Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004
LITR
4232: American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004
Daniel Davis
11/15/04
The Undeniable Thread
There is an element that has unified the canon of great literature; it is the pondering of the unavoidable question. What is the final destination of the soul? Does it live on past this life? If so, who and what determine this destiny? These questions have haunted humankind for all of his long history. Christianity addressed this question of salvation from destruction in its foundational writings by Paul, Peter, and records of Christ himself. The doctrines of predestination as found in scripture as interpreted by the vast majority of historical theologians will say, “Salvation is of the Lord”. Paul says to the Romans, “it is not of the man that wills or the man that runs, but of God who gives mercy” implying that in the question of salvation, one can neither earn it or run from it, for it is determined and distributed by the good and pleasing will of the Creator. This doctrine first outlined by the Apostle Paul and then by Augustine followed by Luther and Calvin, found itself rekindled and as strong as ever in what is called the “Great Awakening” led by Jonathan Edwards in the American Northeast. “In Anglo-America, the Great Awakening assumed this form in New England, where, at least in its Edwardsean moment, the revival reinvigorated the spiritual lives of long-seated congregations urged God-ward (to a great extent) by their own settled ministers.” (Cohen)
Jonathan Edwards preached with all of his might the sovereignty of God in all things. He preached the total depravity of the sinner. He preached the unconditional election of God’s chosen. He preached the particular sacrificial atoning work of Christ on the cross for the elect and the irresistible grace by which the depraved are called into salvation. Finally, he preached the perseverance of those who had been redeemed until their end. He preached violently, unapologetically, and passionately. Edwards preached total devotion to Christ, and against anything that would hinder it. He raised the bar so high, that for once on American soil, God was placed on the pedestal that scripture demands. To the believer, this is glorious, but to the one who does not understand it is terrible. To hear Edward’s description of the Almighty as one who holds you over the fires of hell as an object of his eternal wrath is a horrifying image. However, inasmuch revival as was stirred up under the pastorate of Edwards, there was equal strife, questioning and reservation. This theological situation maintained its potency over one hundred years later and influenced many of the great writers of the American Renaissance. His influence was nationwide. “Jonathan Edwards deserves the title "grandfather of modern Protestant missions," on both sides of the Atlantic!” (Davies) Writers like Emily Dickinson and Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in questioning rhetoric, not blatant criticism. They did not write of Jonathan Edwards himself. Instead, they made commentary on the context of their time. They observed the hypocrisy of the church, and feared the doctrines of scripture.
Emily Dickinson’s poetry was deeply personal. As she did not write it for an audience, or public commentary, each poem is a glimpse into the thoughts, hopes, and horrors of her mind. The image of God as presented in the puritan churches of her hometown Amherst, Massachusetts seems to have frustrated her. “Apparently with no surprise/ to any happy flower/ The frost beheads it at its play/ In accidental power.” The idea that beauty is at the mercy of an unfeeling nature that gives and takes away at will is indeed a disturbing one, and she ascribes the responsibility to the only one who she can reasonably conclude, “an approving God.” This language suggests unsettling emotions at the harshness of reality. She would not accept blindly what the rest of the country absorbed without question.
She started what could be believed to be a great service to Christianity in many respects. The desire to examine ones own beliefs is the beginning of the path to true faith. Inherited faith is not faith at all, instead, it is nothing more than heritage. Dickinson showed honesty in her writing. As a woman of intelligence, she was confronted with the question of truth, and as a human, this question frightened her. In earlier days, in simpler times, she believed there was no reason for doubt in the Almighty. She could not share this luxury.
Those—dying then,
Knew where they went—
They went to God’s Right Hand—
That Hand is amputated now
And God cannot be found—
The abdication of belief
Makes the Behavior small—
Better an ignis fatuus
Than no illume at all--
She had no comfort in the beliefs of antiquity, but she was scared to write it off as nonsense. What is life if it is only temporal? Why suffer the pains of existence if there is nothing eternal? So in this poem, as short as it is, she makes a statement that envelopes an entire culture. She resolves to say in short that it is better to have faith, even if it is ultimately proved unfounded, than to have no hope at all.
In Alfred Kazin’s God and the American Writer, he describes Dickinson’s contrast to conformity. “Other people had faith absolute. She had mind.” (Kazin 150). She thought through her inner struggle in order that “Her poems talk of affliction and gradual healing and ultimate patience; they render the solitary self as a conscious choice; they contemplate the problem of knowing, the experience of death, Jesus or God, the nature of Heaven and Immortality; her poems reflect on nature and regeneration.” (Miller 34) She treated religion as a conversation instead of a mandate. She had mind to challenge herself, but restraint to know that there are things she cannot understand. To Emily Dickinson, God is a beautiful and terrible mystery.
Fredrick Douglass was another writer of the American Renaissance that challenged popular belief, much like Dickinson. He sought truth in the midst of hypocrisy, but in a much different manner than the aforementioned soft-spoken poet. Douglass was placed in the most miserable of circumstance, held in bondage by those who professed to be believers in Christ. These people beat him, killed others, and raped women of color all behind the banner of Christianity. To see this must have been abhorrent and one could only expect a slave in such a context to reject without hesitation the belief system to which these monsters held. However, to the surprise and delight of this author, he does not.
