people and the region. Today, Central Appalachia is one of the most beautiful,
remote, and biologically diverse regions in the United States, as it is home to
one of the oldest mountain ranges in North America with old growth forests. It
is the “most significant biodiversity hotspot east of the Rocky Mountains and
is the largest contiguous hotspot area in the nation.”[2]
The mountains tell the honest story of the region as they are diverse,
beautiful, and unique. Central Appalachia is rooted and grounded in beauty.
For the person seeking to experience and
express hollering theology, the first step in the journey is starting with the
foundation that the Central Appalachian region is filled with innate goodness
and God given potential. The dangerous temptation is to first and only see the
pain and plight of the region. Loyal Jones warns against this when saying,
“By the outsider seeing these things as
mere eyesores and aberrations, an important aspect of personhood is neglected
in that there is a scapegoating labeling the whole without understanding the
parts of the story as wholes in themselves by the outsider assuming that these
‘places’ need to be cleaned up and discarded. Unfortunately, this goes beyond
even tangible places, as it also affects the way Appalachian people, and their
values are perceived by the outside world. As early as the nineteenth century,
an army of ‘enlightened’ schoolteachers, missionaries, and corporate
industrialists had this misguided and strong conviction that Appalachian people
had to be saved from themselves. Again, although much good fruit like
colleges, hospitals, and other institutions came from this, it often came at a
price of forcing Appalachian people to give up their ‘inferior’ identities to
accommodate what the ‘agents of uplift’ deemed to be good.”[3]
Only seeing the need makes the
hillbilly an inherently less than person. This is disempowering and counter to
the image-bearing nature of the hillbilly. Hillbillies are people who pride
themselves on being from the mountains and are resourceful people who thrive in
the midst of many obstacles, work hard, deeply love their families, are
generous to their neighbors, and embrace a simpler lifestyle. The work of
hollering theology is a work of listening to the mountains and the hillbillies.
Mostly its development is an informal process of those on the ground who
simply wrestle with the painful realities of life in the mountains while
wrestling with the God who created the mountains. The work is grounded in the
informal and is non-academic in nature as it has the feel of Mujerista
theology and its lo cotidiano.[4] Hollering
theology uses the lived experiences of hillbillies as the starting point for
theology and the lived struggle, resistance, and transformation that occurs in
these experiences. This theology is birthed out of a need by the Appalachian
people, who have a deep hunger for God, but do not have a contextualized
framework for it.
Hollering theology
is the product of attempting to contextualize liberation theology within
Central Appalachia. Today, liberation theology is a driving force for social
change. A key question for liberation theologians is this: Does the presented
theological idea set people free or enslave them?[5]
The work of the theologian is to know the people’s reality by being in
solidarity with the experience of oppression, poverty, hunger, and pain just as
God is present.[6] Hollering
theologians seek to practice solidarity while also exploring the damning nature
of stereotypes that victim blame and fuel oppression. Hillbilly suffering is
increasing at an ever-alarming rate; therefore, it is time to raise one’s
theological voice and move in the holler of theological liberative praxis.
Hollering theology is the vehicle for this theological move and is what is
needed to help Central Appalachia and especially UPIKE students to contextually
learn theology and the Bible.
Hollering theology is the theological movement that is
unashamedly hillbilly in its accent, and it starts by looking at the complex
sufferings of the Central Appalachian people while asking the difficult
questions of God’s activity among the pain. It refuses to blindly echo the
single story of white, European Scotch-Irish feudists, who play banjos, and
later star in a Dateline special. It prophetically calls out the painful
realities of economic systems based on extraction while humbly admitting the
ways in which fatalism and addiction have participated in this oppression. It
pushes for a dynamic and honest telling of the Appalachian story while putting
to rest any need for elegies. It stands against blanket government handouts
because it believes hillbillies long for meaningful opportunities and not
crippling dependency. It weaves together the harmony of mountaineers who
resist, people who passionately care, and the story of a region where people
are not trapped by mountains but intensely love them. The region does not need the
type of attention that reduces its people to “wild and wonderful” rednecks on
four-wheelers but it chooses to tell its own story of a God who is shining
forth. The God of the mountains is inspiring hillbillies to create
revolutionary technologies, out of the box addiction therapies, and churches
who dream of realities where faith is in the market place. Hollering theology
loves its hillbilly Christ and appreciates its critical voice to act in ways
that are best for its region. Hollering theology is a theological movement intentionally
started by the Catholic Pastoral letters, nuns on mountain sides, and Christians
who resisted having their mountains leveled for profit.
In hollering theology, freedom is the goal, yet human
agency is under attack by crushing economic systems that dominate and
ultimately kill. Liberation starts with economic systems but branches to all
areas of the human experience. Hollering theology’s chief aim is freedom in all
its forms. Liberation refuses to start any theological conversations or
presuppositions from doctrinal abstraction, yet it starts from the historic and
lived experience of suffering people. Street priest Rev. Deborah W. Little,
founder of the Ecclesia ministries and the Common Cathedral in
Boston, shares a helpful story of a lived experience that is imperative to
frame the discussion on hollering theology. She shares how she was seeking to
provide a little food to some people in Boston who were struggling with
homelessness when she is asked by a man named Sam if they could pray. Sam then
prays this prayer,
God, I know you are up there, but down here,
things are real bad. I cannot stop drinking. But tonight, I am not praying for
myself. A few days ago, my friend Fred died right over there. When I found him,
his shoes were missing. His hat was gone. He always wore his hat. These streets
have turned to hell. We need you, God. I have lived on these streets for years.
I do not have any money, but I will beg money for my brother if he needs it and
I do not have it. I wish I had known Fred was in trouble. We have got to watch
out for each other. God, help us.[7]
Sam’s
prayer shows the complexity and suffering of life, in addition to the ways in
which liberation is a partnership between people and God. Yet however, in the
background are systems that cause brutal suffering. Sam models the role of a neighbor-to-neighbor
kingdom but also the reality of helplessness, due to unchecked suffering. Sam
is committed to doing whatever he can to help but also is battling the realities
of his own resource scarcity. As Sam has made known, Fred’s life is important
to God. God has seen his suffering as Fred’s suffering is also Sam’s suffering
and both are God’s suffering. Today hollering theology seeks to give a
theological framework for the hillbilly “Sams” who know things are not right
because the hillbilly “Freds” are silently going without. This movement seeks
to empower the silenced and suffering hillbillly to claim their divine rights as
agents of their own liberation, while also helping to liberate the oppressor to
see God.[8]
Hollering theology uses Boff’s “see, judge, act”
pastoral methodology, to develop its formal response to Appalachian pain and
suffering. This project also seeks to use hollering theology as a theological
tool useful for the evangelization of the UPIKE campus. Therefore, hollering
theology is a task of contextualizing the Christian gospel to reach hillbilly
students in their lived suffering.[9] In
its development, it seeks to birth students who are critically aware of their
ability to be change agents. It seeks to empower UPIKE graduates with a focus on
living out justice in solidarity with the poor of Appalachia.
Historically,
damage has been done to hillbillies by well-intended persons who sought to help
or save without first seeing and listening. “Seeing,” is the hollering theologians
attempt at peering directly into the actual living conditions of Central
Appalachia. To truly “see,” one must not only engage the students in the
classroom but to see life in the dorms, on the field, in student activities,
and in their home hollers. “Seeing” is critical because it is the first way to
know what God is doing in the midst of the people. St. Thomas Aquinas has
famously said that an error concerning the world will lead to an error
concerning God.[10] One
cannot get the holler wrong or else the hillbilly will be misunderstood. In Central
Appalachia, “seeing” is looking hard at the realities of soaring cancer rates,
overdose and addiction statistics, high rates of unemployment and
underemployment, federal dependency, and the horrific hillbilly stereotype. “Seeing”
is based on living among the people through an incarnational praxis and a
compassionate lens.
“Seeing” begins by knowing the sources of present and historical oppression
while also seeing the poverty.[11] Hollering theology
unapologetically affirms the truth that God shows a preferential option for the
poor because poverty is oppression. Poverty is a type of oppression that is
fundamentally driven and designed by economic structures and forces.[12] Hollering theology sees the least as the drug addicted, the high
school dropout, the incarcerated addict and the one living up the holler who
scrapes together monthly survival by going to social agencies to exist. The
least are also those hillbillies who are waiting for coal to come back and
hunger for jobs of meaning and livable wages. The least are the crucified
people of the mountains. The hollering theologian lives to be in solidarity
with the poor because they are in fact the mediator of God’s presence in the
world, operating as a sacrament. In a moment when liberal left smugness is
blaming Appalachia for the “Trump phenomena,” a hollering theologian must present
an alternative narrative. The poor are not to blame for broken politics but are
the victims of it. The poor are the “protagonists” and “makers of history” who
are the heart of the Church.[13]
When
“seeing,” the hollering theologian must address the image of hills or mountains
as a profound source of subconscious identity and thus empower hillbillies to
feel at home in the mountains. Hillbillies have their view of reality shaped by
the shelter and isolation of mountains. It is impossible to overstate the role/importance
of land, mountains, and proximity to family for the Appalachian student. This
is seen in the region nature of UPIKE students. Many choose to stay close to
their family and be in the mountains rather than seek opportunities or cheaper
tuition at larger but distant state universities. The mountains create both a
grand/transcendent view of God, yet also at times perpetuate a fatalistic
reality and the belief of a God that controls all without human agency.
Hollering theology strongly emphasizes hillbillies as co-agents with God to
develop and shape their own destiny, yet it constantly faces assault by the
danger of the hillbilly stereotype that seeks to disable the vision of being a
capable human agent. The weaponization of the stereotype has seduced hillbillies
to fight against their own interests through falsely created narratives of
prejudice, racial discrimination; divide and conquer strategies; and unseen
prejudice.[14]
Hollering theology
sees Appalachia as a land of diversity and home to a complexity of people. The
myth of the white only Appalachia must be unseen as it is a disempowering myth
which seeks to label, control, and keep the hillbilly subservient to the
greater American story of mountaineer “peculiarity.”[15] The hillbilly is
one who is unafraid to discover the truths of one’s culture and region. The
single narrative is typically coupled with a subtle blaming of people for their
own systemic poverty. This worn-out attempt at putting hillbillies up one
holler of reality is countered by the truth that diversity exists within the
holler and the coal-mine.
