Culture, Crisis, and Community: Christianity in North American Drama at the Turn of the Millennium

Home , As It Is in Heaven, Ezekiel (comics), Faith in Christianity, Heart in Motion, Jesus freak, Seeker (Nicholson novel)

CULTURE, CRISIS, AND COMMUNITY: CHRISTIANITY IN NORTH AMERICAN DRAMA AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM

John S. Sebestyen

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

August 2009

Committee:

Ronald E. Shields, Advisor

Cynthia Baron

Steve Boone

Bruce Edwards Graduate Faculty Representative

John S. Sebestyen

iii

ABSTRACT

Ronald E. Shields, Advisor

In her edited volume Plays for the End of the Century, Bonnie Marranca argues that

“some of the most thoughtful plays written today join poetic language to a new spiritual energy that addresses metaphysical questions, the crisis of spirit, and theological concepts such as sin, redemption, evil, and grace – formulated within an iconography of saints, angels, heaven, and hell” (xii). This project explores this issue, and demonstrates how playwrights dialogue with

Christianity and culture in meaningful ways. The plays considered, which were not written for specifically Christian audiences, are Anne Chislett’s Quiet in the Land (1983), David Rambo’s

God’s Man in Texas (1998), Djanet Sears’s The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God

(2003), Arlene Hutton’s As It Is In Heaven (2003), Craig Wright’s Grace (2005), and Mark St.

Germain’s A Plague of Angels (2006).

In examining Christianity in the contemporary moment, consideration is given to how these playscripts function in a culture where the modern and the postmodern are understood as conditions of knowledge, referencing Linda Hutcheon and Jean-Francois Lyotard. Combining biblical interpretation with script analysis and cultural criticism, connections between

Christianity and theatre are explored, applying the theories of Philip Yancey, Robert Webber, and Brian McLaren, among others, to investigate a “new essentialism” in the contemporary cultural moment. The study also considers how the characters in these plays work to create, sustain, or consume culture, as well as if and how they engage in any type of “culture war.”

Additionally, this study explores how these plays portray representatives of Christian faith as iv

they experience moments of crisis, investigating the notion of doubt and its interconnectedness with faith.

These considerations reveal connections between the plays and contemporary understandings and expressions of Christianity, investigating how the lives of the characters are religious, and how these expressions of religion are connected with human experience. Indeed, the plays investigate how both Christians and non-Christians address, respond to, and engage with Christianity and the sacred in this particular cultural moment. v

Dedicated to my wife Heidi, and to my students and mentors, both past and future vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my lovely wife, Heidi – Your incredible patience, encouragement, and love helped to sustain me as I journeyed through the stages of this project. You have sacrificed so much to help me reach this final stage, and I am forever grateful. Your devotion to, and belief in, me continue to lift my spirit. Words cannot adequately express my love for you.

To my dissertation committee (Ron, Jonathan, Cynthia, Steve, Bruce) – Thank you for your encouragement which helped me to “press on” toward the completion of the dissertation and for your insights which helped to strengthen the final product.

Ron Shields – Thank you for agreeing to serve as my advisor. I have appreciated your keen intellect, your richly concise insights, and your commitment to helping me sculpt this material into something meaningful

Jonathan Chambers – Thank you for serving as this project’s initial advisor, and for seeing it through virtually all of its stages. Your questions prompted important research and revisions, and your insights helped to shape each chapter.

Cynthia Baron – Thank you for your commitment to understanding the material and to helping me present it in ways that are clear, accessible, and both intellectually and emotionally enriching.

Steve Boone – Thank you for your willingness to serve on the committee, and for the spirit in which you shared your insights.

Bruce Edwards – Thank you for agreeing to serve as my graduate college representative, and for your willingness to contribute useful thoughts for consideration.

Lesa Lockford – Thank you for consistent and affirming communication in serving as my department’s graduate coordinator. vii

Other members of the faculty of the Department of Theatre and Film, including Michael

Ellison and Margaret McCubbin – Thank you for your continued personal support and

encouragement.

Lisa Wolford Wylam – Thank you for your feedback on my dissertation prospectus,

which aided in clarifying several issues in many of the chapters of this work.

Val Whipple and Louise Small – Thank you for your important contributions to the

department, and for your helpful communication in my time away from campus.

I thank my colleagues for providing support and camaraderie as we traveled the road of

graduate school together – including Matthew, Dale, Chris, Jim, Kurt, Travis, Carrie, Yonghee,

Nadia, Terese, and Geoff.

Thanks to Arlene Hutton and Mark St. Germain, for providing me with manuscripts of their plays before the publication dates.

Thanks to Beth Blickers and BJ Jones, for providing me with manuscripts of Mr.

Wright’s play, as well as to Ms. Blickers for providing the permission to write about it.

Thanks to Stephanie Sandberg, for connecting me with Ms. Hutton.

I thank my colleagues in the Department of Communication Arts at Trinity Christian

College: Annalee Ward, Craig Mattson, and Sherry Barnes, for being such delightful partners in education and such affirming fellow scholars and educators.

Similarly, I thank those working at Trinity in other departments who have consistently encouraged me as I continued through the writing phase of the dissertation: Liz Rudenga,

MaryLynn Colosimo, Bob Rice, Yudha Thianto, David Brodnax, Frank Hensley, Mandi

Maxwell, Bruce Leep, Rhoda Mattson, Aron Reppmann, and Mark Peters, among others. viii

I thank Debbie Hendricks and Desiree Duff for inspiring me to pursue teaching and directing theatre on the collegiate level. The experience of working with you motivated me toward a similar career goal.

I thank fellow theatre colleagues from various schools who provided encouraging support in the past few years, specifically those from ATHE’s Religion & Theatre Focus Group, and from Calvin’s Seminars in Christian Scholarship 2007.

I am appreciative of theologians who have helped my understanding and enriched my experience of Christianity, including Kevin Crawford and Louie Konopka.

Without the loving and understanding support of good and dear friends, my life during the extended writing phase would have lacked infusions of joy. In that spirit, I give thanks to

Matt & Sara, Jason & Sarah, Randy & Deidra, Debbie & Matt, Dan & Holly, George & Lisa,

Kasey, Mark & Candace, Adam, Dave & Trinity, Rob & Amy, Kevin & Dulcie, JoLayne &

David, Melissa & Bobby, Mike & Julie, Kurt & Jeannie, and the life-giving enthusiasm embodied by the children of the friends in this list.

My family continues to be a source of encouragement and love for me. As such, I am grateful to Dad & Mom, Ralph & Lisa, Jami & Ryan, Matt & Kim, Brad & Suzy, Rachel, Dave,

Renee, Kylie & David, Renee, Gabby, and my dear grandmothers Sebestyen and Panta.

My students continue to provide me with energy and motivation in my daily work as a teacher and director of theatre. I am blessed to love what I do, and I continue to be thankful to my students for playing such an important role in making that happen.

I am grateful to my God, for so much – including strength and sustenance of body, mind, and spirit. SDG.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER II. THE PLAYS ...... 22

The Separatists: Quiet in the Land and As It Is In Heaven ...... 24

Quiet in the Land ...... 24

As It Is In Heaven ...... 29

The Fundamentalists: God’s Man in Texas and Grace ...... 34

God’s Man in Texas ...... 34

Grace ...... 40

The Marginalized: A Plague of Angels and The Adventures of a Black Girl in

Search of God ...... 48

A Plague of Angels ...... 48

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God ...... 57

CHAPTER III. CHRISTIANITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY MOMENT ...... 65

Re-examining Christianity in the 1990s: Philip Yancey ...... 68

Christianity at the Turn of the Millennium: Robert Webber ...... 72

The Traditional Evangelical: 1950-1975 ...... 75

The Pragmatic Evangelical: 1975-2000 ...... 77

The Younger Evangelical: 2000-Present ...... 78

Christianity as Represented by Elements of its Many Factions: Brian McLaren ...... 87

Approaching the Modern and Postmodern as Conditions of Knowledge, and

Creating a “New Essentialism” ...... 98 x

CHAPTER IV. CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE: MAKING, CONSUMING,

BATTLING CULTURE ...... 113

How do these Christians/religious groups help to create, sustain, or consume

culture? ...... 113

The Separatists: Quiet in the Land and As It Is In Heaven ...... 115

Quiet in the Land ...... 115

As It Is In Heaven ...... 117

The Fundamentalists: God’s Man in Texas and Grace ...... 119

God’s Man in Texas ...... 119

Grace ...... 125

The Marginalized: A Plague of Angels and The Adventures of a Black Girl

in Search of God ...... 128

A Plague of Angels ...... 128

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God ...... 129

Do the characters engage in a culture war? ...... 131

The Separatists: Quiet in the Land and As It Is In Heaven ...... 133

Quiet in the Land ...... 133

As It Is In Heaven ...... 138

The Fundamentalists: God’s Man in Texas and Grace ...... 141

God’s Man in Texas ...... 141

Grace ...... 144

The Marginalized: A Plague of Angels and The Adventures of a Black Girl

in Search of God ...... 146 xi

A Plague of Angels ...... 146

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God ...... 148

Reflections on Christianity and Culture: A Summary of Approaches and Themes .. 152

CHAPTER V. “OH, YOU OF LITTLE FAITH”: DOUBT & CRISIS IN

CHRISTIANITY...... 155

The Separatists: Quiet in the Land and As It Is In Heaven ...... 156

Quiet in the Land ...... 156

As It Is In Heaven ...... 161

The Fundamentalists: God’s Man in Texas and Grace ...... 165

God’s Man in Texas ...... 165

Grace ...... 169

The Marginalized: A Plague of Angels and The Adventures of a Black Girl in

Search of God ...... 177

A Plague of Angels ...... 177

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God ...... 181

Reflections on Doubt and Faith: A Summary of Approaches and Themes ...... 185

CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION / CHRISTIANITY & CULTURE: FAITH IN

CULTURE ...... 190

The Separatists: Quiet in the Land and As It Is In Heaven ...... 193

Quiet in the Land ...... 193

As It Is In Heaven ...... 196

The Fundamentalists: God’s Man in Texas and Grace ...... 199

God’s Man in Texas ...... 199 xii

Grace ...... 202

The Marginalized: A Plague of Angels and The Adventures of a Black Girl in

Search of God ...... 205

A Plague of Angels ...... 205

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God ...... 210

Connections and Summations ...... 214

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 222

CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION

“A-a-amen!”

A deep and hearty “A-a-amen” is offered from a middle-aged, white father of three who sits several pews behind me and to the left. I am in junior high school and sitting in a Sunday morning service of the church where my family has attended regularly since I was four.

