The Portrayal of Religion in Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth"

I've just finished reading Ken Follett's novel The Pillars of the Earth. My wife recommended the book to me and, though I had serious doubts about reading anything with an Oprah's Book Club sticker on the cover, I'm glad that she did. I had heard of the book and knew that it was immensely popular and widely read. I also knew that its story dealt, however tangentially or superficially, with religion. I was interested to see how a modern work of popular fiction would portray a historical society where Christianity was absolutely central to every aspect of the social order. What I found was a bit disappointing, but highly instructive.

I should begin my commentary with a caveat: I fully appreciate that the book is intended to entertain. It was not written to effect some fundamental change in the reader, but only to convince them to continue turning pages - and it does that well. Although Follett mentions his atheism in the introduction, I'm quite certain he had no intention of using the story as a tool of indoctrination. The book is, simply put, about the building of a cathedral and the many lives that are intertwined with that monumental task - nothing more, nothing less.

So my interest in Follett's portrayal of religious devotion is not rooted in a desire to unmask some intense anti-religious bigotry or allege any vast atheistic conspiracy; I am, however, interested in examining the prevailing attitudes toward religious devotion in popular culture, especially in works where their influence may otherwise go unchallenged or even unnoticed. With this in mind, I found Follett's work to be entirely and discouragingly antagonistic to the idea of genuine religious devotion.

Some may think this an overly harsh assessment. "After all," they may say, "several of the most sympathetic characters in the book are deeply religious." This, in a sense, is true. But more often than not, a character's goodnes shines through in spite of their religious conviction rather than because of it. The book is intensely cynical.

Follett's characters take a pragmatic approach to religion. It is used as a tool of manipulation and control, even by those in the story whose devotion is genuine. The one character who demonstrates an unshakable commitment to God is still portayed as fundamentally flawed by a single-mindedness that causes him to respond legalistically to the weaknesses of others. He is clearly a good man, but Follett leads the reader to conclude that this is so in spite of his religion, which makes him judgmental and unmerciful.

Follett's view of religion is a modern, jaded one. For a devout christian like myself, his perspective (like most other popular depictions of religion) seems shockingly pessimistic and woefully simplistic. For him, religion is most often nothing but pretense - justification for all manner of evil deeds. Even at its best it is morally limited by its inability to let others live as they see fit. To many modern readers, the idea of religious conviction has become completely synonymous with judgmentalism or even bigotry. And while this may indicate that many religious people have failed to communicate effectively with broader society, I think more of the blame can and should be placed on the hardened heart of the modern reader who refuses to see the actions of others in the best light.

Because of his skewed view of religiosity, Follett struggles to craft any character that convincingly embodies a religious ethic and remains sympathetic. I think this reflects the fact that our society has come to regard tolerance as the highest good. And an undereducated and unchurched people have concluded that religious conviction, by virtue of its claim to transcendent truth, is the worst sort of intolerance.

This idea - that religion, even at its best, unnecessarily constrains otherwise good people by insisting that they conform their actions to the standards of a particular dogma - is the product of a society that has traded its willingness to think critically about morality for the unconstrained right to do whathever feels good at the moment; we refuse to make judgments about the actions of others for fear that our own actions will be similarly scrutinized...and we wouldn't want that. In other words, we have arrived at the abortive conclusion that it is fundamentally immoral to make judgments about morality. Is it any wonder that we struggle to approach religious questions in any meaningful way?

Certainly in the history of Christianity there have been many examples of individuals who have imposed unnecessary constraints in order to exercise control over the lives of others for selfish reasons, rather than to glorify God and help their fellow man follow a path that will lead to a more fulfilling life. But to see an inquisitor around every corner (as Follett seems to do) betrays a disturbing paranoia. Men are corruptible. If a Judge behaves unjustly should we conclude the the law itself is the root of the problem? Clearly not - but this is the sort of irrationality that has come to flourish in our society.

As a whole, this book was good - entertaining and well-crafted, if a bit unfocused - but the author's cynicism toward all things religious will make it difficult for the average reader (and certainly the devout christian) to fully sympathize with any of the characters.

Thoughts on St. Augustine's "Confessions" and Intellectual Conceit

Lately I've been reading Augustine's "Confessions" and I'm astonished at their relevance for the modern reader. Augustine lived from 354 to 430 AD, and many of his writings (particularly "The City of God") deal with issues that would be of little practical concern to modern Christians. His "Confessions," however, simply and poignantly illustrate how even the most esoteric theological questions have very real implications in the lives of those who honestly seek truth.

As I read, I am most amused by Augustine's all-too-familiar journey from childish devotion to smug intellectual conceit, then to emotional devastation, and finally back to the foot of the cross. As Augustine moved from youth into adulthood, he began to crave the superficial approval of those around him, not in order to be righteous but in order to be thought accomplished. Erudite. Enlightened. "At this point I feared to speak a barbaric turn of speech more than I feared to commit a barbaric act."

He sought out the type of success that would bring notoriety. "How I loved mine own ways and not Yours. How I preferred my vagabond freedom...The more my work was praised, the better I became at it. Such is human blindness, that we glory in our sightless condition...I swelled with arrogance...Fame was the goal of my detestable vanity, for I rejoiced in human conceit."

