{"id":6355,"date":"2016-05-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2016\/05\/17\/the-river-jordan-is-deep-and-wide\/"},"modified":"2016-05-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T00:00:00","slug":"the-river-jordan-is-deep-and-wide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2016\/05\/17\/the-river-jordan-is-deep-and-wide\/","title":{"rendered":"The River Jordan is Deep and Wide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere were times when Mark Twain\u2019s humorous attitude toward religion was equal parts impudence and intuition: \u201cThere has been only one Christian,\u201d he wrote
\n\tin his 1898 Notebook<\/em>. \u201cThey caught him and crucified him—early.\u201d3\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOn many other occasions he wrote with far less subtlety and more direct disdain. Though if a reader then or now were to call the acerbic Twain irreverent,
\n\tit would be an insult that the author might accept as a trophy. After all, the Missouri native also claimed, \u201cIrreverence is the champion of liberty.\u201d4
\n\tHowever, when it comes to religion, Twain\u2019s impish and cynically dismissive remarks belie a much more sophisticated argument for liberty of conscience in
\n\tnineteenth-century America.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile his attitude toward Christianity can often come across as unpleasant, even displaying dissatisfaction with organized religion, Twain asks that in
\n\taddition to protecting freedom of<\/em> religion, American society benefits when it grants personal freedom from<\/em> religion.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMark Twain\u2019s argument for religious liberty is visible within his classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>, wherein he uses the mighty Mississippi
\n\tRiver as a symbol for escapism, not merely from adulthood and oppression, but also from a dangerous and hypocritical form of Christianity. It is while Huck
\n\tand Jim are floating down the Mississippi that they find the closest thing to spiritual peace that is ever experienced in the turbulent novel. Conversely,
\n\ton the chaotic riverbanks, they deal with the worst that antebellum Christianity has to offer: feuding clans who quote the Bible, then kill each other the
\n\tnext day; barbarous towns that use the pages of the Bible to treat gunshot wounds; and Scripture-studying slave owners. Each time, Huck and Jim escape
\n\tChristianity on shore and seek solace and freedom from religion in the currents of the Mississippi.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe colossal waterway itself also makes it into Twain\u2019s compendium of insightful sayings. He could have been writing about any combination of himself, Tom
\n\tSawyer, Huckleberry Finn, or Jim when he claimed, \u201cThe only real, independent and genuine gentlemen in the world go quietly up and down the Mississippi.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was on the banks of that river that the adolescent Twain learned the finer points of sacrilegious humor, and acquired the inspiration for the fictional
\n\tBlack slave Jim, who develops a taboo friendship with Huck in the novel.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Twain, even in his early years the Mississippi represented a freedom from the stifling provincial, legalistic Christianity that inspired him only
\n\tinasmuch as it could provide him with satirical material. Andrew Levy writes in Huck Finn\u2019s America <\/em>that the Twain toyed with the idea of adding a
\n\tmoment of traditional spiritual education into Huck and Jim\u2019s southbound odyssey, but decided against it:    \u201c[Twain] considered some kind of \u2018negro
\n\tsermon,\u2019 one line telling us what it might have been about: \u2018See dat sinner how he run.\u2019 [Twain] thought maybe Huck could \u2018teach . . . . Jim to read &
\n\twrite.\u2019 But there\u2019d be no sermon, no teaching, either.\u201d6\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTwain instead preserved the fictional Mississippi as a place of liberty—free from religion and formal schooling, both distasteful to Twain and by extension
\n\tHuck—to contrast with the pair\u2019s unenjoyable encounters with church on land. However, Twain does not preclude a sense of spiritual wonder and biblical
\n\tbeauty from his portrayal of the river and the islands. The most peaceful and beautiful passages in the novel take place on the river: \u201cNot a sound
\n\tanywheres,\u201d Huck says of the Mississippi, \u201cperfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. . . .
\n\tThen the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers. . . .