Growing up in a conservative suburban church in a Midwestern American state, this type of vocal response during the minister’s message was not common but neither was it discouraged.

As an adolescent, I didn’t take issue with this type of response. I didn’t think it was inappropriate or strange. What I did know was that it wasn’t my style.

I have always been uncomfortable clapping along to spiritual songs. It’s not that I am ashamed of expressing enthusiasm. It’s not that I do not believe in the sentiment of expressed faith. For whatever reason, I have found myself skeptical of assessing one’s faith commitment through outward emotional expressions during a church service. I don’t necessarily want to be skeptical in this way, as it is unfair to other Christians who are, well, not me.

I suppose it is partially because I have seen many individuals, self-identified as

Christians, provide a lip service to their faith. Their expression either remains in the sanctuary of their “place of worship” or follows them away from their weekend meeting place in pithy ways where their faith does not delve much beyond quick statements throughout the week like

“God willing,” and “Praise God!” without evidence of much thought behind the words.

I don’t necessarily see things wrong with these statements. In fact, I believe that they can have much power when they come from a genuine place. But, when used so frequently that their meaning seems oblivious to the user, the words seem to become empty, trite cliché, or a way of

silencing potential critics, or a way of evidencing deep faith to other Christians who just want to hear the right words.

While thoughts such as these perhaps seem tangential to my study, I believe that they are more integral than they might seem at first consideration, as they indeed lead me to spend time considering Christianity as a cultural phenomenon and as a religious expression. I am interested in exploring issues of how Christian faith both influences and is influenced by the culture which surrounds it.

As a human being, I recognize that my experience cannot be separated from the culture in which I live. As citizens of our contemporary culture, I believe we can benefit from examining the “texts,” written or not, that exist in our culture. “No text [. . .] is read independently of the reader’s experience of other texts” (Bennett 72), which are often called intertexts. In this project, I have specifically chosen to investigate the intertextuality of dramatic literature with contemporary culture and Christian faith. Studying dramatic literature can provide valuable insight in understanding contemporary culture.

More specifically, in this project, I aim to study various presentations of Christianity in works of dramatic literature, to consider how what is written by the playwrights can come into dialogue with how Christianity exists in / interacts with culture. Aware of the potential breadth of this type of examination, I limit my consideration to how Christianity has been presented in the theatre in North America over the course of the last few decades. The plays that are a part of this study come from a variety of theological perspectives, and were not necessarily written by people of faith. All of the plays were initially performed for audiences which were not identified as specifically Christian. The plays in this study, coming from this contemporary cultural

moment, are complex and nuanced regarding how they present Christianity, including how they consider the crises, consumerism, and communities of faith.

The text of faith springs to mind so readily for me because I consider myself to be a person of faith, voluntarily identified as a Christian. I want to consider the texts of culture and of faith and to explore the ways in which these areas intersect. I am drawn to the areas of

Christianity and of theatre because these are the primary portals at which I enter the arenas of faith and art. They are a part of my past and my present, and how they relate to each other will help to determine how and where I spend my future. Having said that, this project is not intended to be a foray into what is self-serving. I believe that there is much to be gained by studying how faith interacts with both culture and art in general, and in how Christianity interacts with the theatre of the last few decades.

Alice Raynor, in To Act, To Do, To Perform, says that works of dramatic art are “‘ways of seeing’ which allow us to think through our relation to action and reality” (10). The

Christian’s “way of seeing” through such representative plays might be to consider how, from their aesthetic contexts, various Christian principles can emerge. Max Harris, in Theater and

Incarnation, seems to echo Raynor’s sentiment when he says that dramatic and theatrical works can be “lens[es] that shape the world we see” (Harris ix). In this study, it is my desire to examine various dramatic scripts in order to explore how they shape and reflect how Christianity is presented and perceived in the current cultural moment, which is shared by Christians and non-Christians alike.

Christianity and theatrical presentation have not always shared an easy relationship with each other throughout history. Shimon Levy, in his edited volume Theatre and Holy Script, says that “the odd couple Holiness and Theatricality have long been strange stage fellows, who have

suffered and enjoyed ups and downs in their complicated relationship” (1). Religious artists

have long desired to present religion through their art, and religious theatre practitioners have

attempted to do so in various theatrical ways throughout the ages. Some of these attempts have

been more heavy-handed than others, with some having imposed restrictions and some not.

While some adherents of Christianity have used the theatre (or attempted to do so) in

ways that were intended to advocate for their particular expression of faith, others have

historically shunned theatre altogether. Take, for example, ancient Christian scholars such as

Augustine and Tertullian.1 This tension and skepticism to exhibit a mutual acceptance between

Christianity and theatre is highlighted by Andrew Kennedy, who observes that “the Bible and

theatre are not, and never have been, easy marriage partners. For a start, there is something

illicit, extramarital, about the idea of a biblical theatre” (238). Kennedy’s argument here stems

from what he says is the fact that “monotheistic religion - certainly Judaism - has a built-in

antitheatrical prejudice, in keeping with the second commandment, and the general distrust of

images (graven or moving) and representation” (238-239). Although “much of the Bible - both the Old and the New Testament - is intrinsically dramatic,” says Kennedy, “to this day, Bible stories are seldom performed in the theatre” (238, 239).

While this is perhaps true, we must also remember that there are countless dramatized stories that have been influenced by biblical principles or that have been abstracted from biblical stories. The Bible can indeed be a good source book for theatrical presentations, including both standard plays and experimental works.

Despite religion’s occasional aversion to the theatre, Levy believes that his

aforementioned terms of “Holiness” and “Theatricality” “appear to have revived a middle-aged

1 See Tertullian’s On the Spectacles and Augustine’s City of God, in Dukore, ed. (85-99).

intimacy” (Theatre and Holy Script 1), although he is speculative about the reasons. In medieval times, theatricality was involved in various elements of the Christian mass (the Quem Quaeritis trope, for instance)2. Today, it can be argued that there is a type of theatricality to religious events such as church services, “revival” meetings, and the like. Not only that, but blatant references to Christianity within mainstream theatre seem to be becoming more common and less strange. (Take, for example, the relatively recent (2005) Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play Doubt by John Patrick Shanley.) Such examples do not always mean that the two elements (to use Levy’s terms: “holiness” and “theatricality”) are mutually sympathetic, but the two elements are indeed present together to spark discussion and create avenues for dialogue.

Therefore, it would appear that there are renewed contemporary efforts at uniting these two parts of culture. These efforts are not necessarily ones which attempt to transport stories from the pages of the Bible to the stage, in attempts at a contemporary type of medieval mystery play. Rather, today’s endeavors at combining the theatrical and the religious typically are in the form of stories that are set in the present or in historical periods that have occurred well after events narrated in the Bible.

In 1978, Marie Philomène de los Reyes published her dissertation in a book form entitled

The Biblical Theme in Modern Drama. In her preface, she quotes her dissertation committee as saying that “the reappearance of the [Biblical] theme in modern drama is a subject of great interest which so far has not found adequate treatment. The present study, therefore, fills a conspicuous gap” (vii). And, regarding her case studies, de los Reyes states that “whether the dramatists taken up in this study approve the biblical message or question it, one thing remains true - each of them has been trying to use the biblical theme as a structural design for dramatic

2 The Quem Quaeritis trope was an antiphonal part of the liturgy for an Easter service, dating approximately from

literature that possesses relevance to our times” (162). I desire for my own study to do a similar

thing – to continue to investigate the use of biblical themes as structural designs for dramatic

literature, as well as to continue to fill the gap of scholarship in this area. This is partially why I

have selected for the earliest play included in my study to be a work that was published in 1983,

only five years after de los Reyes’s book was published. Like the plays in de los Reyes’s work,

the plays in this study may either “approve” or “question” the biblical message; perhaps each

work may even do both.

I believe that my work can help fill a void in this area of scholarship. There is not much

existing literature that attempts to investigate specifically Christian themes in dramatic scripts,

especially in scripts not intended solely for consumption by specifically Christian audiences.

There certainly is much writing about the combination of the spiritual and the theatrical,

including Peter Brook’s notion of Holy Theatre in The Empty Space and Jerzy Grotowski’s

notions of ritual and performance, to name only two. There is also a significant amount of

writing about how the nature of religion and Christianity can be considered to be theatrical in

itself: Shimon Levy’s The Bible as Theatre and Hans urs von Balthasar’s series on theological

dramatic theory are two texts which contribute to this area of scholarship. However, neither of

these areas is as explicit in connecting a specifically Christian faith with dramatic works which

were written specifically to be performed on stage. Brook and Grotowski do talk about dramatic

works for the stage, but not necessarily Christianity. Arguably, Grotowski infused more

specifically Christian imagery into his plays than Brook; however, this study does not seek to

focus alone on specific investigations or applications of imagery. Levy and von Balthasar do

the year 925.

address Christianity, yet not necessarily dramatic works for the stage. I will combine these approaches into one which investigates both.

I am certainly not the first person to do this. In The Onstage Christ, John Ditsky conducts an examination of Christ-figures in dramatic literature. However, his study is quite a different one from mine in that I am not solely focusing on the figure or person of Jesus. My project may have more similarities to the one mentioned earlier by Marie Philomène de los

Reyes. However, her book is now thirty years old. Kay M. Baxter, in 1965, wrote

Contemporary Theatre and the Christian Faith, in which she also searched for Christian themes in the dramatic literature of her contemporary time, but this project predates de los Reyes’s.

There are some recent books which explore how Christian faith is represented on stage, but these books are limited to historical periods that are not of the contemporary moment: Victor I.

Scherb’s Staging Faith: East Anglian Drama in the Later Middle Ages, and Huston Diehl’s

Staging Reform, Reforming the Stage: Protestantism and Popular Theater in Early Modern

England both involve explorations of Christian faith within the theatre, but both of these works also focus on English drama from medieval and Renaissance times. Conversely, my goal is to engage in a study of how theatre and Christianity relate to each other in this contemporary time

(i.e., the beginning of the twenty-first century and at the end of the twentieth). My project, although perhaps similar to Baxter’s and de los Reyes’s, will indeed be different than theirs, as I will not only be looking for biblical or Christian themes in contemporary drama, but will be investigating how these works of dramatic literature intersect with contemporary culture and contemporary Christianity.