Seeing also means honestly looking at hillbilly poverty. Today Eastern
Kentucky is home to some of the most concentrated poverty in the US, and this causes
immense suffering. The causes of this poverty are not as clear as the footage
of a singlewide trailer filled with shoeless dirty white kids might convey. A
critical look at the region prompts one to question why the US government can
so readily ignore the plight of its people while wasting so much on things like
imperialistic war making. For example, when examining the federal budget for
2021, the entire budget of the Appalachian Regional Commission, the US’s most
focused attempts at addressing hillbilly poverty, makes up less than .04 % of
the US’s military budget. If Central Appalachia matters so much, one would
assume that more would be spent for the region. Appalachian critic Homer Marcum
sees it most clearly when he notes, “That’s why we who are from far Eastern Kentucky raise an eyebrow when
we hear that reporters are coming…Many residents of Eastern Kentucky will head
the other way when the media tour comes through. They don’t want to be the next
poster face of poverty; they’re tired of being media props.”[16]
“Seeing” means seeing the hillbilly as one who
is more than a victim. So often, the colonized vision of Appalachia only
portrays the region as a land of helpless victims. When hillbillies internalize
this narrative and see themselves as victims, they become isolated and
disempowered. Disempowerment removes the potential to be a change agent and
instead makes the hillbilly a permanent victim. Fueling the victim mentality is
a system of oppression.[17] One of the most powerful and liberating moments in history
is when Jesus said to the poor, “repent.”[18] Jesus was speaking to the poor and the oppressed yet his call to
repent was given with the belief of one’s agency to change. Jesus saw the imago
dei in the poor. Even though Jesus was poor, he does not surrender agency
but takes it on while inspiring others to do the same.[19] The kingdom was within the poor and would be brought about by
them. Theologians can do so much damage to people of need when they lower the
standards and expect less because the poor “are doing their best.” People can
be oppressed by low standards and deficient expectations. The rich have a
way of dividing and conquering by deficient standards.[20]
Poverty is a tool of the oppressor to destroy a hillbilly’s sense
of agency, freedom, and purpose. Poverty layers shame upon the hillbilly and
casts aside their worth as one who is incapable and inadequate. Freedom out of
poverty starts when one is free to see one’s reality and being honest about it
without having to use the paradigms and social stratifications provided by the
oppressor.[21] This freedom is a complex matter in Central Appalachia, as one is
intimately tied to one’s family or kin. Societies based on kinship and social
location cannot relate only to the actual state of being, as one essentially is
where one comes from. The expression of honest freedom can push against the problematic
patriarchy and unhealthy traditions, which hold power in Central Appalachia.
Freedom requires a strong effort and daring resistance to the forces that seek
to hold hillbilly’s captive.[22] This agency is oftentimes expressed in ways that challenge the
norms of dominant society which create inappropriate and unrealistic
expectations that enslave the hillbilly.
In
light of this, hollering theology does not shy away from using the social
sciences and especially the insights of Karl Marx to help inform their “seeing.”
In Appalachia a vicious economic trap has been
occurring for over 150 years. Through a cyclical economy created and fueled by dependence
on coal, hillbillies became married to the unfaithful partner of market driven coal
prices. The hillbilly was taken advantage of by swindlers of mineral rights and
greedy mine owners, all the while exploitation accelerated. Marx pushes for
awakening of one’s awareness to “see” the oppression. In addition, capitalist
industrialists who sinfully plundered the region later sought to atone for the
plundering by supporting a legislative push to create the War on Poverty. Later as the war failed, a “war on coal” began.
Although both “wars” were rooted in good intention, they have hurt the region. In
addition, historically, the region has endured a cycle of poverty that was maintained
by periodic flooding and an ocean of damaging national news stories.
So often the oppression is so sinister that it seduces hillbillies
to unconsciously and uncritically accept one’s reality while becoming agents of
their own oppression. This cooperation with oppression happens through the
supporting of the dominant systems and the belief of the dominant class’s
vision of the hillbilly. It is vital for an oppressed worker to break free from
this false conscious and express their own critical consciousness by seeing one
as an agent of revolution and change. Oppression is continued and propagated by
relationships of power which separate the hillbilly from their creative results
of their work. It robs the hillbilly from the purpose and meaning of their work
while making the hillbilly more of a machine than a person with inherent worth
and communal benefit. This type of oppression literally seeks to make the
hillbilly less than human thus making her/him either a mule or a machine.
Marxist critique is very powerful for hillbillies, yet it is incomplete for the
hollering theologian. Marx helps to partially see, yet when only using Marx,
the hollering theologian misses the gospel nature of liberation. Liberation is
first and foremost a spiritual revolution.[23]
When people are separated from meaningful work and the full
impact of their daily labor, despair and pain arise. As despair soars, poverty
accelerates. Central Appalachia has been made famous through its images of
poverty. Poverty is one of the most commercialized aspects of the region and it
is the most visible trait. Poverty is the path of the hollering theologian to
stand in solidarity with the hillbilly. This reality is emphasized by the fact
that at UPIKE 73% of student are Pell grant eligible. Boff argues that poverty
can be cured by voluntary poverty, which is not only an economic reality but a
poverty of status, poverty of fame, and poverty of notoriety.[24] Poverty
is a paradox of liberation as it is in one space, the outward fruit of
oppression, yet it is also the pathway for the liberation to be made known. Poverty
is sinful because it stifles the humanity of both the poor and oppressor.
Poverty makes the poor an object devoid of dignity and it makes the rich
oppressor an agent of domination. While
being poor, the hollering theologian must bear witness to the material poverty
and then commit to acting upon it. [25] Father Ellacuria shows how Jesus is the
perfect model of dealing with poverty. He says that Jesus was, on the one hand,
poor since he was economically without a home and reliant on the generosity of
others. His poverty, however, was also strategic. His poverty led to a full
abandonment to God and freed him from the powers of this world. One cannot be
made a commodity if one is poor by spiritual solidarity.[26] The
cruel scandal and reality of Central Appalachia is that poverty is ever present
and crippling.
Today nearly one
out of every four people in Eastern Kentucky are living in poverty. Those who
embrace the negative hillbilly stereotype look at these statistics and promote
a lazy poor hillbilly, yet a hollering theologian sees unemployment rates two
percent higher than the rest of the nation and the gross underpayment of
people. Appalachian Kentuckians are paid an average $16,000 less than the rest
of the nation, which is more than half of their annual income.[27]
Hillbillies are working hard but being paid at abysmal rates. Nearly one in three
receive food stamps or some type of food assistance. In Clay County Kentucky alone,
the jobs have dried up and labor force participation is at a staggering 37.6 %.[28] The
scandal is that people can be working hard and still be hungry and poor.
Some see the poverty and blame conservative hillbillies
for conservative policies which often hurt the poor. Eastern Kentucky’s poverty
is not simply an invention of their own doing as they have been electing the
most powerful leaders in the nation, from Senator Mitch McConnell to
congressman Hal Rogers. Hillbillies know how to elect powerful people. Sadly,
the political corruption is not just at the national level. Kentucky has
been named the most corrupt political system in the nation and its political
machine is a constant black eye for the region.[29]
For example, in Pike County popular former state Rep. Keith Hall was convicted
of bribing federal mine inspectors. In the 1990s Kentucky sent 15 state
legislators to prison, including the speaker of the house, and in Knott County
Eastern Kentucky, the last three elected county judge executives have been sent
to prison for corruption.[30]
The ones elected to help have been hurting. Ezekiel reminds the hollering
theologian that at times the shepherds do become the prowling wolves.[31]
Just
as is the case with many politicians, the same is true of the pharmaceutical
industries that prey on the hurting and poverty-stricken hillbillies. Outside
of poverty, addiction is the second most “seen” trait of Central Appalachia. In
the survey administered by this project which asked more than 300 UPIKE students
to label the biggest crisis in Eastern Kentucky, “drug issues” was first. In Central
Appalachia, opioids and crystal meth are being used at a rate exceeding the
national averages.[32]
The addiction crisis is literally killing hillbillies at horrific rates. With
eyes wide open, hollering theologians can see the overdoses, the community trainings
for Narcan, and the grandparents
raising grandchildren due to the addiction crisis. The causes of addiction are
widely debated in Central Appalachia. As some blame big pharma for preying on
despairing and hurting coal miners, others blame unemployed communities of hillbillies
who sell pills to make some money and find a purpose. In 2020, the US Justice
Department won a $8.3 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma, who are the makers of OxyContin. Purdue Pharma
admitted to exploitative marketing campaigns, courting more than 100 healthcare
providers who were knowingly prescribing pills to those who sold them. From May
2007 to March 2017, a sales team under the campaign of Evolve to Excellence
was encouraged to seek out healthcare providers they knew were prescribing the
opiate for unsafe and unprofessional use.[33] For hillbillies, decreased life
expectancy is a reality while alarming rates in opioid addiction lead to the
death of many young future leaders.[34]
Beyond poverty and drugs, “seeing” also means honestly
looking at hillbilly families. In the
mountains, the family is strong and continues to be the most endearing bonding
agent of the region. The family is both an amazing support and the most painful
complicating reality of the region. The family in Appalachia can be a system of
oppression. The family is not as
nuclear and traditional in Central Appalachia as stereotypes often propagate.
Appalachian women start having babies younger, although later in life they do
not keep up the pace and average out to the national average. Some have argued
that later in life fertility is a problem in Central Appalachia due to the
diseases of despair that are so common. Statistics do show, however, that
unmarried woman are having children at higher rates in the region and when
compared to other dominate white majority population regions, it is six percent
higher than the national average. Also
divorce and remarriage is more common. As researcher and proud Kentuckian Lyman
Stone reports, Appalachian women are twice as likely to end up divorced.[35]
Although the family is a
bonding unit in the mountains, it is a complicating factor that can often times
create many barriers for the hillbilly student. Also, women are victims of
domestic violence at a 14% higher rate than the rest of the nation. Poverty
breeds violence.