Like Dickinson, Douglass dug deeper in search of truth. In contrast to Dickinson, this former slave saw his deliverance in the words of scripture. He was liberated by the truth of the Gospel of Christ. The text that Douglass knew best was the Bible and he could read it through different eyes than the rest of the culture, he could read it as one of the oppressed. (Gibson) Douglass criticized openly the hypocrisy of the religion professed in the South. “I assert most unhesitatingly that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity” (Douglass 991).
During the reign of this barbarity in the life of Douglass, he was driven mad by the knowledge he had of freedom. This knowledge tormented him as he stood watching the ships in the bay. “Oh God, save me! Oh God, deliver me! Let me be free!” then something scares him, perhaps occurs to him for the first time, “Is there any God?” Douglass is brought to the point of despair that makes him question the most basic piece of his own beliefs. This is significant because most people who live full lives are brought to this point. And it is at this point that the roads diverge and the paths that follow become ever more dissimilar as time goes by. It is at this point that people hold on to faith, or abandon it as nonsense. Douglass paints this moment in his own life in such a way that one can feel his conflict. This question is immediately followed by a resolution to act. “I will run away…God helping me I will.” So Douglass does not give up his faith, instead he uses the highest authority for the motivation of his action. Douglass did not abandon the faith that had been manipulated to enslave him. Instead, he searched the faith, and experienced a true conversion. No longer satisfied with the simple answers that were fed to him, Douglass saw his God as a loving savior that freed him from his bondage to man and his bondage to sin.
Another prominent writer of the time was Nathaniel Hawthorne. His dealings with the almighty were challenging and forthright, while maintaining anonymity within the characters and situations of his novels and short stories. Hawthorne was disillusioned by the Christian church’s consistent historical blunders and moral manipulation. His most famous work, The Scarlet Letter, was an open accusation of the misuse of morality. The adulterous woman was gathered in the courtyard with an angry mob surrounding her, but there was no Christ figure to stop the rocks from being thrown. Hawthorne viewed this ideology as an incredible injustice. A woman was guilty of adultery, no doubt, but people called to love offering only malice and contempt put her on trial. Hawthorne was quick to point out that biblical truth, “there is none righteous, no not even one” (Rom. 3:10).
This sentiment is again seen clearly in the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Mr. Hooper was convicted of one undeniable, inexcusable truth that led him to wear a veil over his face for the duration of his life. This veil drove a wedge between everyone he cared about and himself. They wondered at this thin piece of material that seemed to hang between their beloved minister and themselves. A distance grew between their friendships, but the pastor’s sermons grew more powerful. He continued in this way, becoming local legend, “the veiled minister”. And on his death bed, many years later, he revealed his motivation. He forced his dying breaths to challenge his flock, “When man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and lo! On every visage a black veil!” (Hawthorne 639) What an awesome accusation. Hawthorne articulated in four lines what is one of the most elusive of spiritual truths. He accused the church of dishonesty, not in regards to scripture, but to themselves as a congregation. They played the game of Christianity, trying their best to hide the scars of their own sins with their pride.
It is a common truth to preach that the most common reason that people do not convert to Christianity is Christians themselves. There is something strange about a God who could love such hypocritical sinners. It is also a strange sinner, who tries to earn what he cannot attain, and by doing so, hides from who he is behind a veil of conformity. These authors are all working towards one question, which is the question of life. What is the point? What could be the reason for so much suffering? Some, like Emily Dickinson and Nathaniel Hawthorne fear that there could be no God behind so dark a past and present. Others, like Douglass and Edwards can see no way past a heavenly presence.
So the search for truth, not in society, for it will always fall short, but in the person of Christ as revealed in Scripture. It is amazing to see the impact of these individual’s works over time. Edwards lives on in the preaching of modern evangelical Calvinists in the Reformed, Presbyterian, Episcopal and Lutheran churches. He is cited and almost every major theological writers of the day. The civil rights activists remember Douglass as a hero and an icon. Nathaniel Hawthorne is still being read and taught, but more notably, the scarlet letter has had a major theatrical adaptation in popular culture. Dickinson’s thoughtful and raw emotions will always be considered accessible and classic. An undeniable thread ties these writers together. This thread is the pondering of something bigger than themselves. It is a conversation that has lasted the span of humanity and will doubtlessly continue to the end.
Daniel Davis
American Renaissance
11/15/04
Works Cited
Cohen, Charles L. “The Colonization of British North America as an Episode in the History of Christianity”. Church History 72 no3 p.553-68. New York. 2003.
Davies, Ronald E., “Jonathan Edwards: Missionary Biographer, Theologian, Strategist, Administrator, Advocate--and Missionary”. International Bulletin of Missionary Research v21 p60-6. London. 1997
Holy Bible.
Kazin, Alfred. God and the American Writer. Vintage. New York. 1998.
Miller, Ruth. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 1: The American Renaissance in New England. The Gale Group. 1978.
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Nina Baym. Norton Publishing. 1999. New York.