Introduction: Incarnations of Christ in Twentieth-Century Fiction

Abstract

The history of western literature's intersection with Christianity is a long, often complicated, but strangely complementary one. The latter has provided the ideological basis for the former, either explicitly as a reassertion of the religion's supremacy, or, more restrictively, as the ethical persuasion underlying literature, while western literature has often been used to clarify and expand, or question and challenge the theological premise of Christianity. This relationship is, of course, neither surprising nor inevitable: Christianity was (and still is) one of the western world's most dominant and expansive metanarratives and has seeped into every aspect constituting human existence, be it personal values, community identity, or even state policies. As a discourse operating within and directed by the compass of this metanarrative, literature necessarily reflects, sometimes if only to satirize or parody, Christianity's trajectory. This relationship is further reinforced by the fact that as a foundational discourse familiar throughout the West, the Bible has also provided writers with various narrative strategies and an astonishing range of symbols from which to draw, and which in turn either specifically or obliquely inform the ideological and aesthetical tenors of their literary work. However, while these two institutions may have complemented each other, they were never equals, and the relationship remained, for much of their shared histories, an uneasy one. The worth of literature was heavily dependent on aligning itself with the faith's truth claims. In this regard, C. W. du Toit's observation that the novel, being free, is therefore able to pose and challenging invaluable to theology, uncomfortable to the God of dogmas and creeds, is only partially accurate and largely specific to writings after the Second World War (818). Prior to this, there were limits as to how far literature could confront Christianity, thus circumscribing the kinds of critical and challenging questions literature could pose. Works that blatantly undermined or lampooned Christianity (or, more often, the church), such as Diderot's The Nun, may at best be permitted as expressions of the corruption in the cultural and social imaginations that resulted from the abuse or abandonment of religion (and their writers labeled ungodly, perverse, and decadent). At worst, they would be heavily censored or banned (such as Voltaire's Candide). A similar fate befell writings that were explicitly concerned with issues the church deemed spiritually compromising: paramount were those that involved sexuality. In the first half of the twentieth century alone, several literary works, including D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover, Radclyffe Hall's Well of Loneliness, and Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate Country, have been variously censored or banned by one or more western countries. While not directly instrumental in prohibiting these works, Christianity's influence on these nations' legal systems is undeniable. But even while Christianity remained a fundamental premise of western thought and ideologies during this period, it was also clear that the church and the state were incontrovertibly separating. Indeed, it is arguable that a proliferation of fictive works transgressing Christian proscriptions could be viewed--alongside the western populace's increasing disappointment with and renunciation of Christianity--as an attestation to the religion's gradual loss of authority. As the years after World War II unfolded, during which identity politics and laws relating to censorship and obscenity would undergo significant reformation that not only disavowed religious pressure but also reflected a distinct secular position, forbidden works would once again become available, and those that were censored would have their expurgated sections reinstated. The decline of Christianity's power over literature did not, however, signify a complete separation of spheres. …