“Seeing” also means
honestly addressing the loss of meaning and purpose in much of the region. The
Church is not inspiring a grand vision of hope and purpose. This reality was
made real through a conversation with a struggling Appalachian college student named Eric. Eric is a sophomore who has been
raised in a proud Appalachian home with stable and supportive grandparents, a
role model mother, and a holler full of family. Eric has had a painful and absent
relationship with his father and ex-step father as both men struggle with
addiction. Eric came to college because he did not want to work at the dollar store,
and he had yielded to pressure placed on him by his mother and high achieving
sister. Recently he decided to drop out of college and join the US Army. He
came to my office to seek neutral advice and to bounce his decision off a
listening ear. When asked about his ultimate reasons for joining the military he
said, “Rob, what are my choices? Seriously, what can I do here? I can work at the
dollar store, struggle with school, repeat some classes, and hopefully get
married without having drugs or a bad choice ruin me. What else but the
military gives me the options of seeing the world, doing some real cool things,
and making my family proud? Also, I will get in shape, make friends, and have a
great uniform.”[36]
Later in conversation it was discerned that Eric was seeking to do something
honorable as his grandfather, who has served as his steady father figure, was a
marine before he came home to a job as an engineer in the coal mines. Being in
the military was a way to carry on the family lineage and do something
meaningful for his community/country. Eric was looking for purpose and, in many
hollers, there is a dramatic existential wound facing hillbillies.
After the
hollering theologian “sees” the reality of Central Appalachia, the second
movement of Boff’s pastoral method is “judging.” To judge, the hollering
theologian is using the hermeneutic of criticism to call out the systems of
oppression that are destroying hillbillies. The criticism is done through the
lens of the Bible and liberation theology. To judge, one must name poverty as
oppression. One must also judge the systems that create poverty such as economic
policies and practices that exploit workers and alienate them from the benefits
of their work.[37] The act
of “judging” provides a theological and biblical lens as it is the movement
which names the cultural gods of death. This judging sees the poor as change
agents with agency to transform their suffering.
For the hollering theologian, the Bible is the lens and
diagnostic tool to interpret the reality that is being seen and experienced
when living in solidarity with the poor.[38]
The Bible provides the vocabulary, imagery, and inspiration to do the work of
liberation and it has the power to help hillbillies label their lived
experience.[39] Often
in Central Appalachia, power has been abused by mission agencies and media
outlets to fuel the ignorant hillbilly narrative. Also, families can entrap and churches
that spiritualize and shame, snare hillbillies. These groups, however, can also
be agents of liberating power since community is needed for liberation to
happen. Hollering theologians call out the power structures in the name of
Jesus.[40]
A key force of abuse power and
oppression is dependency. In scripture, the hollering theologian can call out
the idolatrous dependency on help from the outside. So often this help comes in
the form of a disability check collected monthly. On the surface these payments
appear to be helpful yet they are one of the most powerful forces of
disempowerment in the region. Imagine if these checks were given as a scholarship
or funded a living wage project for retraining and retooling the laid off
worker. In reframing an example of government charity, one can see how oppression
works through the unintended consequences of government assistance. The Bible helps
correct and interpret a liberating reality. Firstly, the Bible says that those
who do not work shall not eat[41]
and it also says that six days one shall work.[42]
The Bible makes it clear that people are empowered with an innate giftedness which
gives purpose to hillbillies so that they can be active members of their
environment.[43] The
Bible says that work is a gift from God to help people have meaning and
purpose. The Bible labels monthly handout checks as disempowering because it makes
one a perpetual victim and a pawn for the government’s pharaoh. Oppressive
systems seek to fuel this false god of death by making hillbillies dependent on
economic systems that grind them into the heart of the earth. People are then
crushed by the poverty that robs dignity. The Bible says that people are bought
with a price[44]
and that the people of God are the treasured possession of the Lord[45]
whereas poverty degrades and dehumanizes. Poverty is literally manufactured by
an economic structure that pushes the chief value of profit over image bearing.
Poverty honors competition and efficiency over collective consciousness and the
flourishing of all. The biblical vision of the Kingdom of God goes after the
lies of a system that seeks to keep wages as low as possible with the aim of
increasing profits and restricting protective regulations. In this oppressive reality,
labor is commoditized rather than divinized. Labor is seen as a means toward
the ends of profit rather than the God given gift of co-creating and expressing
the beauty of the Lord on earth. This death-dealing system has crushing impact
as hillbillies are trapped by jobs that do not provide living wages and as
corporations and companies control the masses.[46]
This system needs to be countered by the liberating vision of a system that
operates on earth as it is in heaven, encourages Sabbath rest, and celebrates
the jubilant releasing of debts.
Hollering theology seeks to interpret the Bible in a way
that liberates and connects with hillbillies. In much of Central and South
American liberation, the story of the Exodus has been a preeminent theological
narrative. In Dalit theology the story of the rejection and crucifixion of
Christ is key. Similarly, hillbillies need a dominant Biblical narrative to
empower freedom. Black theology uses the Nazareth manifesto in Luke 4 and
Minjung theology leans heavily on the Markan context of the Christ narrative.
Hollering theology however looks to the creation narrative of Genesis 2 for its
theological and biblical foundations. In the Genesis 2 account of the creation
of humanity, the hillbilly is given a biblical framework to address the
region’s biggest sources of oppression. This second creation account is the
overarching biblical narrative which frames all of hollering theology. Genesis
2 is used to contextually speak to hillbillies about God’s work of liberation
and I seek to use this narrative as a connecting tool with UPIKE students. As a
grand liberation narrative, Genesis 2 provides me the framework to judge the
Central Appalachian reality and then equip students to fully engage in
hollering theology.
As the story begins the hillbilly is given a magnificent
image of God creating one’s surrounding nature: “On the day the Lord God made
earth and sky.”[47] The
story of hollering theology begins with the gift of nature which defines the hillbilly
connection. The Appalachian Mountains are God’s greatest gift to the hillbilly.
As Appalachian educator Wes Rose states,
My grandpa and my dad taught me a lot
about what it means to be from those mountains. Appalachia is a culture full of
storytellers, tree watchers, and hard workers. My grandpa would keep the tales
of the hills alive as he would wax about the trails and creatures that may or
may not inhabit them. My dad too would tell about the timber rattler that my
grandpa once sat on, apparently it was as large as a fallen maple tree. I would
ride through the hills of Kentucky and Virginia listening to my grandpa talk
about all the history that those mountains had seen and then point out a
particular bird in a tree that the untrained eye would never glimpse.[48]
You
cannot separate the mountains from the people. For thousands of years, Appalachian
people have been looking to the mountains for the help, inspiration, and safety.
Hillbillies are intimately tied to the geography, which at times can fuel
isolation and make life especially difficult. Yet the mountains create a home
and psychological comfort for the hillbilly. Rather than being a resource to be
plundered, sold, dissected and commoditized, the mountains are God’s original
gift. As some have worked to flatten, remove, and strip away, the mountains are
to be the sign of God’s presence among the Appalachian people.
This
culture of death sees Appalachia just as a deposit of "resources," to
be measured only in terms of money: its mountain forests like lifeless piles of
"raw material" to be stripped and shipped off elsewhere to feed the
consumer society,” yet the God of the mountains proclaims a different story.
The mountains are a home to the beautiful and mysterious weaving of lives
together. “People and land are woven together as part of Earth's vibrant
creativity, in turn revealing God's own creativity. In the vision of this path,
the mountain forests are sacred cathedrals, the holy dwelling of abundant
life-forms which all need each other, including us humans, with all revealing
God's awesome majesty and tender embrace.[49]
The mountains
give the Appalachian people a sense of being “placed”[50] and in a society where more and more people are “placeless,” it
makes the hillbilly seem like a backward person. Rather
than seeing plight, despair, and difficulty, the mountains call forth a vision
of diversity, grandeur, and limitless wonder. The mountains invoke beauty and
bounty while giving historic and enduring hope.
The
creation story continues by saying God made humanity with a distinctive and
limitless Spirit: “the Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the
fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life.”[52]
The animating force of humanity is the Spirit of God, which invites and demands
a unique celebration of the human creation. As the home of God’s enduring
spirit, humanity is an image bearer of God unlike any other creation. Humanity
is given the unique privilege of reflecting God’s likeness in the world. This
reflection does not allow for derogation and devaluing. One cannot be the home
of the Spirit of God and at the same time be seen as less than or as a
weaponized caricature. This liberating narrative in Genesis pushes against the
cycle of internalized oppression that many hillbillies
know.
This cycle of internalized oppression begins with images of
outsiders labeling the hillbilly. Creating the “peculiar” or “other” hillbilly
then allows and justifies extraction of resources and the destructions of the
mountains. The stereotype is imported
into the region by media and cultural narratives to rationalize terrible marauding.
The “backward hillbilly” is created to help explain why workers need to be
placed in camps. When labor rights are denied, then it is the “savage hillbilly”
who needs to be civilized and caged. The stereotype then fuels and empowers
things like well-intended missionaries and the War on Poverty, established by well-intentioned people who subconsciously
believe the hillbilly is not as capable and is unable to take care of one’s
self. The lie is this: the hillbilly is going to need a handout or else the
hillbilly will die left to his own devices. This external messaging is then internalized. The internalization fuels the paradoxical
fear of the other while engulfing the region with infantile dependence on the
outsider/outside funding, which then cripples the hillbilly and encourages them
to placate the loss of self-worth by addiction. The “hillbillizing” of the heart and soul leads to a resigned
acceptance of one’s fate as an underachieving and addicted person. This acceptance
creates a deadly self-fulfilling cycle and enslaves the hillbilly through social
security insurance checks and waiting on help from outside. Looking to the
horrific Dalit reality, hillbillies see Christ as the one who was crucified
outside the camp. Hillbillies who are being placed outside the accepted social
hierarchy of the US, have companions on this journey of marginalization. Internalized
oppression has paved the way for a “culturally transmitted
traumatic stress syndrome”[53] related to the stereotype.
