The holidays haven’t been quite so happy in the southwestern Colorado town of Pagosa Springs. At the Loma Lynda subdivision, one Lisa Jensen--probably one of those darn hippie types--had the temerity to post a peace-sign wreath on her condominium. Imagine! Well, the subdivision's outraged director, Bob Kearns, demanded the sign be removed, and when the Architectural Control Committee unanimously demurred, he fired them. Now, he’s fining Jensen--who refuses to be "bullied"--25 dollars a day.

Kearns claims the peace sign is "controversial" because it’s anti-war. Yet Jensen points out that the holidays have traditionally been seen as a time of "peace on earth" and argues she isn’t necessarily protesting the war in Iraq.

More to our point here, however, is Kearns’ second assertion: the peace sign is "Satanic"--"It's also an anti-Christ sign. That's how it started." Now, the peace sign is an emblem of the counterculture; when people see it, they tend to think "hippie." So why assume the symbol has its roots in Beelzebub’s basement?

It was in the late sixties the rumor began: the peace sign was the Christian cross turned upside down with the arms broken. Boy, someone must have laid awake nights figuring that one out. Never mind the circle drawn around the whole thing. I guess an overly artistic Lucifer must have gotten carried away with his crayons. Never mind the more important issue: the way people use the symbol--what it means to them--is what gives it meaning; where it allegedly comes from is largely academic.*

No, don’t be led astray by such thoughts! Cast the Devil out! Clearly, the peace sign is damning evidence of the hippiedom’s allegiance to the Prince of Darkness!

Silly as it is, the notion is widespread; in fact, among the religious right, it’s prevalent. How many preachers have we heard extolling the evils of that musical genre they associate with “the counterculture,” rock ’n’ roll? Or consider the ominously entitled book Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How It Changed America Forever (1994, Crossway). In a work described by the Presbyterian Journal as "One of the most penetrating and significant books of the [20th] century," author Os Guinness claims to defend Christianity from the counterculture. Ostentatiously erudite, Guinness manages to drop the name of about every important thinker in world history, and oh, he once even attended a Grateful Dead concert. This, apparently, makes him an expert on hippie culture. Somehow, though, he seems to have missed the term "Jesus Freak," the Doobie Brothers singing "Jesus is Just Alright" and the entire genre of Christian rock. So his argument begs the question by assuming the counterculture is anti-Christian. In reality, of course, counterculturists hold a variety of beliefs: some are agnostics or atheists, some are Muslims, some are Jews, some are Buddhists, some are Wiccans, and many are devout Christians. Heck, there’s even a website called HippieChristian.org.

Strange, then, that Guinness and so many others should assume that the counterculture has set itself against the Christian God, that they should be in such a rush to relegate us to the realm of sin, sulphur and succubi.

Actually, it's not so strange--stupid and irrational, perhaps, but fairly normal given American history: ethnic minorities have regularly been branded "enemies of God." Jewish-Americans have been called "Christ killers." And when the “heathen” Native Americans finally go to Hell, they’re going to burn right alongside the Chinese-Americans and Japanese-Americans, who have also been accused of worshipping "false gods,” right? And of course Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans and Hispanic-Americans--they’re all Catholic; the "true God" of largely Protestant America is often thought to take a dim view of "filthy Papists." And newer ethnic minorities that are Muslim? Hey, don’t even get me started!

Essentially, "God is on our side; God is against those other people" has for centuries been used to justify America's racial and ethnic prejudices.

That’s what’s happening here, only now it's with hippie-Americans. The demagogic preachers railing against rock music, Guinness' absurd work, silly claims that the peace sign is Satanic--all these speak to the need of bigots to justify their hatred of hippies: "We’re just God’s servants doing His work." Any enlightened religion would, of course, see bigotry as a great sin against both humanity and God, but this is how America has traditionally treated ethnic others. It's one more reason we should recognize the counterculture as a kind of ethnic minority: it gets treated like one.

 

FN--For a brief, accurate explanation of where the peace symbol actually comes from (the nuclear-disarmament movement), please see "Peace symbols: The origins and the ideas behind the symbols" at DesignBoom.com.