Before continuing, I must acknowledge two relatively recent dissertations which address the connection of theatre and Christianity: Diana Marie Trotter’s Holy Acts: Contemporary

Evangelical Christian Theatre as Cultural Performance (1995) and Stan C. Denman’s Theatre

and Hegemony in the Churches of Christ: A Case Study using Abilene Christian University

Theatre (1998). Whereas both of these works engage in a study of how theatre and Christianity

relate in the contemporary moment, Trotter’s focuses specifically on theatre created by the evangelical Christian church for use in the evangelical Christian church, and Denman’s concentrates only on the theatrical pieces performed at one Christian university over a course of several years. I am fashioning my dissertation to speak in different ways about the connection between Christianity and theatre in contemporary culture: I do not limit my study to theatrical works created by Christians for Christians, nor do I limit my study to a “case study” of theatre produced in one geographic locale.

Instead, I want to speak in specific terms which combine biblical interpretation with script analysis and criticism of cultural moments. Although I want to explore the connections between Christianity and theatre in the last twenty-five to thirty years, I do not desire to make sweeping generalizations, as they are dangerous and assuming. There is no way that I could begin to answer for all people of faith or all sects of Christianity. As such, I acknowledge that I cannot speak for all adherents to Christianity, but I do choose both to examine how the selected plays in this study present Christianity and to examine how Christianity is perceived in the contemporary moment that is receiving these plays. I have selected plays that were not written necessarily to proselytize, but, rather, to present Christianity in some way that helps to illustrate how it can interact with other important cultural or societal issues (like nationalism or war in

Quiet in the Land or issues of bioethics in A Plague of Angels, to take two examples).

The dramatic action of about half of the plays in this study occurs decades before the

writing of the individual scripts. Nonetheless, regardless of the time period in which the

dramatic action is set, I believe that these scripts strive to convey something that, for the

Christian, seems bigger than history - and that is to explore the human connection with the

supernatural, especially during crises of faith.

I desire to investigate various ways that Christianity has been presented on stage in the

past few decades, and how the playwrights have crafted works which speak to the ways in which

Christian faith exists as part of culture. I have selected the following dramatic works to

investigate more fully: Anne Chislett’s Quiet in the Land (1983), David Rambo’s God’s Man in

Texas (1998), Djanet Sears’s The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God (2003), Arlene

Hutton’s As It Is In Heaven (2003), Craig Wright’s Grace (2005), and Mark St. Germain’s A

Plague of Angels (2006). Below, I will provide brief descriptions of these plays, as well as more

detailed synopses of them in the next chapter. Before doing so, a few words regarding my

organization seem appropriate.

To begin, I split the six plays in this study into three general categories of Christians that

are portrayed in the pages of their scripts: the separatists (Quiet in the Land and As It Is In

Heaven), the fundamentalists (God’s Man in Texas and Grace), and the marginalized (The

Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God and A Plague of Angels).

Building on this, the plays in this study investigate how various Christians address,

respond to, engage with, and even create Christianity. Daniel Stout says that “it is insufficient to

examine religious groups only as critics; they must also be studied as creators of and participants

in popular culture. In some ways, religion is popular culture and can never be completely detached from it” (8, emphasis his). My selection of plays for this study was motivated partially by an interest in observing how various presentations of Christianity have been made in the recent time period which encompasses the adapting of what can be called the essentialism of

faith within a materially changing society. Correspondingly, I have selected North American

plays from an approximate 25-year time period beginning with the early 1980s, moving through

the 1990s, and into the early 2000s. Each play, focusing on a Christian individual or a Christian

group, can be investigated partially in order to study how the faith of these particular Christians

is formed as a result of their own actions and beliefs.

Before considering these plays in more detail, it may prove helpful to provide some

contextualization for what came close before Quiet in the Land (the earliest script I consider) in

terms of explorations of Christianity on the North American stage. The era of the early 1970s is

often portrayed as a period infused with hippies and radicals. Even within the realms of

Christianity, which often appeared traditionally stoic, there were radicals, and many of these

individuals became a part of a group which grew to be known as the Jesus People Movement.

Shows like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell emerged from this particular cultural moment,

and some may argue that they present(ed) two very different perspectives on the primary

character in both shows: Jesus. Godspell presents a Jesus who is also the Christ, someone who is

both human and divine, while Superstar presents a Jesus who seems to lack some sense of divinity. In these two musicals, it can be argued that only two options are provided, and in retrospect this binary seems a bit naïve and linked to an era in North America where the options can be considered to have been more hardlined, in some respects. This is not to say that all theatre of the time was like this. I dare not suggest something so limiting, in terms of the ability of a script’s text to have nuance and highlight subtext. However, it proves an interesting insight to consider the arguable lack of layering present, at least at initial glance, in these two musicals of the 1970s. The presentations and visions of Christianity in theatrical works over the next few decades in North America, as portrayed by the selections of scripts in this study, seem to both

move toward greater consideration of nuance and grow in their complexity in terms of how they

present Christianity, as they exist within and respond to the new cultural moments.

A parallel instance to theatre is another cultural artistic expression: music. In the 1970s

and 1980s, there was a definable genre of “Christian music,” which to some extent still exists;

however, in the past several years there have been groups, like Switchfoot, whose music has

indeed been sold at specifically “Christian” stores, but arguably has found the most popularity in

the common marketplace and mainstream top 40 popular music radio stations3. Although this is

just one small example, it still seems to give some credibility to the statement that to be a

Christian artist in the contemporary culture now seems to be more nuanced and complex than in

years past. This is especially true considering the acceptance, and even encouragement, of

Christian musicians in the current “mainstream” media, compared with the skepticism and

antipathy exhibited by Christians toward musical artists like Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith

when their music began to make a similar shift in the early 1990s.4

Someone who recognizes this more nuanced complexity is cultural theorist Linda

Hutcheon, who characterizes a postmodern ideology as one “of pluralism and recognition of

difference” (Perloff 63). To apply her statement to this specifically Christian context, then,

would be to consider that there has been a shift in representation of Christianity onstage. What

appears to be a binary way of thinking evidenced in the struggle between Godspell and Jesus

Christ Superstar is one that comes before this shift, coming largely before issues raised by poststructuralism and the critique of the binary, of the “either-or” thinking. It is not that we have somehow progressed, in some kind of positivistic way, beyond some kind of supposed

3 Switchfoot was especially popular in North America around the year 2004. 4 This was especially true for Grant’s album Heart in Motion, and Smith’s Go West, Young Man. Today, however, there are even publications like Relevant magazine, which encourage this “crossover.”

rudimentary thinking of the recent past to a more “enlightened” state in the present, but it is that

we live, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in a cultural moment which has

troubled binary designations and which seems to consider more nuances and to delve further into

exploring complexities, at least in many expressions of Christianity. I talk more about this

cultural moment in the third chapter of this study. The plays in this study, created in the later

part of the twentieth century, come from this later cultural moment, and can be considered to be

representative examples of this movement of Christianity in the culture.

In Quiet in the Land, God’s Man in Texas, The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of

God, As It Is In Heaven, A Plague of Angels, and Grace, there is nuance to how the playwrights

deal with the Christianity present in the lives of the characters in the script. These plays are

complex in the way they talk about faith. Instead of “othering” largely mysterious Christian

groups such as the Amish and the Shakers, these individuals can now be viewed instead with

notions of difference, as can be inferred from Hutcheon’s quote above. Additionally, these plays

are more complex in how they address faith because, for them, it is more about the struggle than

the end result; it is more about wrestling with crises of faith. The end result of these plays may

be that, although all of the questions are not answered, there is still a celebration of faith, a return

to mystery, and a recognition that there is something larger than the world which they inhabit.

I move now to give brief descriptions of each of the plays featured in this study. I

include them here chronologically by publication date. In the early 1980s, Anne Chislett wrote

Quiet in the Land, a play about a fictional Amish community in Ontario, Canada during the first world war. It premiered at the Blyth Summer Festival in Canada in July of 1981. Chislett’s play won the Chalmers Award (for best play in the city of Toronto) in 1982, and the Governor

General’s Literary Award in Canada in 1983. Quiet in the Land deals with several issues that

result from the meeting of faith and culture, including the question of pacifism in the face of

world war, and the issue of dealing with those who have been ostracized yet who are still held

dear by members of the Christian community. The play explores these issues as they are evident

and present in the Christian sub-group of the Amish, a traditionally fundamental and

conservative separatist sect of Christianity.

David Rambo’s play God’s Man in Texas premiered at the 1999 Humana Festival sponsored by the Actors Theatre of Louisville. A three-man play, it is set in the sprawling megachurch empire of the fictional Rock Baptist Church of Houston, Texas. The action concerns the Rev. Philip Gottschall, the aging pastor of the church, and the search for his successor. The play investigates what is typically considered to be a fundamentalist type of

Christianity, and ultimately asks poignant questions about the impact of Christianity upon culture and the motivations for participation in ministry.

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God by Djanet Sears had its initial

production, directed by the playwright, in February of 2002, by the Obsidian Theatre Company

and Nightwood Theatre in Toronto. In the play, Rainey Baldwin-Johnson is a doctor in a small,

established Black community in Ontario. Sears portrays Rainey’s faith journey as she faces the

crisis moments of the death of her daughter, the illness of her father, and the dissolution of her

marriage.

Arlene Hutton’s play As It Is In Heaven premiered on September 13, 2001, presented by

the Journey Company and the 78th Street Theatre Lab in New York City. This play about a

Shaker women’s community at Harrodsburg, Kentucky in the late 1800s also was produced at

the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at Calvin College in Michigan before its publication by

Dramatists Play Service in 2003. Like Chislett’s play, Hutton’s is a fictionalized account which

examines the issues inherent in the Christian sub-group of the Shakers. Similar to the Amish, the

Shakers reside in small, like-minded communities. Unlike the Amish, the Shakers are arguably a

bit more progressive in terms of gender roles. Hutton’s play depicts a Shaker women’s

community in nineteenth-century Kentucky, and examines questions regarding which members

of the community are able, or even worthy, to speak for and be spoken to by God.

Mark St. Germain’s A Plague of Angels was published by Samuel French in 2006, two years after it placed second in the David Mark Cohen Playwriting Award competition sponsored by the American College Theatre Festival and the Kennedy Center. A Plague of Angels is a rewriting of a play St. Germain wrote in the 1990s entitled Forgiving Typhoid Mary. The play is about Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant cook to New York City in the early 1900s, who became known as “Typhoid Mary.” An actual figure from history, Mallon was a healthy carrier of typhoid fever, and the people for whom she cooked became sick as a result of it. This powerful play chronicles her struggle to accept her culpability in these deaths, as well as the struggles of the medical staff who keep her quarantined and the new priest who frequently comes to visit her.