Dr. Casey White in
her illuminating work on the terms of redneck and hillbillly show how caricatures
work to devalue, disempower, and enslave the people of the region. She shows in
five distinct ways that this stereotype is used to blame the hillbilly for
their own sufferings, promote social boundaries, attack southern culture,
reinforce positions of power, and promote social inequality. Also, she argues
that this term is applied today in the scheme of whiteness to help pit lower
class whites against other minorities.[54] The
media created the hillbilly as a cultural subgroup of ignorant, straw-chewing,
suspender-wearing, mountain idiots which robs the people of the truth found in
Genesis 2: the hillbilly is one who is beautifully bestowed with God’s spirit. The hillbilly is made in the image of God. Even in the
upper echelons of higher education, the stereotype is pervasive. On a
discussion board for college professors, when discussing an incident on campus
with a student not wearing shoes, the professor wrote, “If s/he disrespects his
or her peers and the college community enough to (un)dress like a hillbilly
here...”[55]
The professor is unconsciously spewing out the same old hillbilly imagery that
was first made known in the 1870s. Today, however, this stereotype is doing
more than selling newspapers. It is blocking students and stunting achievement.
Dr. Chelsea Adams, in her helpful work on stereotypes, points out that 64% of
Appalachian students are aware of the hillbilly stereotype and its negative
impacts.[56]
Dr. Christine Ballengee-Morris, in her investigation of how educators teach
Appalachian heritage and image, reports how students have internalized the most
negative aspects of the imagery. When talking about how students have perceived
people from the outside talking about mountain culture, students share
confusion, anger, and deep shame.[57] Even noteworthy and cherished of Appalachian scholars
have been impacted by the stereotype. Dr. Rodger Cunningham, author of the
important Appalachian book, Apples on the Flood, speaks of stereotyping
at a personal level when sharing,
I was ashamed of the way we
were portrayed….I was very satisfied with it until I saw the horror on the
faces of the people in the United States when they were looking at pictures of
the poor, backward Appalachians and it suddenly occurred to me that the things
that I’d been satisfied with all my life and felt good about, as a youngster,
was probably something to be ashamed of, and I was, very much so. I ran as hard
as I could from West Virginia. Now I resent the people that caused me to do
that…. So the problem in the Mountain Culture, I see, is the people feeling
they're nothing and that destroys you.[58]
Appalachian
students suffer lower self-confidence, seek to often hide their accent and
figure out how to code switch as quickly as possible. Recent Appalachian
college graduate, Krislin Nuzum, says, “Society is constantly
telling Appalachians that they are wrong and that they need to change to fit a
more ‘normal’ speech ideal, they are underestimated and undervalued because of
their dialect, and that can take a toll on a person's self-confidence and their
self-worth.”[59] This
perpetual and overt dismissing of the Appalachian voice as the voice of the
hillbilly can only be countered by the biblical view of humanity as found in
Genesis 2.
When
humanity is seen as the unique and God-filled creation, then the hillbilly can
take pride in who they are. Rather than a dumb hillbilly, they are the one who
is filled with God’s spirit and the one who can do more than can be asked or
imagined.[60] Pope
John Paul II said of Genesis 2 that as humanity had the power to name the animals,
this role shows humanities uniqueness and God honoring nature.[61]
The scriptures are critical to lift up the value of the Appalachian person and
push against the death dealing stereotype.
As
the Genesis account continues, it records that humans and creation are placed
together in unity: “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and put
there the human he had formed.”[62]
God placed the people in the garden as a beautiful example of how humanity can
and must live among the created gifts for mutual benefit. Historically, when
the Appalachian people suffer the land and people have been at odds. Whether it
is the bloodied past of the first Appalachians, the Shawnee, being torn from
their land by western expansion or the brutalizing force of an extraction-based
economy, it is evident that when the land is robbed, creativity does not
flourish. When the land is robbed, creativity does not flourish. People cannot
mimic the beauty of its surroundings or seek to replicate the creativity of
nature when one is at war with its natural home. English professor, Dr. Todd
Snyder, shares how extraction impacts the educational experiences of students
in Central Appalachia.
“Mine was a childhood directly affected by
the realities of extractive industry isolation. No major interstates or
highways pass through Webster County; the nearest airport is a good two-hour
drive away, and there is one stoplight in the entire county. Children of
Webster County do not grow up around major public libraries or college
campuses. We do not frequent museums, movie theaters, or shopping malls. We
live up hollers with our cousins, parents, and grandparents. We are born here,
and we grow up believing here is where we belong. Our thinking in this regard
is connected to the history and formation of our community — a history that is
impossible to separate from that of the extractive industries.”[63]
As
people are isolated from the creative elements of full culture, people suffer
from a narrowed view of reality. Just as Adam was placed in the perfect garden,
the story of the Appalachian experience can be one of natural surroundings
while humanity mutually enjoys and benefits from the natural habitat. Genesis 2
provides hillbillies a Biblical case to fully value and appreciate their
natural inheritance as mountain people.
The Genesis
account continues as God gives humans purpose and meaning with partnership in
creation. The story says: “The Lord God took the human and settled him in the
garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it.”[64]
The poverty of Central Appalachia is often a tail of robbed purpose and
devalued meaning. As the hillbilly stereotype is broadcast around the globe,
recently a new addition to the image has been added. The moonshine bottle has
been substituted for the open bottle of prescription medications. Today some
have even referred to people from the region as “pillbillies.” People in the
mountains often use drugs because they feel a loss of meaning and cannot find
jobs that give them purpose. People will choose other things outside of drugs
and addictions if given positive alternatives.[65]
People by nature do not want to use drugs and ruin their lives. In a worship
service in the Pike County detention center, inmate Scott said “Not one of us
woke up in the morning and said, yay, today I want to go ruin my life and
destroy my family. Addiction is not that easy.”[66]
The gospel demands that the region be filled with meaningful work so that hillbillies
can provide for their fellow community members in purposeful realities. In this
Genesis 2 account, God provided Adam with a critical role as a co-sustainer and
co-creator. The function and role of Adam shows that it is God’s intention for
humanity to be intimately linked to the purpose of their labor. Dr. Bruce Alexander
argues that purpose and belonging can lead to natural recovery for people in
addiction. [67]
The deep gift in
the Genesis account is seeing God as the creator, sustainer, and provider. God
gives the entire garden to Adam for his benefit/enrichment because God seeks to
bless Adam. “The Lord God commanded the human, “Eat your fill from all of the
garden’s trees.”[68] With
the rise of dependency on federal government sources of income for survival,
the government cannot be the sole provider for the hillbilly. God has given the
people a call and purpose to be meaningfully engaged to their surroundings as
it is sinful to be pushed to subsistent survival on poverty level government
benefits. Myles Horton and the Highlander
Folk School saw this as an issue even in the 1960s when his teaching
philosophy advocated for teachers who taught for independence and freedom.[69]
Former Gov. Paul Patton argues that throughout its modern history, Central Appalachia
has been situated in a system that created dependency. He says that in the
first wave of survival Appalachian people were subsistence farmers who worked
hard. Then in the second wave, people worked hard in the timber industry. After
the Civil War, people connected with the railroads and worked hard digging coal
until the 1990s. In all of these economic waves, people could be undereducated which
lead to a cultural phenomenon of devaluing education. People who wanted to do
something other than hard manual labor moved away from the region. Today the
poor of Central Appalachia are often undereducated without the manual labor
opportunities of the past. This creates the gap that fuels dependence on
federal assistance programs. “Many have lost hope and lost ambition. People did
not believe that education had value nor did they value education.”[70]
The gift of the Genesis 2 text empowers hillbillies with the idea that God is
the one who is greater than any economic structure yet also God is the chief
provider.
Further
in the narrative, God provides for Adam with a community and a family through
the creation of Eve.
So, the Lord God put the human into a deep
and heavy sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh over it. With
the rib taken from the human, the Lord God fashioned a woman and brought her to
the human being. The human said, ‘This one finally is bone from my bones and
flesh from my flesh. She will be called a woman because from a man she was
taken.[71]
Adam was placed inside of a family.
Just like Adam, the family is the source of identity, bonding, and rootedness to
hillbillies. In Central Appalachia, families tend to have the same values and relate
in closer ways to extended families which often live in the same
hollows/hollers.[72] The
family helps the hillbilly be linked to their historic roots, fight against
dislocation, and helps to lean into communal wisdom.
The
family, however, is complex just like the region is complex and it resists the single
narrative perspective. Genesis 2 says that God gives Adam and Eve a command to
place their relationship as top priority. This marriage demands greater
allegiance than the tie to the larger family or to other human relations. “This
is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife,
and they become one flesh.”[73]
The snag of the family can be one of the most painful and limiting experiences
of a hillbilly students. In personal interviews, five of out eight students
interviewed, reported that they felt restricted by their families when it came
to pursuing their sense of calling through a particular job or college major. Student
Wes summarizes this tension when saying, “I also faced a little push back from
my father regarding my decision to get a degree in religious studies, which was
pretty tough seeing as how I hold my father’s opinion highly.” For those who
feel stuck or snagged by family Genesis 2 can provide the truth that there are
allegiances that are greater than family.
