War vs. peace. Mercy vs. ruthlessness.
All of these words could be used to describe Christianity. Throughout the last
thousand years it has been used to start great wars and inspire great kindness.
There is Mother Teresa helping thousands of poor and years of crusades that
caused thousands of deaths. In Gilead, by
Marilynne Robinson, the role of violence in the church is questioned and the modern
state of Christianity is addressed by opposing ministers.
The division
of Christianity is shown through John Ames’s grandfather and father. Although
both are men of faith, their beliefs often conflict. The grandfather believes
in helping anyone who needs, or asks for help. At the same time, he believes
that Christians should fight for their beliefs and is unafraid of war. The
grandfather believed so much in the responsibility of a good Christian to
fight, that he convinced many members to join the Union. “He did preach those
young men into war. And his church was hit terribly hard. They joined up first
and stayed till it was over, so the confederates go a good many shots at them.
He went with them, too” (88). Like the crusaders before him, the grandfather
fought and sacrificed to ensure that what he believed was right would succeed.
Ames’s
father is a different sort of Christian. He believes God to be all-forgiving
and kind. The father said when he came back to his father’s church after his
time in the army, he saw a banner saying “The Lord Our God Is a Purifying Fire”
(99). It drove him off to join the Quakers, because he couldn’t believe that
God could be used to justify the loss of a life. He (John Ames’s father) is
conflicted with his father due to his promotion of sacrifice. “Half the graves
in the churchyard were new. And there was his father, preaching every Sunday on
the divine righteousness manifested in it” (87). The father’s God was one of
peace that didn’t use violence to promote their beliefs.
John
Ames is the go-between his father and grandfather. He sees his father’s
pacifism and his grandfather’s wartime actions, but doesn’t say one side was
right all the time. Ames questions aspects of his faith and doesn’t take
extremes. When he discusses predestination, he discusses the duality and
confliction of it, “I don’t believe a person can be good in any meaningful
sense and also be consigned to perdition. Nor do I believe that a person who is
sinful in any sense in necessarily consigned to perdition. Scripture clearly
says otherwise in both cases” (151). His representation of Christianity,
through his acts and words, shows the duality and confliction in the religion
instead of the polarizing nature that his father and grandfather show of it.
Christianity, and religion as a whole, is shown through all three men – it can
be both peaceful and violent or somewhere in the middle, but the goal is to
uphold the morals of their faith.
I think the topic of your blog post is an interesting one, both in respect to the novel and religion in general. Contradiction and hypocrisy is something that intrigues and confuses me greatly about many religions, both in the holy books and in the actions of the people.
ReplyDeleteI think your conclusion about John is interesting. I think there is something significant about the repetition of the name John Ames. We have our narrator, his father, his grandfather, and Jack. I think the fact that they all share a name draws a connection between them all, implying that they are all a part of one another in some way. I feel that characteristics of the other John Amses may serve the purpose of explaining characteristics of our narrator. This means that conflict between two Johns, such as the conflict about war between the father and grandfather, are representative of conflict within our narrator.
I agree with your conclusion to an extent. I do believe that John does not say that one side is right all the time, and I also agree with your observation that he questions his faith and does not take extremes. Although, I believe that it is clear in the novel that John tends to side with the pacifist nature of his father. He says that the outbreak of the Spanish Influenza spared young shoulders, and comments, “Most of [the parents] took me to mean [their sons] were spared the trenches and the mustard gas, but what I really meant was that they were spared the act of killing. It was just like a biblical plague, just exactly” (42). It is clear that John believes that dying in a war is better than killing for one, to the point that he believes God would send a plague to prevent people from killing. John says in his letters, “I believe that plague was a great sign to us, and we refused to see it and take its meaning, and since then we have had war continuously” (43), meaning that he believes the continuous tragedies of war are a punishment from God.
How this point changes the point that the contradiction is trying to get across, I am unsure. I think a main message is the observation of the contradiction itself. Someone in class, I can’t remember who exactly, mentioned that through this novel, Robinson herself is trying to come to terms with the contradiction of Christianity. I think that describes the novel’s message on religion well. Because this novel represents the author’s process of exploring religion, and not necessarily the author’s conclusions about religion, there is no one clear answer.
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ReplyDeleteThe overarching attitude I perceive in the way John speaks of his father’s and grandfather’s “transgressions” and pacifism is very laissez faire. He offers neither his support nor criticizes the choice of each man, but instead an overhead view. On page 34, he states, when speaking of his grandfather, that” we knew that his eccentricities were thwarted passion, that he was full of anger, at us not least, and that the tremors of his old age were in some part the tremors of pent grief”. Further along the same page, it is also stated that “my father on his side was angry too”. From my point of view, a constant feeling of anger if not desirable for a “good” Christian, specifically a pastor. John, in a way I feel is like my opinion on anger and Christianity, observes that they have “buried their difference” (34), quickly followed up by “they buried them not very deeply, and perhaps more as one would bank a fire than smother it” (34). For him to even consciously make this observation indicates, for me, that he does not actually take a stance on whether pacifism or war is better. His only stance is one I would compare to metadata, which is the data about data. His meta-stance is only concerned with the fallacies personified by the everlasting strife between his father and grandfather, in which they have failed to realize the way in which they are justifying their views (using religion) violates principles within that very religion.
ReplyDeleteI find the topic of your blog post very interesting. There are two sides of God that everyone have the potential to see and they are the scary God and the God that loves us, but they are in fact the same. The scary God comes across more while reading the old testament in the ways that the parables are displayed and the way that actions take place. People get stoned to death, are hanged, are crucified, and some are even forced to watch their loved ones suffer. These are just different ways that God could be portrayed. However, God is also loving and kind. This is more displayed throughout the new testament in the parables that Jesus shares with the apostles and disciples. In this, Jess shows how he was able to raise people from the dead, cure illness, such as blindness and leprosy, and also that he cares for all of those that are "his flock". Just being able to represent the different sides of God are able to demonstrate the different sides of the arguments that happen between John Ames' father and grandfather.
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