Mary is a woman who still “believes,” but who is undergoing an intense crisis of faith. It is fascinating to delve into her questions, partly because the questions that she asks in the play regarding faith are still asked now by individuals in contemporary society, and crises like hers seem to still be common today.

Craig Wright is known for his writing for television. He was a writer for HBO’s Six Feet

Under, as well as for ABC’s recently canceled, short-lived series Dirty Sexy Money. His

unpublished play Grace (written in 2005) has been performed by several theatre companies

across the country, including Chicago’s Northlight Theatre. Grace chronicles a young Christian

couple, Steve and Sara, who have recently moved to Miami from Minnesota to open a Christian-

themed hotel. Their idealism is challenged by hurdles occupationally and relationally, not the least of which is their new neighbor, Sam, a young cynic whose face has been disfigured as a result of an automobile accident in which his fiancée died. Wright navigates what could become a predictably clichéd interchange by managing to raise interesting and sometimes unsettling questions on the interactions between Christianity, consumerism, and crisis in contemporary culture.

It is important to note that, in my study, I view these texts primarily from a reader’s perspective. While acutely aware that they were written to be performed, my analysis will be more literary than performative in nature. In exploring how Christianity is presented in these plays, I will strive to do so in a way that combines traditional biblical interpretation with an eye to drawing critical connections with contemporary culture. I will consider such questions as how

Christianity is reflected with the Bible as a lens, as well as how it is reflected with the receiving and/or contextual culture as a lens, or intertext.

My approach is fourfold, with each of the following four chapters being dedicated to one aspect of the approach. First, I will provide detailed synopses of the plays, as they are typically either very recent or relatively obscure. As such, their storylines are not very well-known and require more detailed description in the second chapter in order to best understand the analyses which follow in later chapters.

Second, I examine Christianity in the contemporary moment. I will investigate how contemporary culture approaches the modern and the postmodern as conditions of knowledge, and how the plays participate in helping to understand what I am calling a “new essentialism” of sorts in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century. Much of this third chapter is dedicated to the understanding of Christianity in the contemporary moment, specifically investigating the

contemporary writings of Philip Yancey, Robert Webber, and Brian McLaren. In considering the words of these writers and thinkers, I will chart how they suggest Christianity in North

America has changed in the past few decades, as well as how perceptions of Christianity have changed from those who perhaps do not call themselves Christians. Yancey discusses understanding the person of Jesus in a new way in his book The Jesus I Never Knew. In The

Younger Evangelicals, Webber uncovers a movement of Christianity – beginning at the turn of the millennium – which perhaps challenges some concepts that others may have had of

Christians from the 1950s through the 1990s. McLaren, in A Generous Orthodoxy, suggests that contemporary Christianity can be a combination of rich religious traditions from various denominations which have existed throughout history. In chapter three, much of the investigation will take the form of a study of Christianity’s intertextuality with our contemporary culture. In that chapter, I will also seek to provide a background for connections made between the plays and contemporary Christianity, specifically through a contextualization of the concepts of essentialism, modernism and postmodernism.

Third, I ask how the characters in these plays work to create, sustain, or consume culture.

I consider the interaction of Christian faith with culture portrayed in the pages of the scripts. In addressing the issue of Christian faith making culture, I will also focus on the conflation of

Christianity and consumerism. In this fourth chapter, I investigate how the plays of this study reflect, criticize, investigate, and interact with their contemporary culture. Andrew M. Greeley writes that “popular culture is a [. . .] theological place - the locale in which one may encounter

God. Popular culture provides an opportunity to experience God and to tell stories of God or, to put the matter more abstractly, to learn about God and to teach about God” (9). In this

dissertation, I look at these scripts as participants in that popular culture in which the God of

Christianity can be found.

Also, I will explore if and how the characters engage in any type of “culture war” where

“competing moral beliefs conflict in public discourse” (Stout 5). Additionally, I will consider how the religious individuals or groups in the plays help to create or sustain culture, including the notion of consumerism, where there is a “commodification of culture” (Vincent Miller 3), and where the characters’ habits of consumption have the potential to transform their relationship to religious belief.

Fourth, I explore how these plays portray representatives of Christian faith, specifically in regard to moments of crisis. In this fifth chapter, I examine how various characters respond to

Christianity, with particular interest in how responding to faith crises causes them to change. I spend time investigating the notion of doubt and its interconnectedness with faith.

In my conclusion, I am interested in observing connections between the plays and contemporary understandings and expressions of Christianity. I will explore whether the ideals of Christianity are perpetuated in the lives of the characters. Additionally, I have interest in determining whether or not there are patterns of behavior or belief that are shared by the

Christians in the various plays that can transcend these scripts. I will investigate how the lives of the characters are religious, and how these expressions of religion are connected with human experience. I attempt to make connections between how the characters express their religious commitment in the pages of the scripts, and how Christianity exists in the contemporary moment, as I describe in chapter three.

In acknowledging the limitations of a study like this one, allow me to address something about the presentation of the Christian in theatrical form: Much has been made about theatre

violating one of God’s commandments because of the danger of theatre making of itself a

“graven image.” While I understand the desire of the Christian to hold theatrical expression

accountable to the same standards of Scripture to which Christians hold themselves, I also agree

with Max Harris when he says that “it is not [. . .] ‘playing’ that Jesus condemns but the

dissonance between public facade and private sin” (67). Thus, instead of altogether avoiding

theatrical representation, the Christian can engage with such representation, especially one which

helps to call the Christian to a life lived without hypocrisy. If this is the case, a play like

Moliére’s Tartuffe does not have to be received with indignance or offense by the Christian, but

by a recognition by them, too, that feigned religious sincerity does indeed exist and should be

recognized and avoided. Additional plays can highlight various themes that are not

unsympathetic with the Christian life, “flinching neither from dirt nor purity, calling for [. . .] the

grace of mercy” (Harris 97).

Throughout this dissertation, I use the word “Christianity” to identify the faith of an

individual, or a group of individuals, who believes in one God of the universe, as well as in

God’s one Son, Jesus, who became a man in order to die for the sins of humankind. His perfect

sacrifice was to atone for sin and to reconcile humankind with God. His bodily resurrection

guarantees that the faith of the Christian has hope because the Giver of that faith conquered

death with life. Jesus, through his life and teachings, has set the example of how Christians

should now live. The faith of the human in these things, then, can identify them a Christian.5

S. L. Bethell asserted that “critics who think themselves disinterested” are in actuality

“the least impartial,” because they can be “swayed unconsciously by the beliefs they have necessarily acquired by being members of a particular society in a particular place and time”

(25). My choice to focus on Christianity comes partly from a fascination with how its themes are rife in contemporary society, partly from a desire to investigate why this is so, and partly from my facility with being able to do so. I come from a primarily American, relatively conservative Protestant background (with Hungarian influences which are negligible for the purposes of this project). My church-going has been and continues to be active, and, for more than three decades, I have been immersed in a Christian mindset and perspective, receiving biblical instruction in the home and in school, as well as in the church. My fluency with

Scriptural passages is more than a rudimentary one, as it was a requirement for me to study the

Bible each year in school from kindergarten through my undergraduate college career.

Although I am committed to my perspective, I am aware that it is one that I have chosen, and, as such, can be considered subjective on my part. Other individuals have chosen other perspectives, and it is not my objective in this project to proselytize, sway, damn, or otherwise disparage any other individual, group, or system of (non)belief. I am simply endeavoring to investigate the themes of Christianity in these theatrical works, while simultaneously asserting my own legitimacy to do so, as I am one who is familiar with Protestant Christianity and its tenets and concepts.

While “Christian” theatre may have its dangers, such as appearing to be exclusive or inapplicable to scenarios outside of Christianity, I argue that in many cases, the narrative of specific plays can indeed effectively communicate outside of the realm of Christianity. There can be themes and issues present for the Christian characters in the play that are not necessarily limited to themes and issues that are experienced only by Christians. Instead, there can be themes and issues that are shared by a greater portion of humankind, prompting the play to be

5 Well-known historical creeds of the Christian faith, like the Apostles’ Creed, can be referenced for a description of

able to speak to a much more broad audience. The plays in this study take such an approach;

they are not geared solely toward people who identify themselves as Christians.

I am limiting my selection to English-language plays from North America, and plays

which were written (and whose first North American productions occurred) within the past

twenty-five to thirty years, approximately. The scope of Christianity is too great to try to

incorporate its whole history in this project. Theatre, too, has addressed Christianity for years,

and this dissertation will certainly not attempt to address the extent to which this incorporation

has occurred. To do that would be unwise and over-ambitious. Therefore, this study is limited

to the plays I have selected and which are mentioned above. Despite this limitation, I feel that a

great amount of insight can be achieved in regard to how Christianity has been presented on

stage in the last few decades.

In the 2004 PBS television special “The Question of God,” based on his book of the same

name, psychiatrist and Harvard professor Armand Nicholi interviews a roundtable of guests who

have various perspectives on religion. One particularly significant insight raised during the

roundtable discussions was the opinion that faith is not necessarily about the intellect versus the

emotion; faith can effectively involve both. I desire to investigate how both the mind and the

heart of the Christian is presented in the dramatic scripts in this study, especially as they relate to

how individual Christians experience their Christianity.

One of my goals for this project is to investigate the intersection of Christian faith with

contemporary culture (both religious and not), in a way that explores potential meanings and

possible implications without attempting to somehow determine the ultimately correct or true

interpretation. I desire not to explain things in some pedantic or traditionally essential manner,

faith statements that perhaps seem less arbitrary, as they have been articulated by Christians of various

but instead to explore how these dramatic works, not necessarily even written by people who

claim to be of Christian faith, nor for specifically “Christian” audiences, can combine an

understanding of Christian faith with an understanding of contemporary culture in a way that is

sensitive to history and aware of its own theoretical context while exploring how its characters

both represent Christianity and respond to various crises of faith. These plays address Christian

faith in contemporary culture in ways that illuminate and/or challenge Christian principles. Two

of these Christian principles are, for the Christian, the two greatest things in life: first, “to love

the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength,” and second, “to love

your neighbor as yourself.”6 The plays included in this dissertation explore the ways that these

principles are given “flesh,” so to speak. And, a number of these plays end with celebrations of

faith - a faith which the people who ascribe to it believe has all the answers, despite the fact that

all these answers are not necessarily available to them.

denominations for generations. 6 This can be found in the New Testament biblical passage of Mark 12:28-31.

