Activism and Inwardness

Abstract

T he genre of testimony is one that a serious writer would do best to avoid. By testimony I mean a very particular subset of first-person narrative—this isn’t autobiography (of one’s life as such), or reportage (of one’s adventures), or confession (of one’s misadventures), or testimonial (of one’s experiences with certain products). Each of those genres can be adapted, free of cringing, to a modern, literary, secular voice. One can write in them, post the result on the Internet, then afterward live to write another genre. Testimony is different. That’s because writers are supposed to be in control, aware of themselves and those around them. Supremely so— that’s why we’re the writers. But testimony doesn’t permit this. Whether one testifies from the stand in a courtroom or the sanctuary of a church, testimony is about forces beyond one’s control or comprehension. In court, testimony takes place in the midst of an imposing and perplexing and grinding process by which justice is purported to be done, and over which the witness has as little control as the lawyer class can make possible. Such a testimony can be only part of the story, and it will be heard only through a mysterious combination of performative and bureaucratic filters. Testimony coming from a Christian has similar features. This kind of testimony is a story about what God has done in one’s life; the main character in such a story is supposed to be God, but since the testifier is a human being and not God, God’s activities present themselves only through what the testifier claims God has done in her or his life. A writer conveying such experience has little opportunity to take credit for