Blog on the Lillypad
Saturday, July 24, 2004
 | The Last Year of the War by Shirley Nelson is far more a character study than anything else. Yet it holds reader interest and follows a plot. Fundamentalists and former Fundamentalists will recognize "types" that we have encountered at Bible school. Nelson's accuracy in depicting the thinly disguised Moody Bible Institute (rendered Calvary Bible Institute) indicates either a lot of research or first hand experience. |
Set in 1942, the story follows the first semester of Jo Fuller, recently saved from an agnostic family, whose older brother Loring has been declared Missing in Action in the war in Europe. It details the gentle, grieved oppositon of her family to her newfound belief and her increasing sense of guilt over her brother's disastrous decision to enlist in the Air Force. It's also a sort of travelogue of the old Moody Bible Institute campus and Chicago in 1942.
Jo lives in her mind a great deal: lonely, dreamy, reserved, shy, sorrowful, curious, and intelligent. The quick, glib Christianity that exists side by side with a deep, more honest Christianity at the Bible Institute confuses and misleads her. Nelson's depiction of the subtle manipulation, intrusions, and well-meaning judgements of others that occur on any Christian college campus will be quite familiar to graduates of any school from BJU to HAC to Pensacola.
The book has its good guy, Doctor Peckham, whose brief sermon on the victorious Christian life is the apex of the Christian teaching of the book. Here is an excerpt:
We want to be like Christ,....free from the tyranny of self,
flesh crucified, all in our places, with sunshiny faces....
[But] to be a Christian ... may mean to live on the edge...
shocked and dismayed at our own weaknesses, failure, and
evil....Only God can keep us safe on that wild frontier....
[So] how will I know?... How can I tell when I'm filled with
the Holy Spirit? I don't think we will know. I don't think
we'll even ask, or give it much thought. We won't say, "I've
got it!" or ...."At last I am godly!" That will never occur
to us. [197-198]
Doctor Peckham's point that victory may not mean deliverance, and that success itself in the spiritual life will keep a person too concerned for others to reflect on his own powerful stature, is lost on most of the student body. As young people usually do, they run after easy answers, clear decisions, and instant victories. The fact that their glib self-assurances keep blowing up in their faces does not deter them, and it does unmake one or two of them.
This isn't a book that dismisses Christianity outright. It does show that the thoughtless reassurances and catch phrases that abound on Christian college campuses are just that: thoughtless reassurances and catch phrases. And the veneer of positive thinking and constant smiles can drown out the realities of the genuine struggle of the Christian life.
For the outwardly reserved but inwardly hungry and needy Jo, there is not enough of the type of humble, honest, transparent and well-studied Christianity of Dr. Peckham, and entirely too much of the catch phrases and meaningless assurances that the dorm girls around her spout all the time.
This story is also an analysis of the decline of those who cannot keep up with the high energy demands of the Calvary Bible Institute culture. Far more than being a story of finding faith or losing faith, this is a story of psychological development and decline. It's about the ways that people cope: with grief, with loneliness, with shame, with fear. And it's about those who cannot cope.
The book doesn't really address who is right or who is wrong in matters of faith. It does show that some people who become agnostics do so simply because some Christian at some point really harmed them. But it also shows that some people who "surrender to Christ" may do so because somebody at some point really manipulated them and played on their emotions. The book also shows that some Christians are quite sincere and genuinely loving. And it shows that some agnostics are too.
As for WHO should (or should not) read this book. It includes some upsetting (but realistic) scenes from Chicago and a distressing series of mental images from the main character as she teeters towards a breakdown. I wouldn't hand this book to a teenager. It would be a great book for a Christian reading club to discuss. It really does belong on campuses like BJU and Moody, so that people can address the problems inherent in the cultures of those places. And if I ever walk into a pub and find some FFF'ers inside, I do hope that each of us has a copy of this book tucked under an arm. But even though it is a pretty fast read, it's a sad read.