Finally, the story of humanity’s creation in Genesis 2
shares that Adam and Eve were naked without shame. “The two of them were naked,
the man and his wife, but they weren’t embarrassed.”[74]
Painfully, the hillbilly is subject to humiliating stereotypes and this leads
to a cloud of shame and embarrassment that remains with them throughout their college
studies and adult lives. Often the hillbilly does not leave the region due to
fear of ridicule or failure because of the internalized negative hillbilly
identity. Hillbillies are the scapegoats for the USA, yet as a nation, we must
take a closer look at ourselves.[75]
Sociologist Duane Carr has persuasively argued there is an
American contempt of the poor which is based on a broken understanding of the
Protestant work ethic. It promotes the concept that those who work hard with a
strong and positive work ethic are rewarded by God. If one is poor, therefore,
God is allowing them to suffer the fruits of their lazy life.[76] In addition the Pentecostal prosperity gospel can also shame the
poor by labeling them as week in faith. It is believed that God wants to bless
those who are truly worthy and deserving. Both views, however, are broken. The
term hillbilly is so often used to shame the Appalachian American and it is
frequently used as an insult to shame traditional working-class mountain people
who financially struggle. The call of Genesis 2 is for the
hillbilly to be free from the cloak of shame and uncovered by the power of
hillbilly authenticity. The freedom of Adam and Eve was known as they truly lived
into the creation of God and the garden which was provided for them. They were
naked and unashamed so that hillbillies can be fully open to their hillbilly
identity without fear of ridicule.
This Genesis 2 vision provides the hollering theologian
biblical imagery to judge the historic moment as it provides a theological
framework to see God’s work in Appalachia. Genesis 2 gives the hollering
theologian a biblical story to inspire one’s work and to help inform how to
judge one’s context. Each expression of liberation theology has biblical
stories to lean upon for its inspiration, and Genesis 2 is a key passage for
hollering theologians. When seeing the realities of Central Appalachia, it is
imperative to have a biblical framework to begin to judge, and Genesis 2 gives
a beginning lens for this work.
The third and
final movement of the hollering theological pastoral method as adopted from
Boff is to “act.” Without action the poor are harmed because it shows the
problems without alleviating the suffering.[77]
Ultimately, this pastoral method invites the hollering theologian to see the
pain, judge with a biblical and theological lens, and launch into liberative
action with those who are suffering.[78]
Where
does the hillbilly turn when it is time to act in a liberation praxis? The
hollering theologian provides a pathway for this liberation praxis by
presenting a new vision of a hillbilly Jesus who offers a model of Appalachian
liberation. The hollering theologian is a true revolutionary because s/he knows
why s/he is rebelling, and this revolution it is rooted in one’s unashamed
hillbilly identity. The hillbilly is first and foremost a child of God and this,
says peace activist and Christian revolutionary, Arthur Gish, is the first step
of freedom. “When the slave defines himself as a child of God rather than a
slave, he is already a rebel, for his slavery is not what gives him his
identity.”[79] The
ultimate tool of liberation is when the hillbilly finds their unmuted identity
in Jesus. The hillbilly Christ is the holler son/daughter of God who is not
dependent on the false deities that enslave through disempowerment but is the saving
hillbilly who is known through communal creativity.
Beyond
a hillbilly Christ, a modern example of “acting” is Gov. Paul Patton and the
work of UPIKE. Paul Patton is the current chancellor of UPIKE and is most
famous for being Kentucky’s education governor. Gov. Patton is authentically Appalachian
in his leadership. Paul Patton helped birth the education act of 1990, which
created the community college system. While running for a second term as
governor, Paul Patton used the motto “Education pays” to help promote education
in the commonwealth and especially in his home of Eastern Kentucky. Under his
visionary leadership, he was able to help, along with Pikeville business
leaders Burlin Coleman and Dr. Chad Perry, to launch the third medical school
in Kentucky, Kentucky College of Medicine
(KYCOM). This medical school has now been in operation for nearly 20 years
and it addresses the primary care physician shortage in rural Appalachia.
In
2012, he sought to have UPIKE join the state of Kentucky’s system of state
colleges and universities. Gov. Patton believed that students in the mountains
needed their own Appalachian university and the poor students in the mountains
deserved an affordable university, with state university prices, without having
to move out of their Appalachian cultural context. This move sought to regain
power for the Appalachian people and proclaim the need for an authentic and
leading Appalachian voice at the statewide education table. Gov. Patton and UPIKE
were seeking to live out what Father Ellacuria called the call of the Christian
university which seeks to express the faith in pushing for political programs
which fight for the oppressed.[80] Although this move ultimately failed to place UPIKE within the
state system, it did earn UPIKE significant funding for further Appalachian
scholarships.
In
addition to the medical school, UPIKE sought to address the horrific eye health
of Central Appalachia. Today Central Appalachia has the worst eye health in the
entire nation and to address this deadly reality, UPKE launched the Kentucky College of Optometry. As only
the 18th optometry school in the nation, it is now home to the
latest of technology and cutting-edge research in concussions and myopathy
related to screen usage. With the creative help of interested local eye
doctors, a passionate Appalachian administration, and dedicated community
members, this college now seeks to change the Central Appalachian eye story,
giving new vision to the region. Rather than waiting for forces from the
outside to save the region, UPIKE embraced the truth that Central Appalachia already
has the gifts that it needs to thrive. Gov. Patton and UPIKE refused to be
victims and took on the role of free agents who serve their neighbors. UIKE is
seeking to have its social projects directed by the poor and the hurting.[81] In
UPIKE, hollering theologians can see liberation in action. With the poor in
mind, hollering theology defines grace as that which promotes and restores
health.[82] Also,
UPIKE doubled their nursing program to help with the nursing shortage and
introduced three new certificates that were asked for by the community that focus
on various types of leadership. Also, UPIKE started an online accelerated MBA,
a Masters in Teacher as Leader, and an MSW program for professionals who had
landed a job in the area but did not want to have to leave to pursue a degree
in a different region. Again, UPIKE is living the presence of God by concrete
action steps of empowerment. Through these fields,
UPIKE is not only supporting those who are sick and hurting but empowering
hillbillies to set the pace for liberation. By using Boff’s pastoral method and
its third movement of “acting,” UPIKE provides a model of this “acting” in
Central Appalachia. UPIKE equips hillbillies for careers that will do more than
just meet the basic needs of their families. These careers can turn the tide on
generational poverty and regional despair. The plight of Central Appalachia
will only change when hillbillies are the drivers of change by the way of
taking care of one another. UPIKE’s vision for Appalachia is no longer characterized
by dulcimers, quilts, and ‘otherness.’ Instead, it is a vision filled with
innovation and creative resistance.
A prophetic “act” within hollering theology, is calling out the
damaging impact of looking backward to outdated visions of Appalachia. When
only telling a romantic story of dulcimers and close family connections, a hillbilly
is not speaking the truth. A hollering theologian must look to the Central Appalachian
region as a land filled with future national leaders. UPIKE is modeling a resilient
and transformational community. Dr. Margaret Wheatley in her book, Walk on Walk Out would label UPIKE a Walk Out community of transformation because
it is courageously leaving behind ideas that restrict and walking onto the
ideas, people, and practices that empower new gifts and new possibilities.[83] It is through such challenging endeavors that UPIKE is
implementing a critical framework for their praxis in the region. This type of
daring leadership is seen in UPIKE’s support of the AppHarvest initiative and the Appalachia
Rising podcast. AppHarvest “seeks
to bring together great minds from Appalachia and around the world to transform
the future of agriculture and plant the seeds for a better tomorrow.”[84] Through the podcast Appalachia
Rising, UPIKE seeks to
challenge the negative stereotypes of the region especially by those even
within the region. This podcast lives out Father Ellacuria’s fundamental action
step for the Christian university that calls for the creative and critical
conscience of the society. [85] Learning “with people” to redefine the image of a hillbilly is
the enduring work of this podcast. In Appalachia Rising, UPIKE’s President
Burton Webb seeks to lift up creative community innovators who are leading in
ways that he believes are reproducible and desirable for the rest of the
country. The podcast challenges the myth of the ignorant hillbilly. Also, a
recent Appalachian Heroes project at
UPIKE seeks to memorialize leaders in innovation in the region so that hillbilly
students have hillbilly role models. These stories, projects, and heroes are
attempts to reverse the stereotype through liberating education.
In the “acting” movement of the pastoral method, liberation is
enacted, yet throughout the entire cycle of movement, conscientization is happening. UPIKE’s liberation projects seek to
facilitate conscientization through student engagement with living
primary resources and active Appalachian change agents. As a Christian
university in the shadows of Ellacuria’s model, UPIKE seeks to serve with the
poor. The poor at the locus theologicus and the goal of the theological
endeavor is to take crucified people down from the cross.[86] UPIKE is seeking to take down the crucified body of the
stereotyped hillbilly and resurrect the full actualized hillbilly who knows
one’s potential.
Hollering theologians also must undergo a process of conscientization as they serve with the
people. In this process, it is necessary to contextualize key theological terms
and concepts according to hollering theology. Sin for the hollering theologian
is the prevention of full humanization, which is evident through the effects of
the hillbilly stereotype. Sin is a structured reality, which damages humans and
ultimately hurts God. Sin then is known in systems which limit human freedom
and create a world where those who are victims are disempowered and become complicit
in their own oppression.[87]
Salvation and liberation for the hollering theologian is living in
solidarity with the poor by seeing the evil of the suffering and connecting
with the poor in spiritual poverty. Spiritual poverty is the radical
availability to God’s will to act in liberative and transformational ways on
behalf of and with the poor.[88] Based on its Christian identity and commitment to Christian
practices as per Ellacuria’s vision, UPIKE seeks to be immersed in the lives of
the poor by operating as an activist organization that declares Central Appalachian
poverty as an evil, and seeks to live out God’s free love by accepting all who
will apply through its mission opportunity enrollment policy. The grace of God in
hollering theology is made evident when God’s actions are known through human
action. Grace is the agent that empowers the poor and oppressed of Central Appalachia
to be the agents of change rather than the constant recipients of being
rescued.[89] The Kingdom of God then for the hollering theologian is the reign
of God as manifest in the coming alive of each human person in the region for
the work of God on behalf of the poor. It is the reality that makes life and
dignity possible for the poor. Because poverty in Central Appalachia is
literally one foot in the grave, the Kingdom of God is expressed in tools that
lift people out of poverty and into communal generosity as one is moved from
the subject to the object of localized generous action. This kingdom is
possible because of God who is found in the crucified Christ. [90] This crucified God stands in solidarity with the oppressed and,
through grace, makes the fullness of life possible. The resurrection of Christ
is made known through the resurrection stories of each person, family, and
community that rises from poverty to self-sufficiency and meaningful work.
