When
I first believed in Christianity, I was in the Army in Germany in the 70s. The only Church was the Army Chapel
system. So I read widely and listened to
sermons to figure out what exactly being a Christian meant. Among the many cassettes I listened to were
sermons by southern revival preachers.
After hearing dozens of these sermons I began sense the rhythms and
themes that these stirring speeches shared.
The
best sermons began in sin, descended almost to Hell, then rose up on the wings
of God’s Grace. After a while, it became
clear that, although every preacher was a terrible sinner, they only committed
sins that a conservative southern audience considered manly. All were fornicators, but they were fornicators
with lovely, willing women. Many told
stories of drug use, but more told stories of being drug dealers. If they drank, they could hold their liquor. If they fought, they won or were beaten to
the point of death by several attackers.
If they stole, they robbed banks and stores and drug dealers. In other words, they sinned boldly, bravely
and in ways that their audiences could admire.
They could repent proudly after a sin well done.
But
all real thieves begin their crime careers by stealing from their mother or
their sisters and brothers. Many boys
dream of having a half-dozen beautiful devoted lovers, but their reality is
looking at lewd pictures in their bed or the bathroom. None of these confessions included rape, gay
sex, theft from loved ones, drunkenly wetting the bed, or getting bitch slapped
by a bully.
In
The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis says
“Cowardice,
alone of all the vices, is purely painful—
·
horrible to anticipate,
·
horrible to feel,
· horrible
to remember.”
Lewis
said we can be made to feel proud of most vices, but not of cowardice.
So
the Texas preachers avoided any whiff of cowardice in their confessions. But in the book Notes from Underground by
Fyodor Dostoevsky the main character is in a downward spiral of cowardice that
ends with him tormenting a prostitute he has just had sex with.
Unlike
the Revival Preachers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, shows his readers sin in the full
flower of corruption. The Underground
Man boils with rage, but shrinks back from direct confrontation. He imagines slights where there are none, and
simmers with resentment. He betrays
every kindness and finally locks himself in a basement, unable to work or talk
to anyone except himself.
The
Underground Man is shabby and filthy, yet vain about his appearance. He thinks endlessly about how to repay
perceived slights, and cannot respond to any kindness except with spite and
rejection.
In
every coward who is bullied there is a bully inside him ready to turn
mercilessly against someone weaker than himself. The Underground Man bullies the prostitute
because he can.
My
first Russian Literature professor said “Tolstoy shows us God the Father;
Dostoevsky shows us Christ loving the least of us.” The Underground man is weak, a coward and a
wretched bully: an actual picture of sin, not the shiny, glossy
ready-for-Prime-Time picture of sin I was hearing from the preachers.
For
sin as it really is, Underground Man is painfully good as are Crime and
Punishment, The Idiot, and all of the wrenching stories and novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