CHAPTER TWO. THE PLAYS

In this chapter, I provide detailed synopses of the six plays central to this study:

Quiet in the Land by Anne Chislett, As It Is In Heaven by Arlene Hutton, God’s Man in Texas

by David Rambo, Grace by Craig Wright, A Plague of Angels by Mark St. Germain, and The

Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God by Djanet Sears.

In selecting these plays, I sought to represent a cross-section of playwrights and decades.

Quiet in the Land and The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God are Canadian plays,

while the other four are authored by playwrights living in the United States. Three of the

playwrights are female and three are male, and all of them are still living. Quiet in the Land was written in the 1980s, and God’s Man in Texas was written in the 1990s with a revised edition in

2001. A Plague of Angels was published in 2006, but first appeared in the 1990s as Forgiving

Typhoid Mary. As It Is In Heaven, Grace, and The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God

are all from the early 2000s. Some of the plays focus on the faith of communities (Quiet in the

Land, As It Is In Heaven, and, to some extent, The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God and God’s Man in Texas), while all of the plays deal with the faith of individuals.

In this chapter, I further separate the plays into pairs which somehow are representatives

of types of Christians: the separatists, the fundamentalists, and the marginalized. I do not believe

that these categories are necessarily mutually exclusive, but rather use them as a way to

maneuver through this project. Although entire books have likely been written about how these

terms are understood as they relate to Christianity, allow me to briefly explain my understanding

of how these terms can be used as a way to categorize the plays in this study.

I use the word separatist to represent Christians who have chosen to somehow physically remove themselves from the surrounding non-Christian culture. Some Christians throughout history have taken the biblical instruction to be “set apart” so literally as to establish places of communal living where “worldly” influences are shunned and thus less likely to infiltrate their community. In his book Separatist Christianity, David A. Lopez writes that separatist

Christianity can be understood as “rejecting the [secular] world [. . .] in favor of the [spiritual or religious world]” (6). Traditionally, the Amish and the Shakers have represented this kind of separatist Christian. As Quiet in the Land and As It Is In Heaven feature communities of the

Amish and the Shakers, respectively, I have included them in this section.

I use the word fundamentalist to represent Christians who have traditionally been very literal and very conservative in interpreting the Bible. Robert Webber writes that twentieth century religious fundamentalism in America is characterized by an opposition to “intellectual engagement with new thought,” a separation from “‘liberal’ denominations” to form “their own independent coalitions,” and a retreat “from social engagement with the world” (26-27). While the communities of the Amish and the Shakers can perhaps be considered to be fundamentalist in these ways, in my view they go one step further to also be considered as separatist. Characters in God’s Man in Texas and Grace seem to indeed embody the conservative, literalist approach of the fundamentalist as described above. I think specifically of Reverend Gottschall in God’s Man in Texas and of Steve in Grace. When challenged with unexpected crises of faith, these men often do not know how to cope with the element of the unknown. When faced with challenges,

Gottschall chooses to believe in the power of human sternness and Steve chooses to believe that faith is not worth the effort if things do not unfold in life as he had hoped.

I use the word marginalized to represent individuals or groups which have been pushed to

the edges of society by the traditional, “mainstream” majority of North Americans. As

understood in contemporary culture, marginalization means to “relegate to an unimportant of

powerless position within a society or group” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Bob Mullaly adds

to this understanding in The New Structural Social Work when he states that individuals or

groups who are marginalized are “being denied degrees of power” (x). While some might argue

that Christians of all types have been marginalized, others might argue that Christians

themselves are doing the marginalizing. Specifically, for this project, I consider that Mary

Mallon in A Plague of Angels is marginalized because she is a single, female, lower-class, Irish immigrant in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. Additionally, I consider that the residents of Negro Creek, Ontario in The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God have been marginalized because of their color and ethnicity in a country largely populated by whites at the turn of the twenty-first century.

THE SEPARATISTS: QUIET IN THE LAND & AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

QUIET IN THE LAND

The dramatic action of Anne Chislett’s play Quiet in the Land takes place in a rural

Amish farming community near Kitchener, Ontario, Canada near the end of World War I.

Written in 1983, Chislett’s play earned the Chalmers Award in 1982 (for best play produced in

the city of Toronto), as well as the Governor General’s Literary Award for Canadian Drama in

1983. Chislett has structured her play in such a way as to engage meaningfully with issues of

faith and society, of pacifism and military service, and of the frequent tensions between the

expression of religious fundamentalism and a move toward feeling free to be able to adapt a style

of worship in order to address changes in the contemporary societal structure.

Quiet in the Land draws its name from a description that has historically often been given to the Amish, the Mennonites, and other groups who embrace the position of pacifism: “the quiet in the land.”7 By setting her play in the midst of what the world knew then as “the Great War,”

Chislett creates a culturally charged context for potential conflicts to emerge as a result of peace-

loving people who reside in a country at war. Indeed, one of the play’s central conflicts arises

from this clash of perspectives. However, the difference of opinion is not limited to a simplistic

“Amish vs. non-Amish” mentality. Instead, it is from one of the Amish teenagers that one of the

challenges to pacifism manifests itself in the play.

Jacob, or Yock, Bauman has been raised Amish by his father and his grandmother; his

mother died in childbirth. It is customary for the Amish to not baptize infants; instead, as

Anabaptists they desire for each child to make a voluntary decision to be baptized as a young

adult, signifying that they understand and are aware of the commitment that they are making to

God and to the Amish church. Although Yock has been raised in the Amish religion and

lifestyle, he does not choose to voluntarily identify himself with the Amish church as a teenager.

This decision stems from his skepticism about the Amish faith, as well as his belief that pacifism

in war is not a socially responsible choice. Yock’s defiance of the Amish cultural norm as it

relates to joining the church sets up one of the primary conflicts of the script, which will be seen

in the relationship between Yock and his father, Christian (“Christy”) Bauman, the latter of

whom is arguably the most fundamentally conservative member of the Amish group portrayed in

Chislett’s play.

7 For more information on the Amish in North America, consult the many books by author Donald Kraybill.

The third member of the Bauman family portrayed in this play is Yock’s grandmother and Christy’s mother, Hannah Bauman. Hannah is presented as a kind, elderly widow who seems to cultivate meaningful and healthy relationships with many of the Amish children. While this is the case, Hannah is also desperate to retain the routine of the way things have been done in the past. Her husband was the bishop of the Amish congregation of which they are currently members; she desires for her son Christy to become bishop, so that he can carry on the ways of his father, despite how the other individuals in the current membership may want to change.

A neighboring farm to the Bauman’s is the Brubacher home. Joseph (“Zepp”) and Lydia

(“Lydie”) Brubacher have three daughters: Kate, Martha, and Nancy. Chislett intends for her audience to see the Bauman kitchen and the Brubacher kitchen onstage simultaneously. These are the only portions of the homes seen in Quiet in the Land, and Chislett indicates that the

Bauman kitchen is to be “plainer” than the Brubacher kitchen (28). Although both homes are decorated to be functional and not frivolous, as is customary for the Amish, this small indication in the script’s notes that the Brubacher kitchen is not as plain as the Bauman kitchen seems to be able to be adequately extrapolated to indicate the difference in personalities between the

Baumans and Brubachers, as well. Although they are good friends with each other, there is something about the Brubacher family that moves them to be a little more lively, a little more easygoing, a little more free-spirited while still following the form of their faith.

Zepp Brubacher is deacon of the local Amish congregation, and has been Christy

Bauman’s good friend for years. He is a peace-loving man who either willingly takes or finds himself thrust into the role of mediator at several points in the script. His wife Lydie is portrayed as a good and loyal wife and mother who is fond of eating and of daydreaming about having modern technologies like telephones. Despite reoccurring glimpses into what could be

perceived as an apparent flightiness, the character of Lydie ultimately resists being stereotyped as a simpleton. There are several instances where she transcends an easy categorization into triteness and speaks from a place of inner wisdom.

Kate, the Brubacher’s oldest daughter, is mature and confident, yet in ways that are not overbearing or egotistical. A hard worker who immensely values her family and the Amish way of life they hold dear, she fully commits herself to the things that she loves. Her two biggest loves in this play are her Amish life and Yock Bauman. Unfortunately for her, these two loves cannot come together due to Yock’s refusal to join the Amish church. Although Yock cares deeply for Kate, he cannot bring himself to espouse the tenets of his father’s religion. Instead, he asks Kate to leave her faith and family in order to run away with him, something Kate does not feel she can do.

The play begins with a church service held in the Brubacher home. It is at this service that Kate is baptized into the church, along with another Amish teenager, Menno Miller.

Throughout the play, it is obvious that shy Menno, Yock’s best friend, wishes to pursue a relationship with Kate, despite the fact that she is drawn to Yock. Menno also is granted permission from a traveling Amish bishop to begin a Sunday School class for the young people of the church, much to the chagrin of Christy, who feels that the Amish youth will incorporate too much of the surrounding culture into their lives, including current technology and the

English language.

In the fourth scene of Act One (the penultimate scene in the act), the time comes for

Canadian men to register in the war, and the men of the Amish community must travel to a recruitment office. Because of their religion, they are permitted to become conscientious objectors. However, as Yock has not been baptized into the church, he is not spared from the

draft. In a later scene, the play infers that Yock is granted exempted status, as well, but only

after a trip to Toronto with Christy and Zepp to appeal the earlier decision.

In the final scene of Act One, a non-Amish neighbor, Mr. O’Rourke, stumbles, drunk,

into an evening of Amish corn-shucking, where, in his rage, he accuses them of contributing to

his son Paddy’s war injury and the subsequent amputation of his legs. Yock knew Mr.

O’Rourke’s son before he left for war, and, in this scene, Yock’s struggle with his Amish-ness

comes to an angry climax as he argues with his father in front of the community about war,

pacifism, and faith, culminating with this exchange:

CHRISTY. I have never asked Paddy O’Rourke or anyone else to go

and get shot trying to protect me or mine. Christ died for us,

that was enough.

YOCK. Did He? Well, I didn’t ask Him to. (66)

This perceived blasphemy from Yock elicits an off-stage beating from Christy, and, as the first

act draws to a close, it ultimately results in Yock’s decision to leave the community and join the

war.

Although asked to accompany him, Kate does not go with Yock. Instead, she mourns his

loss privately, and eventually agrees to marry Menno to be able to continue living in her beloved

community with her family, her friends and her faith. The first scene of the second act details

this journey, and the second scene takes place immediately after the wedding ceremony of Kate

and Menno.

Mr. O’Rourke interrupts another Amish celebration in this same scene; specifically, that

of the wedding reception. He brings news that Yock is a “war hero,” having killed at least one

German in the war. Upon hearing this, the Amish community is devastated. An already ailing

Hannah is deeply affected physically and emotionally by this news which is horrible to her, and

she dies within the next few months.

