Some religions admit doubt while others deny it exists. Calvinists argued God’s grace was absolute, but no man could know if he was among the elect. Doubt drove searches for evidence of God’s favor.
Later Protestants argued from the evidence backwards. If you spoke in tongues, if you had a conversion experience, then you were in a state of grace. Good works, public service, wealth all became tokens of sanctification.
At every crisis in our past, we’ve taken the absolute over the unknown. Within a generation, the leaders of Massachusetts Bay Colony abandoned their requirements for membership and adopted the half-way covenant that allowed children of church members to join without proof of grace. Election was transformed from personal experience to a collective family legacy that could be inherited.
Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush were both schooled in southern religion, but the one was raised a Baptist, the other converted to Methodism. The first historically divided into warring sects while Methods hewed to central authority. The one group constantly argues theology, the other debates social issues. Both divided over slavery, but only the one still has northern and southern conventions; the other united its conferences in 1939.
Doubt survives among Carter’s Baptists, but not among Bush’s Methodists. One of the earliest, popular country songs illustrates the difference. Ada Ruth Habersohn, who worked with Methodist gospel musician Ira Sankey, wrote "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" around 1908.
In 1935, A. P. Carter rewrote the lyrics for the Carter Family as "Can the Circle Be Unbroken." The reason for the change was probably quite simple: record companies wanted artists to avoid copyright payments by writing their own songs, and artist obliged.
The nature of the change is speculation. It could be as simple as the preference for the sound of the hard consonants (can the circle) over the internal rhyme of the vowels (will the circle). Or, it could reflect the more Calvinistic theology of the south. A. P. was raised in a Methodist community, while his sister-in-law, Maybelle, was from a Baptist communion in southwestern Virginia.
Will, with it’s implied allusion to free will, assumes ascension to heaven, and the only issue is if an individual has taken the actions necessary to ensure a family reunion. Can invites speculation about what’s possible, introduces doubt.
Since outsiders started listening to the Carter Family, their descendants changed the keyword back to "will," probably because they were told they had made a silly error and should correct themselves. It certainly isn’t the only case where they changed one of their songs to fit the expectations of different audiences.
Still, "can" is the version that people with little money bought in the 1930s, and "will" is what the mainstream expects today.
Our public Protestant tradition continues to edge towards the moral certainty that prefers "will" to "can," and eventually recasts all received texts. Once I was told God tested Job to the point Job despaired of God. Some time in the late-1980s, I heard a radio preacher say that was wrong, that God would never toy with a believer. Instead, Job was in the hands of the devil, and his error was not recognizing the wiles of Satan.
As a child, I was also told David defeated Goliath, with the implication that the weak can prevail, that brains can triumph over physical bullies. A few months ago, a woman told me her minister had given her new insight into the story. Goliath lost because he doubted God.
When the woman started to retell the story she almost said Goliath denied his savior, but then realized that didn’t sound quite right. She kept rewording it until she could retain that interpretation with words that fitted the Old Testament.
New interpretations of traditional stories signal changing values. Voters who accept doubt will have different expectations for leaders, for novels or films than those who want absolutes. The trials of Job speak to a different audience than the travails of Goliath. The Godfather and The Sopranos are different narratives.
When we were faced with difficulties raised by racism, poverty, dependence on petroleum, many found austere Goliath more comfortable than tormented Job or complex David. Since Jimmy Carter was president, men who have been willing to negotiate, the peacemakers blessed of old, have been ridiculed as weaklings.
The cultural preference for uniformity that spreads change from a country song to the entire Bible, leads vocal shareholders to eliminate unknowns and demand boards replace CEOs who still believe they should work with their employees and political leaders in communities where they have plants. The same absolutism informs commentators who criticize parents who share child rearing responsibilities, because two decision makers in a family introduces an element of chance.
Self-help consultants tell people, when in doubt, do something, anything. A leader always acts. We’re told Goliath would never form a committee. Job does not grapple with a crisis in faith, he dithers. Even the Southern Baptist convention today seeks the hegemony of Methodists, the theological purity of Presbyterians.
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