On Monday, Oct. 13, many people returned to celebrating Christopher Columbus. We also learned that the White House will save Baltimore’s statue to him. I believe that is good news (“Once dumped in the Inner Harbor, Baltimore’s Columbus statue now headed to the White House,” Oct. 14).
Judging Columbus by what we know today and from our contemporary values is just as wrong as what we now know Columbus did to indigenous tribes. But he was making choices from different knowledge and different values. We can clearly say that we believe that they were wrong, but we dare not judge them as Jesus warned us from doing.
Gangs of thugs going around and destroying statues of people they have judged to be horrible people is also wrong. Teaching people the good they did and the bad that we have learned they did can be an opportunity for us to learn. Many in the past were not taught to think but only to accept the beliefs of the time. Columbus questioned some of those beliefs. He should be honored for doing so. We should learn from what he did, not question.
Destroying his statues is like the book burning the Nazis did. It shows an arrogance and a lack of true knowledge. Real knowledge starts with knowing human limits. Humility keeps us from such pride and opens us up to real progress, not false “progressive” brain washing.
— Rev. Michael T. Buttner, Bel Air
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