At the end of the play, Yock returns, full of sorrow for the murder he has committed, and

full of regret at leaving his father, at leaving Kate, and at joining the war effort. In the midst of his sorrow and regret is a tiny hope at reconciliation, both with Christy and with Kate. This hope is squelched, though, when Yock discovers that Kate is married to Menno, and when Christy chooses his fundamentalism over his family. Brokenhearted and full of inward struggle, Christy wants to acknowledge that redemption and hope do indeed exist for his son. However, that redemption cannot exist in Yock’s former community; Christy says to him: “You can be saved

… you just … you can’t …” (107). Yock leaves, then, to find a community which will provide for him the acceptance and forgiveness he so desperately seeks.

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Published in 2003 by Dramatists Play Service, As It Is In Heaven is a fictional account about a Shaker women’s community at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky in 1838. Written by Arlene

Hutton, As It Is In Heaven premiered September 13, 2001 in New York City by the Journey

Company and the 78th Street Theatre Lab. These two organizations again jointly produced a

January 2002 performance at the ArcLight Theatre. The play’s original dramaturg, Stephanie

Sandberg, directed a university production of the work in April of 2002 at Calvin College in

Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she is a member of the theatre faculty. Sandberg’s production

was invited by the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival to be a featured

production at the conference for Region III8 in January 2003.

8 ACTF’s Region III is comprised of schools in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Hutton’s work features a cast of nine women, playing characters who live together at the

Shaker community of Pleasant Hill. There are six women in the “establishment:” Hannah, the eldress; Betsy and Phebe, the deaconesses; Peggy, the cook; Rachel, a “longtime Shaker;” and

Izzy, the youngest who is not yet old enough to sign the covenant to join the community. The other three characters are called the “newcomers:” Fanny, an “independent” young woman whose family life was broken; Polly, a “needy” young woman who, we later discover, came to the community from working at a house of ill repute; and Jane, a “sad” young woman who had given birth to five children since her marriage, none of whom survived. Jane followed her husband to the Shaker community for a new start. At the beginning of the play, Jane is the only one of the newcomers to have already signed the covenant.

In the list of characters, Hutton includes a brief description of each woman after each name. Part of the description for each woman is derived from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the New Testament book of Matthew. In this message, Jesus presents what are now called the Beatitudes, a series of phrases that begin with the words “Blessed are.” Hutton indicates that Jane is “mournful,” that Polly is “poor in spirit,” and that Fanny is “accused falsely.” Additionally, Peggy is “meek,” Rachel is “pure in heart,” Betsy is a “peacemaker,”

Phebe “seeks righteousness,” Hannah “tries to be merciful,” and Izzy is “persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (10). Throughout the course of the play, Hutton makes the connections between the character’s lives and the biblical associations that she ascribes to each woman.

The play is structured in two acts, with twenty-one scenes in the first and fifteen in the second. The scenes are of varying length, with some as short as a few stanzas of sung verse by

one (or a few) characters to allow for a smoother change between longer scenes with more dialogue. Hutton indicates that the intermission between the acts is optional.9

Although not a musical in the conventional sense, the play does incorporate a good deal of music: all of the musical pieces are Shaker hymns which are always sung a cappella, and, with few exceptions, in unison. The production, like Shaker life, is intended to be beautiful in its simplicity: Hutton indicates that “the set and staging should exemplify the simplicity of the

Shakers and their dedication to work. The play can be performed with six [to eight wooden] benches, a few baskets and some laundry. Or the set can resemble a meeting house, with Shaker pegs” (4, [11]). Hutton calls for no blackouts between the scenes. She desires the movement to be “fluid, with [the] first line of a new scene following the line in the previous scene with no break in rhythm. If additional time is needed, it should be filled with song” (4).

Hutton also endeavors to capture the essence of Shaker utility through her instructions to the actors regarding both movement patterns and the use of props. Regarding movement patterns, Hutton indicates that “there are no entrances and exits from or to offstage; when the actresses are not in a scene, they sit on the side benches and sew or knit” (11). Regarding the use of props, Hutton writes that “each scene has a task;” however, “none of the work of the Sisters should be totally mimed; there must always be a prop to represent the task” (11). And, if the actor is not in the scene but on a bench at the perimeter of the playing space, “their hands are always [to be] busy, even when they are out of the light” (11).

In the first scene, the benches are arranged as pews to indicate that the Shaker women are entering their meeting house. After singing together, Hannah, as the eldress, instructs them to begin their time of public confession. In the next scene, we are introduced to what will become

9 In fact, when I was able to see this production in performance at the Kennedy Center’s Region III American

the primary focus of discord in the community throughout the play: whether or not some of the

newcomers have received spiritual visions and seen angels. In this second scene, it is Betsy who

is asking Polly if she saw angels; this type of questioning will increase in intensity throughout

the play, causing conflict between those who maintain they have received “gifts,” and those who

believe those gifts to be false.

Izzy accompanies Fanny on some of her trips into the hilly countryside; they both believe

that they have been gifted with the ability to see angels on these trips. Polly comes to believe

that she has a drawing gift, and throughout the play gives handmade drawings and heart-shaped

cards to some of her spiritual “sisters,” maintaining that the cards and drawings are messages

from Mother Ann Lee (the founder of the Shaker religion). Although such expressions are

typically regarded as frivolous by the Shakers, these cards are given special meaning by those

who believe that they are indeed messages of encouragement from Mother Ann.

Other expressions also come to be known as “gifts” to some of the members of this

community. At one point, a few break out in a fit of laughter and claim to have a laughing gift.

At other times, they say that they have received a “spinning gift,” and spin and dance across the

space. Some of the older members of the community grow frustrated with what they believe is

the shirking of duties by the newcomers. At the end of act one, Hannah, the eldress, seeks to re-

gain control of the community. Noting that “the community is more important than one

individual,” she claims that they “must tend to order” (50), and orchestrates an interrogation of

Fanny, Polly and Izzy.

In the second act, Polly expresses what she arguably believes to be a giftedness from

Mother Ann, exhibited by her continual drawing and distributing of artful messages. In the first

College Theatre Festival in 2003, it ran about 1 hour and 40 minutes without an intermission.

act, she gave one drawing to Betsy; but, in the second act, she gives one to Peggy and one to

Jane. Unlike Betsy’s and Peggy’s, Jane’s is not a heart. It is a picture of her five children in heaven. When Hannah discovers this, she calls it a sin to try to depict heaven, tears up the paper, and then refuses to give the pieces back to Jane, pocketing them instead. In turn, the breakdown of order continues, as deaconess Phebe tells Hannah that she should apologize to Jane for taking away what comforted her. Hannah instead chastises Phebe for not doing her job well enough of instructing the newcomers.

At the next public confession (depicted in Act Two, scene nine), when Hannah instructs everyone to confess their sins, Jane stands up and leaves. This, perhaps, is an exit of protest, a silent comment by Jane that Hannah, too, is not exempt from sin. When Fanny stands and begins to have one of her shaking visions, Hannah ends the meeting abruptly, in an attempt to control the situation and rob Fanny’s experience of perceived credibility. Hannah meets with Fanny privately and asks her to leave the community. She accuses Fanny of fabricating her visions, because it does not make sense to Hannah why angels would speak to Fanny instead of the elders. In the midst of their discussion, Fanny falls into a trance again and sees the angels behind

Hannah. Hannah, unable to see them, shakes Fanny and eventually falls to her knees, pleading with “Holy Mother Wisdom” to be able to see them herself.

Upon hearing reports from other villages whose members are similarly seeing angels,

Hannah is determined to force the visions upon herself: “I will have a gift” (68). She leads women to the sacred site and then commences with a manipulated and falsified worship experience, where she invites others to see the vision, to hear the vision, to taste of the invisible food that is being gifted to them. In the midst of her charade, however, Rachel sees the angels

and hears the music; she is followed by each of her sisters except Hannah. As everyone else shakes with their vision, Hannah looks up and begs “Please. Please” (70).

In the fourteenth scene of the second act, Hannah and Fanny are talking with each other, and there is evidence of some softening in Hannah’s demeanor. They are preparing for Fanny’s move to South Union, another Shaker community. This time, however, Hannah is different. She says that South Union has need of Fanny’s gifts, and in acknowledging Fanny’s sincerity and her own pride, she commences to wash Fanny’s feet, a spiritually historic expression of truly humble service. Hannah encourages Fanny by saying that she will someday become a deaconess, although she adds the words “at South Union” (72).

At the end of the play, Hannah and Betsy discuss what it means to see angels, and whether or not angels appear in different ways to different people. There is a sense in this last scene that Hannah is more hopeful for her future and more peaceful in her current state, after having attempted to exhibit more mercy toward those around her. This echoes Hutton’s application of the Beatitudes to the cast list, where she indicates Hannah “tries to be merciful and kind” (10). With the life and power affirmed in each of the women in the script, the play ends with the women coming together to give voice to another Shaker hymn: “Sing with life. Live with life. Sing with life and power” (74).

THE FUNDAMENTALISTS: GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS & GRACE

GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS

God’s Man in Texas by David Rambo premiered at the 1999 Humana Festival at the

Actors Theatre of Louisville. The cast of characters is small, comprised of three men: Dr. Philip

Gottschall, Dr. Jeremiah Mears, and Hugo Taney. Gottschall is the 81 year old pastor of the

fictional Rock Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, a Southern Baptist “megachurch.” He is

described by Rambo as “vibrant, passionate, stentorian, leonine, proud” (6). Mears is a Baptist

minister in his early 40s who is invited to give a series of sermons at Gottschall’s church, under

speculation that Gottschall will be soon retiring. Rambo describes him as “a seemingly

conservative, ordinary man” who “gains stature when preaching,” and whose “voice is startlingly

rich and movingly expressive” (6). Taney is on staff at Rock Baptist Church as part of the

audio-visual team; he equips the pastors with their individual microphones on Sunday and acts as

a type of “stage manager” for each Sunday’s series of services/sermons. Taney is described as

“anywhere in between” 35 and 55; a “reformed wreckage of a life full of drugs, alcohol and

faithlessness” (6).

David Rambo is a professional writer10 who has adapted several classic screenplays for

the stage, including All About Eve, Adam’s Rib, Sunset Boulevard, and Casablanca.11 Rambo’s

Adam’s Rib performance was specifically for L.A. Theatreworks, and was recorded for broadcast on National Public Radio, as has God’s Man in Texas. According to David Rambo’s

website (), God’s Man in Texas was one of the most produced plays in

regional theaters by the year 2002.