\n\tAfterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along. . . . So we would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the
\n\tstillness.\u201d7\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWithin its serene waters the Mississippi River cradles the lush Jackson Island, and there are deliberate biblical parallels between Huck and Jim\u2019s first
\nrefuge and the home of Adam and Eve in Genesis: \u201cWhatever its inspiration in real life, Jackson\u2019s Island functions as an Eden in both Tom Sawyer <\/em>and\tHuckleberry Finn<\/em>, a paradise of harmony between man and beast and a stark contrast between so-called civilization and the natural world.\u201d8\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Adam and Eve, \u201c[Huck] and Jim do not \u2018go much on clothes\u2019\u201d9 and they also cannot stay too long in paradise, one of many ways that Twain romantically
\n\tlulls the reader into a sense of false security. Another is the hopeful story of star-crossed lovers set within the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, and in
\n\ttrue Shakespearean fashion, their passion only adds to the death toll rather than helping to end the family hostility. When their elopement ends in a
\n\tgunfight between the families, the Shepherdsons kill two members of the Grangerford clan, including an adolescent boy who had befriended Huck. Mark Twain\u2019s
\n\tyoung protagonist weeps at the sight of his fallen friend, and he leaves Kentucky by quickly slipping back to the Mississippi River, his place of freedom.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI cried a little when I was covering up Buck\u2019s face,\u201d Huck narrates, \u201cfor he was mighty good to me. It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but
\n\tstruck through the woods and made for the swamp.\u201d10\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe author frames this exit as an escape from the religious hypocrisy that caused the violent feud. Twain includes Scripture twice in the chapters where
\n\tHuck stays with the Grangerfords. If it were not so tragic, it would be downright amusing: the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons of Kentucky attend church
\n\ttogether, with guns between their knees, and listen to the minister \u201cpreaching—all about brotherly love.\u201d11\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSadly the message does not get through. Later, the American Juliet, Sophia Grangerford, asks Huck to fetch her New Testament from the church pews where she
\n\tleft it, only for Huck to realize that the Bible was being used to store secret communication between Sophia and her Appalachian Romeo. Twain
\n\tsimultaneously argues that genuine Christian teachings do little to de-escalate the conflict, and at the same time, misuse of the Bible may have played a
\n\trole in the escalating feud: the Bible becomes a device that indirectly increases the death toll after Sophia elopes.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the novel Twain was able to use the Bible in a variety of ways: the hiding place for a love letter, Edenic allusions, and even as a piece of unorthodox
\n\tmedical equipment. \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Huck travels through Arkansas, he witnesses a Colonel Sherburn shoot a drunk named Boggs in retaliation for an insulting remark, and the townspeople
\n\tbring the wounded man to a drugstore to attempt to save his life with a pair of Bibles. Huck watches the whole scene unfold: \u201cI rushed and got a good place
\n\tat the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another one and
\n\tspread it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about a dozen long gasps, his breast
\n\tlifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it out—and after that he laid still; he was dead.\u201d12\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAgain, Twain positions the Bible as a symbol: in the Shepherdson-Grangerford feud, it escalates the violence, and in Arkansas, it does nothing to save the
\n\tlife of a dying man. Twain does not seem optimistic about the role of Christianity, as it was functioning then, might play in bringing peace and healing to
\n\tAmerica. No true Christian would begrudge a medical professional for using any book to save a life, including a Bible, but readers should not take the
\n\tscene literally. Lack of concern for the Christian commandment of brotherly love and symbolic misuse of Scripture played a role in the deaths of several
\n\tpeople in Kentucky; just so Huck watches a drugstore crowd administer useless biblical platitudes to a victim who needed genuine Christian intervention
\n\tmuch sooner in his life.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNot too long after the scene at the drugstore—with the aid of the con artists who had cheated townsfolk in a theatrical ruse, and had earlier swindled
\n\thonest churchgoers into donating to a fraudulent offering plate at a tent revival—Huck again retreats to the Mississippi \u201cgliding downstream, all dark and
\n\tstill, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a word.\u201d13\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTwain\u2019s combination of Scripture and drugstore was no coincidence. As a boy his family moved into a drugstore in Hannibal, Missouri, where they lived with
\n\tthe proprietors, the Grants. Then, in an essay called \u201cBible Teaching and Religious Practice\u201d Twain quipped, \u201cThe Christian\u2019s Bible is a drug store. Its