Then, suddenly, Augustine's outlook changed. He began to realize that the enlightened members of society whose approval he craved had little interest in truth. Instead, they used philosophy "to seduce by disguising error with long words and subtle arguments and honorable sounding names." But after happening upon a book of Cicero, this was no longer enough for Augustine. "Cicero taught me that every vain hope is worthless. Suddenly I burned with an intense desire to find wisdom that had eternal value...And since at that time I did not understand the Scriptures...I was changed by Cicero's exhortation only to the point that my heart was strongly awakened, and ingnited."

He says, "I began to stir myself to return to You."

But Augustine's arrogance would not be easily overthrown. He says, "I resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I might see what they contained....[But] these are words that take root more easily in the hearts of little ones. In my grand learning, I would not allow myself to become small. My swelled head sought greatness."

Can we not see in these words the very same conceit that prevents so many today from honestly and openly approaching God's word? Can anyone deny that the Bible is looked down on in the halls of Academia and in the wider popular culture as an object unworthy of serious study? And why? Because the Scriptures possess no wisdom for our times? Because biblical claims have been fully examined and exposed as morally, intellectually, and theologically hollow? Of course not. The reason is simple: The Bible has become unfashionable. Plebeian. Common. It is regarded as below the great minds of our age, just as it was 1700 years ago. And yet it endured the scorn of the "enlightened" then, just as it will again today.

Eventually, Augustine's desire for a truth that was lofty and thoeretical would be dashed against the rocks of very real human tragedy. His greatest friend, with whom he had played as a child and reasoned as an adult, suddenly fell gravely ill. Explaining the intensity of their connection, Augustine says, "Our friendship was made deeper because we had the same study interests. And I took him away from the true faith...We became of one mind in this untruth, and I became dependant on him for spiritual support."

Lying unconscious and close to death, Augustine's friend (whose name is not given) was baptized by his family, who feared for his soul. Augustine thought this a worthless exercise, confident of his friend's unwillingness to accept the Christian faith. He never left the bedside, and when his friend showed signs of recovery, Augustine "began to make a joke of the baptism he received when he was utterly absent in mind and feeling." To his amazement, his friend did not share Augustine's disdain for the family's efforts. Instead, Augustine recounts how "he pulled back from me as if I were his enemy. With a wonderful and sudden freedom, he told me to stop making such comments if I wished to remain his friend."

Augustine sees a transformation in his friend that confounds all his previous instincts - all his attraction to vain philosophies. Suddenly the question of eternal truth was not theoretical. I believe that Augustine's friend, standing at death's door, saw finally that man's attempt to reconcile with God is something more than mass delusion or wishful thinking. Though he was not even awake for the event of baptism, he viscerally understood that only by taking refuge in the love of the eternal God could he find solace from the pains and inevitabilities of this transient life.

Augustine however, having not been pushed to the edge of the abyss, does not yet see as clearly as his friend. And when the fever returned again and claimed his friend's life, Augustine was thrown into despair. He says, "Life was revolting and hateful...a huge load of misery weighed me down." "I carried around my shattered, bleeding self. I was sick of carrying it but didn't know how to put it down." He recalls, "Whatever I associated with my friend became a distracting torture. I sought him everywhere, but he was not to be seen. I hated all places because he was not in them...The depth of my grief was a great riddle even to me. I asked my soul for the reason for such sadness, but I heard no answer....Whatever the reason, I was wretched."

And in this moment when all his arrogance is exposed as hollow, Augustine catches a distant glimmer of God's mercy. He begins down a road that will ultimately lead him to the simple rationality of man's completion in God, and God alone, when he says, "Every soul is wretched that becomes bound...to perishable things. The soul is torn apart when the thing loved is lost."

And with that, Augustine reached a point described vividly by the greatest Christian minds and known to us all: the awareness of man's innate incompleteness. The awareness that there is some thirst in us that cannot be quenched by the things of this world, for they all pass away. The sudden knowledge that to be human is to want for a fulfillment that humanity cannot provide. And this realization will inevitably lead, despite all our resistance, to the foot of the cross and beyond.

We can take comfort that Augustine, a man who lived only 300 years after Christ, was afflicted with the same intellectual arrogance that is rampant in our own lives and in the world around us today; and yet God was able and willing to shake him to his foundations and strip him of all but the simple, rational truth of man's completion in God through the sacrifice of Christ. And He will do the same for us.

Introductory Post

This is going to be my first attempt at sustaining a blog. As such, I do not expect my posts to be particularly interesting to casual readers. Rather, I intend to approach this as an intellectual diary of sorts.

The subjects of my posts will, of course, be largely confined to matters of importance to me: politics, faith, philosophy, and their interaction with each other and American society generally, as I encounter it. I address these topics not because I think I have anything unusually insightful to say about them (although I probably do think so), but because there are so few opportunities in daily life to engage with them in an open, unguarded, and meaningful way, despite the fact that they are absolutely central to who I am.

So that is where this is headed. I have no doubt that it will be, at times, unbearably heavy-handed and I apologize in advance. I do tend to be a bit didactic, and my wife tells me this can often lead others to conclude that my conviction is actually closer to intolerance. I will do my best to avoid giving that impression. But if avoiding putting others off means shying away from proclaiming something that I believe to be true, I would rather be occasionally thought intolerant.

So, here we go.

Blake