Hollering theology advocates for the work of liberation and
resurrection as key concepts in its theology. Resurrection is passionately
acted out through the reversal of the negative hillbilly stereotype and the
claiming of the theologian as a trickster. The reversal of a stereotype falls
in line with the great tradition of the Appalachian trickster. Through jack tales of the Appalachian first
peoples and mountain narrators, the backwoods trickster surprises with one’s
creative and helpful endeavors. In these jack
tales, the Appalachian trickster is one who is usually seen as weak and
uncertain but gracious. Coming off as a type of fool who does not follow the
rules and is constantly making a joke, the jack
is then creatively wise at the end by achieving the positive goal.[91] The hollering theologian seeks to be a type of jack who works
toward the liberation of the hillbilly. This is achieved by flipping the script
on the stereotype and living out the duality of the hillbilly identity. The
hillbilly jack is a model of the redeemed hillbilly: one who is a backward,
toothless, barefoot fool but turns out to be the leader for common good. The hillbilly
jack can be seen a model or type of
redeemed hillbilly. This redeemed hillbilly is the one who is seen as a
backward, toothless, and barefoot fool but turns out to the be leader for the
common good.
In the Bible, God can be contextualized to
model the ultimate Appalachian jack. God is the first to reverse stereotypes and
this is a key way God works liberation. God made known this reversing when the
motherless Sarah became the mother of nations and when the Hebrew slaves
plundered the might nation of Egypt without taking up a sword. It is the
warrior Joshua who won a battle through blowing a trumpet and it’s an
undefeated giant slayed by a boy. It is the people set for extermination who
then have their leader paraded around a city and it is a foreign Moabite who is
most loyal to God’s work of bringing about a Jewish Messiah. Ultimately it is
the work of Jesus who flipped the script on the public narrative of the
Samaritans and St. Paul who pushed for the circumcised hearts of the Jews while
proclaiming the chosen reality of the gentiles.
Ultimately in hollering theology, resurrection can be seen in the
ability of the hillbilly stereotype to bear witness to an alternative way of
living. For a moment pause and picture the most dominate and destructive
pictures that culture presents of the hillbilly. Now imagine applying the lens
of resurrection and redemption to this image. Resurrection and redemption can
be known when taking an honest and critical look at the shadow projection of
the hillbilly stereotype. Using these hollering theological lenses, the
hillbilly goes from being a shameful loser to the hero of society. For much of American
society, people are placed in filtered paradigms and more and more of reality
is virtually experience. However, the hillbilly is an affront to these isolating
cultural forces. Imagine the hillbilly as a prophetic image calling America
back to a more honest and authentic life experience. Below are a few ways that
the hillbilly stereotype can be redeemed and resurrected as a prophetic image
for the nation.
·
Backwoods and backward hillbilly: This hillbilly becomes the one who has learned how to be simpler
and takes life at a slower pace in the midst of out of control cultural anxiety
and a frantic and deadly 24/7 pace.
·
The incestuous hillbilly: One of the most painful labels thrust upon the hillbilly are those
of incestuous accusations. These accusations however expose the fractured
familial nature of contemporary society. In the incestuous hillbilly stereotype,
one sees the dominant cultural powers attempting to shame a hillbilly for their
close family connections yet the hillbilly is the one pushing society to hold onto
family. The hillbilly is one who is willing to lean into one’s familiar roots
even at the forsaking of “greater” career or financial opportunities.
Hillbillies are willing to leave behind these financial gains as the hillbilly
is calling out the pain of familial dislocation which harms a person’s sense of
belonging and community. The hillbilly maybe be prophetic symbol of a more
fruitful way of kinship and family nearness especially in light of a nation that
is now more divided and distant from family.
·
The toothless hillbilly: becomes the one who challenges the foolish and unrelenting
cycles of violence and the propagation of the American military industrial
complex, which spends twice as much on weapons as it does on social safety net
programs for the poor.[92] Although repulsed by the toothless cartoon hillbilly, one is
truly being eaten alive by the myth of redemptive violence and the perpetual
conflicts of American foreign policy.
·
The barefoot hillbilly: pushes the dominant powers to deal with one’s own arrogance as
the humility and earth-based nature of the hillbilly calls out the vanity of a
culture that spends more time on screens playing Farmville than in parks or in community gardens. A barefoot
hillbilly embarrasses the foolish endeavors of American celebrity culture.
·
The perpetually pregnant
and unmarried female hillbilly: challenges rigid
social norms and invites people into the freedom to love whom one wants and to
have nontraditional values for family. Imagining families with the mysterious
possibilities of deep rebirth and ever new ways to add to the “family” without
the strangling boundaries of rigid traditional family values.
·
The banjo playing
hillbilly, connects society to the honest truths of
slavery in the US. The banjo connects the hillbilly to the unnamed slave gifts,
which provided the tools to help put hillbillies on the radio and in hall of
fames. The banjo provides an image that bears witness to all the ways that the
nation is built upon slave labor.
The resurrection power of the Appalachian trickster is most known
by the hollering theologian’s envisioning of Jesus as a hillbilly. To see Jesus
as a hillbilly, the hollering theologian must engage in the trickster work of
contextualization. Contextualization is a critical way for a
hollering theologian to be faithful to the task of evangelization in Central Appalachia.
Contextualization recognizes that the original audience of the New Testament is
different than the current Appalachian culture at UPIKE. The original biblical audience
is not culturally superior but is simply a vehicle in which God communicates the
revelation of His Son Jesus Christ. Contextualization deeply values the truth
that all cultures do not have the same morals, observances, and beliefs. Simply
put, some things are cherished and valued in various cultures. Often
contextualization upsets Christians as the argument often states that the
Gospel is unchanging and that cultures must conform to the Gospel. Yet, a quick
review of the history of Christianity leads to the realization that
contextualization and change occur all for the missional purpose of spreading a
relevant message of Jesus. Jeremy Myers argues that all Christians
contextualize, and he uses the ideas of Bible translations as a perfect
example. “The Gospel did not come to us in English. It came in Greek. If it is
true that absolutely nothing can change, then we better all learn Greek. And
this is just the beginning.”[93]
Contextualization is not immoral; it is the very heartbeat of Christianity.
The person and image of Jesus has not been removed from
contextualization. All too often Jesus is painted as the Anglo-Savior who alone
saves the world by resigning himself to the sacrificial death on the cross. Just
as “blackness” unshackled the Christ for Dr. James Cone, the hillbilly nature
of Jesus has the potential to reenergize Appalachian people to pursue Jesus in
the work of salvation.[94] Whereas the hillbilly is seen as Cletus the slack jawed yokel
who cannot do anything of worth. The hollering theologian sees Jesus as the one
who redeems the hillbilly by becoming a hillbilly.
The hillbilly Christ is a critical theological position for the
hollering theologian as this move both lifts the hillbilly and exalts Jesus as
one who enfleshes Appalachian solidarity. It is critical to further express
this solidarity by exploring ways in which Jesus is a hillbilly. Jesus
is one who was “unlearned” by traditional standards and his friends were mocked
and ridiculed because of their lack of proper education. This relates well to a
hillbilly who lives in a region that has the lowest educational attainment
rates in the nation.[95] Jesus
is also the one who loved to be out in the hills and in nature with his friends
rather than the halls of the Temple or synagogue.[96]
He is one who was born in a remote holler and lived in a rural community, most
likely on a hilltop. Jesus of Galilee was a very rural person as Nazareth was a
small village of maybe 250 people. He would have roughly traveled less than a
day’s journey from his house and the big journey was Jerusalem, which was a three-day
journey. Most men were field workers, tilling, sowing, pruning, and harvesting.
For Jesus, the synagogue was a place of education. He would have a distinct
accent of his natural Aramaic tongue. His village would have been built on a
hilltop to be protected.[97]
Jesus
was born into a complicated family situation while being raised by a man who
was not his father. His mother was a teenage single mother, and he has siblings
who were not his mother’s. Jesus was born into a very
poor home and for his first religious celebration his family could only afford
the poor option for the offering.[98] At his birth there was some housing issues and he was practically
born on an extended family member’s couch: a “manger.” He later in life has perpetual
housing insecurities.[99] Throughout his life, the hillbilly Jesus is shamed for not doing
the traditionally manly things of working as a manual laborer and supporting
his family. At one point in his life, there is a public scene as his family thought
that he was going crazy for bucking these traditional roles.[100] Also, as Jesus was growing up, he stays with extended family and
neighbors, and at one point he was the responsibility of them.[101]
Jesus spent most of his adult life not fitting in with religious
authority and felt that he had been called by God independently of any
formalized religious structure.[102] His conflict with religious authority was so intense that at one
point he makes a public scene at a religious meeting and is not accepted back
into a formal denomination or worship building.[103] Jesus was shamed for his distinctive and rural accent[104] and he preferred to be outdoors.[105] He spent a lot of time out on the hillsides praying and
especially was fond of using the early mornings in the hills as a way to
connect with God.[106] Even though Jesus was a miracle worker and spoke as a prophet,
his credentials were continuously questioned and he was shamed for where he was
from.[107] The hillbilly Jesus is much more independent and self-reliant
than others and his training was blue collar in nature as his family was a working
family.[108] His teachings were almost exclusively taught as country stories
that highlighted laborers, servants, farmers, and aspects
of nature. He loved to have a good time and celebrate even to the point of
turning water into some party-ready wine.[109] It
is possible that his deep acquaintance with poverty taught him a lesson from
poverty mindset that says one must live for the moment and celebrate the
immediate because tomorrow has enough of its own worries.[110]
The hillbilly Jesus is not one who needs an elegy. He is one who is liberated
and builds relationships with others that are longing for a hard-working friend.[111]
Hillbilly Jesus is one who loves his friends so much that he even asks his
buddies to help take care of his mother.[112]
Yes,
this Jesus is one who can be known as a hillbilly redeemer. It is through the
contextualization of the Christ, as hillbilly, that the Appalachian American
student can look on with pride to their cultural context and not shy away from
their heritage or accent. Dr. Christine Ballengee-Morris agrees as she advocates
for traditional Appalachian education to directly address the role of the
hillbilly image and identify how it can facilitate healing.[113] The
hollering theologian must be careful, however, because without contextualized
images and setting, the Appalachian person maybe thrown into a confusing
reality. For example, college classrooms can be a foreign place for Appalachian
students with hidden cultural rules that are hard to navigate.[114]
If Appalachian students cannot see their own realities in the life of the Bible
and in categories of theology, they will tune out. The hollering theologian
understands that hillbillies may use their critical skills to disengage with
religious teaching that is not relatable. I found this to be a critical lesson
of this study as some of the liberation theology materials I used for class
were thoughtfully rejected by my students. Now I believe that the materials
were rejected not because of their arguments but due to the lack of
contextualization. The hillbilly Jesus is a key step toward reengaging my
students with liberation theology but this time with more Appalachian
sensitivity and appreciation. Appalachia needs more contextualized theology for
the liberation of its region.