\n\tcontents remain the same; but the medical practice changes.\u201d14\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the essay Twain assails the church for having used Scripture to defend slavery for years, only to later switch sides when the tide of public support had
\n\twaned. Rather than praise the Christian community for taking a stand for liberty, Twain castigates Christians for playing catch-up to the progressive
\n\tvalues of the world. \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTwain includes many of these themes in the character of Silas Phelps, on whose farm Jim waits imprisoned and re-enslaved. At the same time as being a slave
\n\towner, Silas avidly studies a chapter in Acts, an irony lost on him, but not on J. H. Smylie writing in Theology Today<\/em>:  \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBy now, Jim is a possession of this family and imprisoned on its farm. A farmer preacher, Silas studies Acts 17 before going to feed Jim. He seems
\n\toblivious to the fact that Paul and his biblical namesake suffered prison and that Paul shortly afterward preached on the Areopagus that God had made of
\n\t\u2018one blood\u2019 all nations of the earth.\u201d15\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite Silas\u2019 earnestness in studying the life of Paul, neither the apostle\u2019s narrative of captivity nor his multicultural sermon dissuade Silas from
\n\tsubjugating another human being in a system of racial enslavement. Silas is later announced as the uncle of Tom Sawyer, who makes a late and almost
\n\tspiteful entrance near the end of the story.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTom and Huck eventually manage a convoluted and unnecessarily time-consuming jailbreak, freeing Jim from his captive chains in a fairy-tale escape they
\n\tplan and direct in a way that is much more difficult than it need be. After setting up the conflict as a struggle on land between a Bible-reading slave
\n\tmaster and a pair of adolescent abolitionists, there was only one logical place Twain could send the lawbreakers: the free waters of the Mississippi.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn <\/em>
\n\tends with Miss Watson posthumously freeing Jim, even though the dastardly Tom knew as much the entire time. In the heroic and bizarre rescue of their
\n\tenslaved companion, Huck and Tom liberate Jim from a system of racial bondage much too closely associated with New Testament scripture for any Christian,
\n\tthen or now, to find comfortable. Like their previous retreats into the unshackled waters of the Mississippi River, Huck and Jim can avoid the calamitous
\n\treligious practices of those on land. Whether they are running away from con artists swindling sincere tent revivalists, or feuding clans who ignore
\n\tsermons on brotherly love, the raft-bound companions consistently seek a haven free from church control and religious violence. They exit bloody drugstores
\n\twhere townsfolk use the Bible only when pressing down upon the chest wound of a dying man instead of heeding its commandments of neighborly love and
\n\tprohibition on murder. They flee a slave owner who studies the Book of Acts before sending his slave to work. Each time they escape, they find a temporary
\n\tparadise and freedom from hypocritical religion as they float down the Mississippi. \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTwain builds this spiritual quest upon the cruel, false versions of Christianity where crowds abuse the Bible, commandments to love are forgotten, and the
\n\tworst of human sins are defended with Scripture. After all, when it came to the world\u2019s most widespread religion, Twain wasn\u2019t too convinced of the
\n\tpresence of many genuine practitioners other than Christ Himself.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMark Twain was an observer of human nature much more than he was a theologian. In his critique of religious practice, and argument for freedom from<\/em>
\n\treligion, he reminds readers that few converts will join congregations as long as the examples they see of Christian behavior look anything like the
\n\tfraudulent Christians in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>. Contemporary behavior could hardly be considered much better if most churches were to
\n\ttake an honest glance into the looking glass.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBy including the Mississippi River as a geographic symbol for liberty of conscience, Twain is asking American Christians to respect the decision of those
\n\twho wish to take no part in religious practice. Huck\u2019s raft was a small one, though; there would not have been room enough for all the characters to join
\n\thim on the river. Perhaps if Huck and Jim had been able to find the same freedom on land as they did on water, the Christian communities would not have
\n\tbeen portrayed as so undesirable to them. Escapism might be the preferable route for some, but it cannot solve a crisis of sincerity.  \n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were times when Mark Twain\u2019s humorous attitude toward religion was equal parts impudence and intuition: \u201cThere has been only one Christian,\u201d he wrote in his 1898 Notebook. \u201cThey caught him and crucified him—early.\u201d3 On many other occasions he wrote with far less subtlety and more direct disdain. Though if a reader then or now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[144],"class_list":["post-6355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-june-2016","tag-may-june-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}