Rambo describes God’s Man in Texas as a “work of fiction, rooted in the truth that the

succession of a leader of any large organization – especially a megachurch such as my fictional

Rock – rarely goes smoothly. Egos, suspicions, legacies and reputations are at stake” (4). It is

important for Rambo that the three characters in this play are not presented in distorted or

cartoonish ways. He writes that “Gottschall, Jerry and Hugo, the trinity of the play, are real men,

10 Currently, Rambo is a writer and producer for the CBS television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. 11 All About Eve was a one-time performance in 2003, benefitting the Actors Fund of America. His adaptations of Sunset Boulevard in 2004 and Casablanca in 2005 were for the same purpose. These three Actors Fund of America

not caricatures of the colorful performers who make so much religious broadcasting hilariously

entertaining. [. . .] Sure, these guys can breathe fire, but they shouldn’t cross the line into comic

stereotype” (4). This admonition from Rambo and, more importantly, his ability to write these

roles in a way that upholds this admonition save this play from the potential pitfall of hackneyed

representation spoofing religious figures, as well as from the opposite extreme of

oversimplifying life’s tragedies by allowing all questions to be tied with a neat, tidy bow which

eradicates all problems by the end of the drama, as is the case with many a bad church “skit.”

The play, set in “the present” (6), is divided into two acts. In the first act, ten scenes

alternate between the pulpit of Rock Baptist Church and the “Ministers’ Room,” a type of

backstage green room. The third scene features Jerry’s first sermon at Rock, a message focused

on articulating what it means to hear and respond to the voice of God, which will come to be one

of the primary themes in Rambo’s script. Following this scene comes a key scene in the

Ministers’ Room with all three of the play’s characters; I feel that it is “key” because it

introduces the concept of a “numbers”-based motivation for ministry, another of the other

primary themes in this play. In this fourth scene, Jerry is exposed to what seem to be routine

questions at Rock Baptist like: how many were in attendance?, how many responded to the

invitation at the end of the service?, and other inquiries which foreground the importance of

quantitative religious responses.

In the next scene, Hugo shares with Jerry a bit of his own story. Hugo’s history is not

palatable for most who surround him in his current work environment, as his past includes

experiences with indiscriminate sex, illegal drugs, and too much alcohol. He details some of his

shady past for Jerry and relates his “conversion story” of sorts. Jerry recognizes his own father

performances featured very prominent industry “stars” as the actors. The notable performers are too many to list

as a character in the story that Hugo tells. His dad, a salesman who felt his life was changed by

God, decided to be a street corner preacher and called himself “Christ’s rabid dog.” Although he

does not yet know the connection between the two men, Hugo acknowledges that this corner

preacher was one of the most instrumental people in helping him to change his life.

The final scene of the first act places Gottschall behind the pulpit, giving a sermon on the

timing of God. Gottschall, aware of the actions of half of the members of the pastoral search

committee to offer his job to another candidate without his knowledge, speaks about the

importance of waiting for appropriate times to act. He quotes Ecclesiastes 3: “There is a time for

everything” (36). He increases in his fervor and determinedness as he builds to the conclusion of

his message: “[. . .] when? When? (To the congregation.) In God’s time. Because these are the

most important things. (He digs in at the pulpit.) I’m not going anywhere until God says, “It’s

time” (36). As his character reaches these words, it is quite clear that his dig into the pulpit and

“not going anywhere” is a stubborn refusal to accept anything other than his own will for what

happens next at Rock Baptist Church. This stubborn focus on the self can have detrimental

affects on the Christian community.

The second act begins three months later in the Ministers’ Room. It is soon revealed that

Jerry is the chosen one; however, he will not be completely replacing Gottschall. They are to be

“co-pastors,” which is news to Mears. It is quickly apparent to Jerry that his “co-pastor”

position seems more like an inferior position to Gottschall. Jerry is assigned to make the rounds

of various ministry groups on the church’s campus, saying the opening prayers at the bowling

alley dedication, at the singles ministry, at the Women’s Weight Loss Ministry, and at the

here in their entirety, but include Tim Curry, Blythe Danner, Kirk Douglas, Angela Lansbury, and Carl Reiner.

alcohol recovery meeting. These assignments begin to give Jerry a heaviness, and a feeling of re-examining his place at Rock.

The following scenes chronicle the rising tensions between the new co-pastors and highlight the differences in how Gottschall and Mears approach ministry, with Gottschall focused on an outward display and Mears more concerned with matters of internal authenticity.

Gottschall’s concerns with outward displays are not limited to his church members; he is concerned with every staff member’s outward displays, as well. Gottschall even accuses Jerry of having secret meetings with church personnel behind his back, but Jerry, in turn, feels that

Gottschall is overreacting to one of the pastors of the church fulfilling pastorly duties.

In scene seven of the second act, Jerry tells Hugo that a woman named Brenda keeps calling his office wanting to connect with Hugo. She claims to be the mother of Hugo’s twelve- year old son, a son about whom Hugo does not know. Initially rejecting the idea that the boy is his, Hugo does not want communication established with Brenda and her son. Yet, Jerry convinces him to meet her after a morning service at the church. Hugo agrees provided that they do not tell Gottschall; Hugo would feel too much shame and embarrassment if the longtime pastor knew about this. This reflects a contemporary understanding, too, that some Christians seem not to welcome people or situations around them which they might consider to be ugly or

“sinful.”

In the very next scene, in the Ministers’ Room the following Sunday, Hugo is dressed up, albeit awkwardly, in preparation to meet his son. Gottschall, unaware of the personal drama in

Hugo’s life, and convinced that there are those at Rock Baptist who want Mears to be in charge and Gottschall to leave, accuses Hugo of conspiracy, and of plotting against him. Hugo decides to tell Gottschall of Brenda and their son, but is interrupted by Jerry’s entrance.

In the next scene, scene nine, the co-pastors are in the Ministers’ Room, preparing to participate in the church’s annual Christmas electric parade, where they will be riding in the

Pastors’ Float. When Jerry wonders what is keeping Hugo, Gottschall tells him that Hugo’s been terminated, fired on grounds of “insubordination” (59). Gottschall, vehement, accuses

Jerry of having an “unbridled lust for power” (60), and of corrupting Hugo’s loyalty. As

Gottschall begins to spew Scripture at Jerry, in an attempt to belittle him and call him wicked,

Jerry protests on behalf of Hugo, and eventually is able to share the story with Gottschall.

Instead of being moved for Hugo, Gottschall is offended that Hugo chose to confide in Jerry over him. They argue back and forth over what to do as the scene transitions to the two of them actually atop the “Pastor’s Float” in the parade. Jerry, disgusted with the flashiness of the display, says: “This is the first thing that’s going to go. This carnival.” Gottschall replies simply that it is only about “membership recruitment [. . .]. People want to be part of the excitement”

(62). Jerry evidences his disdain for this approach with his reply: “Big numbers,” to which

Gottschall responds: “Big numbers make big deeds possible. God’s work.” Jerry, however, is not convinced that it truly is the work of God. His frustration with Gottschall’s approach is evident by his next question to the senior minister: “Where is God in all this?” (62), highlighting a theme that runs through this play – a theme of drowning out the voice of God with busyness, noise, events, and excess. It is more than Jerry can continue to handle. The scene ends with him jumping off the float.

In the final scene of the play, moments from two sermons are juxtaposed. One, from

Gottschall, is set in the now-familiar pulpit of Rock Baptist Church. In it, Gottschall exhibits pejorative condescension when talking about Jerry to his congregation, including details on what has happened to him in the months that have passed since the electric parade. The second

sermon, from Jerry, is set at a rural swap meet. The swap meet is Jerry’s new Sunday meeting

place, with Hugo at his side. In the words of Jerry’s sermon, he recognizes that God spoke to the

Old Testament prophet Elijah in a whisper. Through this whisper, Elijah gained understanding

and strength.

Thus, the end of the play displays two distinct approaches to messages of Christian

communication: while Gottschall speaks first, Jerry now listens first. Not for the loud crash of

Gottschall’s Rock Baptist Church, but for the guiding whisper like the one Elijah heard from

God.

Rambo’s play may be based on a similar true story that occurred at the First Baptist

Church of Dallas in the 1990s.12 Although this information is interesting to note, it is not

necessary for the message of the play to be conveyed. In fact, it can be somewhat unnecessarily

binding to correlate this play too strongly with only one concrete instance, because then the

power of the play is limited to that instance instead of applied to other similar situations. This

play is about more than just the specific context of the First Baptist Church in Dallas; it is about

a larger philosophy of ministry and religious mission; namely, about the issues raised within the

pages of the script, including the questions of numbers, finances, hearing God’s voice, and

speaking for God.

GRACE

Grace by Craig Wright premiered in 2005 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in

Washington, D.C. Wright is the playwright of Main Street, The Pavilion, Molly’s Delicious,

12 More detailed information can be found in two newspaper articles (Lawson Taitte’s August 2004 “‘God’s Man in Texas’ is Preachy-Keen” in the Dallas Morning News and Dakshesh Patel’s October 2001 article in Student Life, the campus newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis), as well as Joel Gregory’s personal website, Gregory Ministries. Gregory is the non-fictional correlative to Jerry Mears.

The Unseen, Melissa Arctic, Orange Flower Water, and Recent Tragic Events. After its

premiere at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Grace had a critically acclaimed

production at Skokie, Illinois’ Northlight Theatre on Chicago’s north side.

A graduate of United Theological Seminary (of the Twin Cities) with a Masters degree in

Divinity, Wright is currently known for his television writing. His first job writing for television

was for HBO’s series Six Feet Under, of which he eventually became a producer. After writing

a few episodes for ABC’s LOST, Wright wrote and produced for the same network’s show

Brothers and Sisters. Most recently, he was the head writer and executive producer of ABC’s

series Dirty Sexy Money. Although Wright’s play Grace is currently unpublished, I have

received permission to write about it from Beth Blickers, Wright’s agent at Abrams Art.13

Grace has a small cast of four characters, including Steve and Sara, a married couple in

their 30s; Sam, a young man with a deformed face, also in his 30s; and Karl, a German

immigrant in his 70s, who lived through the Holocaust of World War Two in Europe. Wright

indicates that “the play takes place in two identical generic apartments on the Florida shore.

There is only one set for both apartments, however, and we are in both of them all of the time.

The time is the present” (2).