Just as the hillbilly Jesus serve as a powerful theological image
for the hollering theologian, creatively reimagining the Trinity through the
lens of an Appalachian family, can become a theological truth, to inspire and liberate
the hillbilly dignity. The Trinity in the lens of an Appalachian Family
has the potential to empower deeper spiritual growth and engagement with
liberation praxis. For the hollering theologian, this contextual shift can
become a most helpful way to communicate the Trinity in a culture that no
longer understands it to be an essential part of the liberating life.
Oftentimes,
the Trinity is simply labeled a mystery of the faith and therefore Christians
are allowed to avoid the patient and hard work of contextualizing this theological
reality. In light of the growing trend of hillbilly disengagement from the Church,
hollering theology needs to think through the contextual implications of an
Appalachian Family Trinitarian teaching. Hollering theologians can be empowered
on this journey by investigating pockets of Church teaching, which argue for
the female qualities of the Holy Spirit. By understanding the Spirit as female,
one can engage the perichoresis of the Trinity so that the contextual elevation
of family and kinship can be honored and thus become a redemptive analogy in
Appalachia.
For
2000 years, Christianity has overwhelmingly been known for the Father who sent
his son to die on the cross to redeem the world. The agent of renewal and birth
to the Church is the Holy Spirit; this mysterious agent is traditionally
symbolized as a dove. During the centuries, the Spirit has traditionally been
assumed to also be male, because there is the Father in Heaven, and the Son on
earth. Yet is this so? Even prior to the New Testament, in the Hebrew Bible and
the Dead Sea Scrolls the Spirit is
known as the Ruach or Ruach Ha Kodesh,[115]
which is female. “Ruach is a noun of
feminine gender. Thus, referring to the Holy Spirit as "she" has some
linguistic justification. Denoting Spirit as a feminine principle, when considering
the Trinity: Father plus Spirit leads to the Divine Son.”[116]
Also the Spirit gives birth to creation.[117] The New Testament itself describes
the Spirit with biologically female characteristics. It says that the Spirit creates God in the womb through the
virgin birth.[118] The Spirit leads to the born-again experience as
Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be born of water and the Spirit to be born
again.[119] Also, the Spirit gives birth to the Church on the
Day of Pentecost.[120] St Paul offers further revelation about the
Spirit’s work in the life of Christian by saying that the Spirit leads to
intimacy with God.[121]
Within
Church history there have been pockets of Christians who have asked about the
female nature of God in light of the Holy Spirit’s actions of birthing and
comforting. In the Odes of Solomon, the dove at the baptism
of Jesus is called Mother.[122]
As early as the second century Clement of Alexandria was discussing the
indwelling of the Spirit of the Bride. In works such as the Acts of Thomas the Holy Spirit is given
female qualities and characteristics. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus teaches his disciples that his followers
must hate their biological parents but love the Father and Mother. It recounts
Jesus saying, “For my mother gave me falsehood, but my true Mother gave me
life.”[123] When combining this with some of the sayings
of Jesus in The Secret Book of James,
Jesus could be saying that the Spirit is his mother. In this secret book Jesus
describes himself as “the son of the Holy Spirit.” Granted these two works are
not canonized and were lost for much of Church history, yet they introduce the
concept that the Holy Spirit was seen as female in early teachings of Christians.
Although
some in the Church will not admit it, there is a historical precedent for
preaching and teaching the Spirit as Mother. Boff makes
a powerful case for the feminine image of the Holy Spirit by using the imago dei.[124] Does not the critical point of both
male and female truly represent the full character of God? Because God is clearly
above gender one cannot limit God to one expression of gender. So, then the
femaleness and maleness of humanity gives a greater depth to the complex and
mysterious nature of the Trinity.[125] Today
there is an abundant number of respected theologians[126]
who argue for the female nature of the Spirit.
Often
Trinity is spoken of with such elusive terms that the doctrine feels incomprehensible.
The great Moravian theologian and leader, Count Nicolas Von Zinzendorf argued that the Trinity was irrelevant for him
until he had a spiritual and intellectual breakthrough; he discovered the
Spirit as mother.[127] Zinzendorf said that the Spirit as Mother was the only
way that Christians could understand the Trinity with a childlike love and
trust. He stated,
So now they may rather attain a childlike,
simple heart concept of her, since one is better than the others: for the
hearty, childlike concept can still bring them to a true, living knowledge and
to a feeling of the office of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.[128] … If now such a
child thinks about the holy Trinity, it does not need to speculate in the abyss
of the Godhead and strain its head and reason so that it might snap and
tear. But as easy as it is for one to
think about Father or Mother, so easy it is for the disposition to occupy
itself with the heavenly Father and the heavenly Mother. That is simple,
childlike, easy, and tender.[129]
Spirit
as female and the Spirit as mother empowers a familiar image for the Trinity.
Zinzendorf was passionate about seeing the Trinity as a Holy and divine family.
He states, “No one is nearer to the one than Father, Mother and
Husband. Therefore, no human arrangement is more fitting to make a permissible
and moderate idea of the Trinity than this: all others are inconvenient.”[130]
He goes on to say, “Therefore nothing
is better than to live in the family of our Husband, his Father, and our dear
Mother.”[131] The lens of family is critical to the Appalachian
worldview and because of this, the Trinity can be made accessible in Appalachia
if it is viewed as a family. The hollering theologian can use this image as a
way to empower hillbillies to see themselves within God’s nature.
Beyond Zinzendorf there are pockets of the Church,
especially liberation theologians, who affirm the Motherly nature of the Spirit
and the grand importance of the family as a model for Trinitarian contextualization.
Boff argues that in the family one finds the functioning of the trinity,
distinction and union in love. In the interweaving of the three (father,
mother, child), which is the primary expression of human community, one finds
the best primal expression of the Trinity.[132] When the Trinity is understood in light of the
perichoresis, mutual indwelling and making space for another, then the
relational totality of the Trinity is most richly experienced.
When
taking a closer examination of the culture, the hollering theologian sees the
deep value of the family. Throughout the hollers and mountains of Central Appalachia,
one will notice that family land is passed on throughout the generations and
becomes entwined with identity. Freedom and the ability to seek out one’s own
family good on one’s own family property are chief desires in the region. The
Appalachian religion is one of great focus on living right so that one can go
to heaven and be permanently reunited with all the loved ones of the past.
Belonging is the paramount attribute of identity in Appalachia.
Boff
highlights the fundamental reality of family and relationship inside the
Trinity. He argues that each member of the Trinity lives for the good of the
other. This interconnection is so deep that to speak or think of one is to
speak or think of the others.[133] This is how the typical Appalachian family
understands their identity. They sense a responsibility to
family members and are more truly themselves
when within the family circle. Family devotion runs very deep and wide, oftentimes extending to grandparents,
uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, and in-laws. Close relatives also
share and familial roles within the Appalachian family. With the unique nature
of Appalachian family values in mind, is it possible that the most helpful
image of the Trinity for hillbillies maybe a picture of Father, Mother, and
Brother sitting on front porch at the family homeplace enjoying time together
and playing music.
Because
all language about God is symbolic and metaphoric, one must realize that even
the foundational male language for God as Father and the He pronouns in the Old
Testament are simply metaphors.[134]
When the Spirit is unveiled as Mother great things happen in people’s hearts.
Once the female nature of the Spirit is fully appreciated, the image of Trinity
as family can be further explored. Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff, professor of
philosophical theology says, “Trinity is like a family. A family has members
but a member of a family is not the family. The family consists of all the
members together in their familial relationships.”[135]
The family models self-giving, mutual indwelling, and unconditional regard,
thus, it is a helpful model for the more complex aspects of the Godhead.
Generosity and giving are inherent in the family model.
In the typical Central Appalachian home, the patriarch is
willing to sacrifice all things for the good of the family. This is seen in the
historic connection between Appalachia and coal miners. Each day coal miners
willingly put their lives in danger so that their families can have a better
life than the previous generation. Miners are courageous persons as they are
committed to a very dangerous profession. The father is willing to go to the
depths of the earth and possibly even death for the family’s benefit. So, it is
with the Trinity. The Father, out of love, sends forth His Son as the Mother
provides, guides, comforts, and protects the children who are born out of this
mutually self-sacrificing revelation. In this overflowing of love, creation
participates in the life of love and the divine relationship. Creation is
literally born into this relationship just as a hillbilly is born into family. It
is innate in a hillbilly’s DNA to be in a family. Contextualizing in this way
may also empower hillbillies to see themselves just as naturally in the
Trinitarian relationship.
Imaging
the Trinity as a family changes the way a hillbilly reads the Bible. As hillbillies
understand their spiritual identity in light of family identity, so then they
also interpret the Bible in a communally-oriented manner. This form of biblical
interpretation arises from the need to deeply value the unique role of scripture
but also pilot through extremely multifaceted lives in an apathetic and
antagonistic social environment.[136] Hillbillies
battle with negative stereotypes, the breakdown of consistent family units, and
the rapidly changing geographic locations of families due to economic failings
of the central Appalachian region. A differential hermeneutic helps hillbillies
welcome and adopt divergent interpretations of the Bible, so that unity in the
faith can occur.
