by David Faulkner
No doubt most of us have, at some time in our school experience, been compelled to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who, having read that novel, desired to read any more Hawthorne. It’s not that it’s a bad story: it’s a very good one. But like many 19th century novels, it doesn’t move very fast. Psychological novels seldom do, especially if they are the product of a slower, more leisurely time.
Further, as Christians, we are made vaguely uneasy by Hawthorne’s picture of New England Puritanism. Perhaps our teachers told us Hawthorne was criticizing Christianity in his novel. The truth is that Hawthorne found much to admire in Puritanism, as well as a good deal to criticize about the form Christianity had taken in the New England of his own day. Nowhere is this criticism better expressed than in a very amusing short story. Titled, “The Celestial Railroad,” Hawthorne wrote it in 1838.
The story is a re-telling of the Puritan classic, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. But while Bunyan’s Pilgrim was forced to walk all the way from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, the people of Hawthorne’s tale have constructed a railroad to carry travelers there. They have made other improvements to make the trip easier, to ease the pain and lessen the danger of travel, and to add to the comfort of those on the journey.
The railroad was a new form of conveyance in 1838 and, like many of his compatriots, Hawthorne didn’t seem to like it very much. But it is clear that he reserved most of his contempt for the modernizing clergy of his day. The story is told in the form of a dream. Early in the dream the narrator meets a very helpful man, a “Mr. Smooth-it-away,” who is one of the directors of the railroad company.
In Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s first obstacle was the Slough of Despond. Hawthorne’s narrator learns that a bridge has been built across this dangerous place, and he crosses the bridge in a coach with Mr. Smooth-it-away. Hawthorne’s dislike of some of the pastors of his day is evident in his description of the material used to fill in the slough and give a foundation for the bridge; “books of morality, volumes of French philosophy and German rationalism, tracts, sermons and essays of modern clergy, extracts from Plato, Confucius and various Hindoo sages, together with a few ingenious commentaries upon texts of Scripture.” How good was this foundation? “[T]he bridge vibrated and heaved up and down in a very formidable manner; and, spite of Mr. Smooth-it-away’s testimony to the stability of its foundation, I should be loth to cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially if each passenger were encumbered with as heavy baggage as that gentleman and myself.” In Bunyan’s tale Pilgrim lost his heavy baggage at the foot of the cross. In Hawthorne’s it all went on board the train.
The traveler discovers there have been other innovations. Most frighteningly, Pilgrim’s old enemy, Apollyon, has been hired as engineer! Numerous scenes follow in which the narrator is told how things are better for pilgrims now, but in which the reality contradicts such claims. Finally the train rolls into one of the places where Pilgrim faced the greatest danger, the city of Vanity Fair. This place offers all the temptations of the world, and churches had been forbidden there. But even this problem has been rectified and Hawthorne resumes his attack on modernist clergy by describing the important preachers of Vanity Fair; “the Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-truth, that fine old clerical character the Rev. Mr. This-today, who expects shortly to resign his position to the Rev. Mr. That-tomorrow, together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit; and last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine.” It is no surprise, after all this, that the narrator finds himself arriving at the end of his journey not at the Celestial City, but at a place he doesn’t want to visit at all.
Could Hawthorne come back to walk our streets and visit our churches he would see just how well the clergy of Vanity Fair have done their work. Billy Graham has described American Christianity as, “Twenty miles wide and an inch deep.” It may look deep, but it isn’t. So many of our churches and pastors have stumbled at truth that we now have whole denominations most of whose members and pastors don’t believe there really is any such thing as absolute truth. The church is caught up in every trend and movement of the culture with hardly a pause to reflect on the origins or effects of those trends. Some wag has even described the liberal wing of the church as nothing more than the “Cause of the month club.” But conservatives, evangelicals and fundamentalists are not immune. Some of us hardly know what to believe while others go after any new teaching, refusing to heed those Christians with the gift of discernment who warn them not to go. The winds of doctrine blow, our spirits are clogged and fogged, and the truths that inspired first Bunyan, then Hawthorne, to write as they did are all but forgotten.
How confused are we? I just watched a viral video whose author/producer tries to pit Jesus against something he calls “religion.” Forgetting that both James (1:26, 27) and Paul (I Timothy 5:4) commend religion rightly practiced, not knowing that religion is no more than the daily practice of our faith in Jesus, Christians have watched this video, gotten all excited about it and sent it to their friends. It doesn’t take much spiritual depth to see what is wrong with this video, but far too few of us seem to have noticed. Hawthorne saw us on this road to shallowness, trendiness, and spiritual confusion. So while I don’t think he would be surprised about the way things are, I suspect he’d be disappointed more of us who haven’t heeded his warning.
All quotations are from Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches, Copyright 1982; The Library of America.
About the Author: Rev. David R. Faulkner has been a pastor in the PCUSA for over 30 years. He recieved his Bachlors in History from Michigan State University, His Masters of Divinity from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and Did Graduate Work at Ohio University. He is currently preaching at The Harrisonville Presbyterian Church in Harrisonville Ohio. He is also married and has four kids
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