God wants to be family with humanity. Family is truly
defined by intimacy and mutual giving. It is diametrically opposed to
competition or a mindset of scarcity. It is in the family where people find
belonging and it is the primary place which defines one’s identity. Both
belonging and identity are shaped by the ways in which family speak into one
another. One cannot exist without relationships because family is inherent in
the human experience. Relationships are the fundamental way in which a person
loves God and loves neighbor.[137]
Even
as people die, they are concerned about how their relationships will be
impacted. When asked about how people want to die, a Gallup poll discovered that people want death at home among close
family and friends; they long for the assurance that their families will not be
overburdened with caring for them while they are dying, and they will not feel
neglected at death.[138] Even
in the face of death, people are fundamentally relational. The pain of death is
primarily caused by the fracture of relationship. When the Trinity is understood
as family, the dying can understand their inclusion in the divine family. As
the dying hillbilly seeks to join the heavenly family, the grieving family
member can be encouraged to know that participation in the perichoresis of the
Trinity is a relational connector to their deceased family.
The
Trinity as a family of love who makes space for one another in mutual
indwelling beautifully honors Appalachian culture. It also richly brings forth the
Trinity’s doctrinal centrality as the apex of God’s self-revelation. The father
in heaven, the hillbilly brother who gives of himself for the benefit of the
family, and the mother who gives birth, provides comfort, and gives guidance is
truly accessible to the hillbilly student.
Hollering
theology as a whole is an experiment in contextualized liberation theology[139] in
Central Appalachia. Hollering theology seeks to provide a lens that looks at
the sinful systems at play in Appalachia, especially the hillbilly stereotype.
It is imperative that hollering theology be manifest in the region because so often
hillbillies are victims of poor theology which fuels crippling acts of charity
and oppression. Currently there are no direct theological works on “Appalachian
liberation theology” and the most comprehensive liberation theological works
such as Liberation Theologies in the United States: An Introduction
edited by Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas and Anthony B. Pinn; Handbook of U.S.
Theologies of Liberation edited by Miguel A. De La Torre; and Evangelical
Theologies of Liberation and Justice edited by Mae Elise Cannon and Andrea
Smith mention the poor yet there is a gap of adequately addressing and
developing an Appalachian theological motif. This absence leads to further
misunderstanding of the hillbilly in Appalachia because Appalachia is by its
very nature misunderstood.
Making
a more diverse and complex narrative of Appalachia known is a critical role of
hollering theology. “Stories about Appalachia, who tells them and who gets to
claim them, matter a great deal when it comes to understanding the place and
people more fully. And that understanding is critical, because without a deeper
and more complete understanding of Appalachia, it will be hard for its people
to build a brighter future that crosses lines of division and works toward
parity between race and class.”[140] Activist
professor Stephen Fisher articulates what is painfully true, “a more
kaleidoscope view of culture and history is essential for capturing the
complexity of Appalachia’s past and potential.”[141]
Historian Henry Shapiro and his concept of the “idea of Appalachia” helps to
challenge this one size fits all narrative. He says that the folklore of
Appalachia as “a distinct people with distinct and describable characteristics”
owes much to a stereotyped tradition of writing about life in the southern
mountains that originated in the late nineteenth century often by the way of
missionaries’ accounts depicting Appalachia as “a strange land and a peculiar
people.”[142]
Appalachia is a beautiful and diverse region with a people who desire to tell
their story in a variety of perspectives. In the telling, hollering theology is
a way in which the Christian faith can give voice to the silenced.
As
it is important to include hollering theology in the larger discussions of
liberation theology. It is also critical to be honest about to the complex and
varied history of the Central Appalachian region. Hollering theology plays a
practical role in helping hillbillies do more than explore contextualized
theology. Hollering theology is helpful and necessary to the greater Church
because it empowers hillbillies to look honestly within. Sociologists Carol A.
Markstrom, Sheila K. Marshall, and Robin J. Tryon found that avoidance and forms
of wishful-thinking operate as coping strategies which ‘significantly predicted
resiliency’ among Appalachian teens. They argue that hillbillies learn from an
early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding or pretending better
exist. Although this creates resilience, it also becomes an obstacle to looking
at themselves honestly.[143]
Further, the pain of introspection has been fueled by negative stereotyping and
shaming. Michelle Harless, a high school guidance counselor, when talking about
how the media has framed Eastern Kentucky, said it best, “I just ask when you
portray us, please don’t portray us as ignorant hill folk, I guess, because we
are educated. We’re poor, but we’re educated, and everyone’s pretty proud. It’s
not a desolate place where no hope can be found …Today, the stigma is very real
and for some people, almost as bad as the poverty itself.”[144] Hollering
theology can be a gift to the Church to help give voice to Appalachian people,
address the painful realities of the mountains, while empowering hillbillies to
have a framework for social action that does not feel shameful or betraying of
traditional and conservative family values.
The painful impact of stigma can be seen as the cars
line up early on Friday morning at the Thankful
Hearts Food Pantry. Some families come as early as 7:00 a.m. to get a front
spot. On this day the distribution will roughly start around 9:00 a.m. Once
started, the cars begin to drive through and receive enough groceries for the
week. It is inspiring to see how the volunteers know most of those in line by
name. They wave and chat with their friends and at times “remind” those who
have been coming for a while about the rules of the pantry. Some need
“reminded” because they forget to bring the correct containers to receive their
groceries. As one family leaves, a volunteer turns his head and says, “How in
the world does she not get it…every week we say bring a basket or a box or
something, but she forgets. Jackie has been coming for years and she still
forgets.”[145]
As the volunteer moves onto the next car, I was stunned… “How does a person not
get out of the cycle of poverty and charitable handouts over the many years?”
Her story however is not unheard of. This is the story of many in Central
Appalachia who are barely getting by and are living off of scraps of federal
assistance or off the loving dedication of volunteers. There must be a change
in Central Appalachia as this type of reality is not God ordained.
Every other week Jackie waits in line for a handout.
This has gone on so long that now random family members come with her, so they
too can ask for their portion and to see if the director can hold back their
favorite types of soda. On this day, the volunteer becomes frustrated, yet I
wonder when does the system get frustrated and overburdened? How does this
precious daughter of God fall further and further out of the empowerment path? Sadly,
she is now only seen as a recipient and never as one who has something to give.
Her life is more about having the right basket to haul her provisions with, than
about the creative dreams and visions of her heart. Next month what happens if
Jackie finally does not have the gas money to get to the pantry or next month
the volunteers might be too sick to come. Then what? What happens to those on
her holler who depend on her to bring back the groceries? I pause to catch my
breath and I then ask more deeply, what does hollering theology have to say to Jackie’s
holler? Things must change, one must
holler about this crisis. There must be a radical revisioning of the Christ and
the Triune God who loves the hillbilly. Hollering theology provides contextualizing narratives to speak to the
realities of the Appalachian people. Hollering theology has the potential to
empower Jackie.
[1]
Psalm 121:1-2.
[2] “Biodiversity
Hotspot," Landscape Partners, LLC., Accessed December 13, 2020, https://www.landscapepartnership.org/cooperative/our-plan/section-1/biodiversity-hotspot#:~:text=The
percent20Appalachian percent20LCC percent20contains percent20the,to percent20China
percent20for percent20forest percent20diversity.
[3] Loyal
Jones, Faith and Meaning in the Southern
Uplands, Urbana IL University of Illinois Press, 1999, 4.
[4]
Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, “Ada MarÃa Isasi-DÃaz encountered God in the
messiness of life,” National Catholic Reporter, Dec 12, 2016, Accessed
December 13, 2020, https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/ada-mar-isasi-d-az-encountered-god-messiness-life
[5]
Charles Rowland, “Foundations and Form of a Liberation Exegesis,” Hovey,
Bailey, Cavanaugh, 16.
[9]
Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Caridad Inda, John Eagleson,
eds., Orbis, 1988, 59.
[11]
Ibid., 11.
[12]
Ibid., 12.
[13] “Theology
of the people: Liberation theology in today's Catholic Church is focus of
historic Ibero-American conference at Boston College,” Faith & Reason,
February 13, 2017, Accessed July 29 2020,
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/faith-religion/jesuit-catholic/liberation-theology-and-the-church.html
[14] Alvaro Basista Alcazar, "The Curriculum Implications
of Liberation Theology as a Theory for Social Change," (2001). LSU
Historical Dissertations and Theses, 233, Accessed June 20, 2020, https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/233
[16] “Speak Your Piece: We Don’t Need A War on Poverty, Just
Good Schools,” Homer Marcum, July 22, 2007, The
Daily Yonder: Keeping it Rural, Accessed July 14, 2020. https://dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-we-dont-need-war-poverty-just-good-schools/2007/07/22/
[17] Steve
Fisher and Barbara Ellen Smith, Internal
Colony—Are You Sure? Defining, Theorizing, Organizing Appalachia.
Roundtable discussion, Appalachian Studies Association, September 2015,
Accessed May 1, 2020, https://mds.marshall.edu/asa_conference/2015/full/194/
[19] J
de Santa Ana, Good News to the Poor:
Challenges of the Poor in the History of the Church, Orbis, 1979, 95.
[22] Bryan
J. Dik and Ryan D. Duffy, Make Your Job a
Calling: How the Psychology of Vocation Can Change Your Life at Work, Templeton
Press, 2013, 124.
[23] Ambrose Mong, A
Better World Is Possible: An Exploration of Utopian Visions, James Clarke
& Co. Ltd., 2018, 42.
[25] Gerard
Straub, Hidden in the Rubble: A Haitian
Pilgrimage to Compassion and Resurrection, Orbis, 2012, 118.
[26]
Ellacuria, Freedom Made Flesh, 34.
[27]
“Appalachian Poverty,” Fahe, Accessed
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[29]
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[133] Ibid.,
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