Steve and Sara, a young married couple from Minnesota, have recently moved to Florida

with big plans. Steve has been in contact with a Swiss businessman, Mr. Himmelman, regarding

borrowing a huge sum of money to invest into a hotel renovation project. At the beginning of

scene two, Steve has just heard from Himmelman’s legal department that the deal has been

greenlighted. Sara is excited yet concerned that Steve has never actually communicated with

13 Blickers provided me with a copy of the playscript in February 2008. Before receiving that copy, I was provided with a copy of the script used by Northlight Theatre’s 2006 production of the play. This copy was thanks to BJ Jones, the company’s artistic director.

Himmelman himself. Steve, too immersed in the enthusiasm of the moment, can only see

potential before him, both for financial gain and for what he views as spiritual gain:

STEVE. So maybe what will happen is, we’ll buy a buncha

hotels and maybe one day in Zurich after, like, a

shareholders’ celebration or something, I’ll witness

to Mister Himmelman, he’ll get saved and, get this,

we’ll start a Gospel Hotel chain. (10)

This small excerpt represents one of the recurring themes of this script: that of the notion of the

marketability of faith or the commodification of Christianity. In chapter four, I explore some

instances of these trends as presented in the action of the scripts in this study. In Grace, Steve’s intentions are not very clear in regard to what he values more between the communication of his faith or the advancement of his business.

Also in the second scene, the couple meet Karl, an exterminator who has been hired by the building management to spray for insects. Karl, whose wife has cancer, also tells Steve and

Sara about their neighbor, Sam. Sam is a NASA scientist who survived a terrible car accident which claimed the life of his fiancée while maiming his own face.

After some more small talk about Karl’s job, Steve decides to broach the subject of religion. Apprehensive, Karl asks him “Are you are Jesus Freak?” (22), which eventually leads him to also state that “there’s no God” (22). Steve tries to interrogate Karl’s viewpoint, which only serves to further aggravate Karl. Trying to prove something, Steve focuses on his attempts to change Karl’s opinion instead of hearing Karl’s story. This is evidenced by Karl’s plea to

Steve: “listen to me! Listen when people talk!” (24). In turn, Karl tells Steve and Sara about growing up in Hamburg, Germany during the Nazi regime. His parents chose to hide Jews in

their home. One young girl, Rachel, became dear to him. They shared their first kiss together.

Karl elaborates by telling of when some Nazi soldiers came to his house after a bombing.

Finding him in the basement, they asked if there were any Jews hiding there. “And I say ‘No,’” says Karl, “but then, they push the bayonet point in my eye – I still don’t see so well from this eye – and they say, “Is anyone else here?” And I say, ‘Yah,’ [. . .]” (25), and he pointed to where Rachel was hiding. Karl tells of how the soldiers raped Rachel and then forced him to do the same before taking her “away to the camps” (25). Karl continues to articulate his view of the world based on that event:

KARL. Ever since then, I know two things for sure. I know

there’s no God. There’s no one watching the world,

or keeping anything from happening. And, worse,

I know my father is a fool. He is someone who

makes himself foolish living for a lie.

STEVE. (gently but clear) You don’t see God’s grace at

work in that sory?

SARA. Steve…

STEVE. You really don’t?

KARL. No, I don’t. (25)

Steve wants Karl to look at the situation from a different point of view, and asks Karl what he believes to be a potentially mindset-shifting question: “Who gave your father the compassion to reach out to those people, sir? Who saved your life?” (25). Karl, however, still haunted by the encounter he shared, is resolute in his belief in the absence of God, as is evident by his response to Steve: “Who killed everyone I know?” (25).

After an initially rocky beginning, Sara and her neighbor Sam manage to build the foundation of a friendship. In scene four, Sam has been invited to dinner at Sara and Steve’s apartment. Steve is so excited about the looming business deal with Himmelman that he cannot keep from talking about it in front of Sam. It becomes clear in the course of this scene that Steve is hoping that Sam will want to invest money into the project. When Sam questions why

Himmelman doesn’t generate some of the money upfront, Steve responds: “[. . .] my gift that

I’ve been given… is faith. I’m not a knower. I’m a believer” (36). This contrast between faith and logic is another theme present in the pages of Wright’s script.

Later in the same scene, Steve plunges into a line of questioning, wanting to know about

Sam’s background with church and religion. Although apprehensive at first, Sam reveals his religious history, which Steve interrogates further. This leads into a discussion on the person of

Jesus and whether or not he was the Son of God. Sam, believing that there lies an impulse in church and religious leaders that seems to be more self-serving than concerned for the needs of individuals and communities, says that Jesus today “is a mythical figure used by charlatans and multinational corporate churches to extort money from people who find life too difficult to face without hearing some lie every Sunday morning like, ‘It’s all gonna work out,’ or ‘God’s on your side’” (43). When Steve responds to this by saying “So you’re mad at God,” Sam says

“No, I’m mad at people who suck money and life out of other people in the name of some idea about God that isn’t true - ” (43). This conversation only intensifies. Sam and Steve argue about whether or not there actually is a God, and why things exist that are seemingly devoid of any good: religious hypocrisy, starving children with AIDS in Africa, the death of Sam’s fiancée, and the disfigurement of Sam’s face. The scene ends soon afterward, amid the thick tension of the moment.

Scene five begins one month later, with Sam and Sara in Sam’s apartment. Sam and Sara

are discovering more about the other’s past. Sara begs Sam to believe that “you can be loved

just because you exist. Forget your face! [. . .] You have to find a way to open up your heart to

God again, or The World, or whatever you want to call it [. . .]” (54). This plea of Sara’s can

attest to her belief that there is a God, a higher power that offers hope and love and a place to

belong. Sam responds by telling Sara the story of how his fiancée died. Afterward, in a

response to match Sam’s emotionally vulnerable state, Sara shares how she came to believe in

Jesus at a Bible camp when she was thirteen. In contrast to the way Steve communicates, Sara’s

story is personal and not invasive or accusatory. It does not glorify a minister, but rather

celebrates a divine moment. Sam is somewhat incredulous by this:

SAM. And you actually felt something?

SARA. Yeah.

SAM. You really felt like someone was… listening?

SARA. No, not someone. It wasn’t a someone.

It was more like Everything Else was listening.

But it was more than Everything Else. Like

the Everything Else was a Someone.

Somehow. [. . .] (57)

When Sara begins to leave, Sam stops her to ask her what the words were when she prayed those many years ago. Hesitant to share them with him, she makes a bargain: she’ll share her words if he’ll share his face, unbandaged. He reluctantly agrees, and she unbandages his face. When she shares with Sam her prayer, he repeats the phrases after

her, even though she says “You don’t have to say it, I’m just telling you” (59). This moment can represent the willingness of individuals who are perhaps initially reticent to accept or even explore principles of Christianity to reconsider their assumptions once they have encountered a

Christian who is authentic and does not engage in condemning judgment or self-inflated importance.

As the play progresses, Steve’s dreams are dashed one after the other. He has developed an allergic itching reaction to something unknown, and is in a perpetual state of physical discomfort. He is being sued for fraud by those from whom he bought the hotels. Himmelman has not sent any money. And, Sara and Sam have fallen in love. The final scene of the play, scene seven, begins with Steve is pointing a gun at his head, as Sara and Sam are in the room with him. Steve is playing Russian Roulette, wondering aloud “why doesn’t He stop me, Sara?

If God loves me SO much, why doesn’t He stop me?” (68). Steve seems to be progressively losing his ability to reason and think clearly. Karl interrupts this scene, as he’s been scheduled to return to spray for bugs. (“Every three months” (73), he says.) In this last scene, Karl and

Steve have switched outlooks on life compared to their opinions at their first meeting. Now,

Steve’s life is unhinged and Karl’s life is beginning to make more sense to him.

For Karl, the turning point came at his wife’s funeral. There, he saw Rachel, the young girl his family hid in Germany. He tells the trio that he apologized to her, that he said “‘I was scared, Rachel, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to be, you know, brave enough, and, uh, I’m sorry’” (75). The most startling and amazing part of the story for Karl was

Rachel’s response: “And she says to me… [. . .] she said to me the sweetest words I ever in my life. [. . .] She says: “I understand.” [. . .] (75). Although Karl is still uncertain as to the existence

of God, he says that “there is something” (75), which now is Steve’s turn to deny, in the midst of his loss of faith.

Karl somehow manages to convince Steve to give up the gun. When Karl goes into the bedroom to spray for insects, slow and deliberate apologies are exchanged between Sam, Sara, and Steve. When Karl returns, he sets down the gun to retrieve a form from his pocket.

Apparently, the pesticide previously used caused negative reactions for a lot of residents, and the company needs everyone to sign an agreement to not sue them. In exchange, they’ll receive a year’s service free of charge. As Karl heads into another room to retrieve a second form for

Sam’s apartment, this last bit of news apparently pushes Steve over the edge, and he “picks up the gun and shoots Karl, who falls down dead, out of sight” (77).

Perhaps motivated by his apparent ability to take this action, an action that somehow oddly tried to “remedy” a situation in his life that was out of control, Steve now shifts his attention to the remaining people in the room, asking each of them, at gunpoint, if they believe that it is “God’s will” for them to be together. Sam replies that he doesn’t know, but Sara, after a long beat, replies: “Yes. I do. I’m sorry, Steve. I do” (77). Steve’s response to Sara is that she believes it to be God’s will because “it’s what’s good for you” (78). This concept is another one worthy of exploration in a future chapter.

Upon hearing this confession from Sara, Steve shoots Sam, and then delves into a monologue describing how he came to believe at one point in a “universal love” (78), which caused him to reorganize his whole life around it. He wants Sara to tell him that they can return to a place in their past, but she is unable to give him the news he desires to hear. Unable to find hope of reconciliation, then, he shoots her and then shoots himself as the lights blackout on the play.

THE MARGINALIZED: A PLAGUE OF ANGELS & THE ADVENTURES OF A

BLACK GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

Mark St. Germain’s A Plague of Angels is a play about Mary Mallon, a cook from the

early 1900s who became known as “Typhoid Mary.” She was a healthy carrier of typhoid fever,

and the people for whom she cooked became sick. In addition to chronicling Mary’s struggle to

accept her culpability in these deaths, this play chronicles the struggles of the medical staff who

keep Mallon quarantined and the new priest who frequently comes to visit her.

In 2004, A Plague of Angels placed second in the David Mark Cohen National

Playwriting Award competition, sponsored by the American College Theatre Festival and the

Kennedy Center. In 2006, the script was published by Samuel French. The script is a re-write of

a previous version entitled Forgiving Typhoid Mary, which was written by St. Germain in the

late 1980s and a production of which toured the country in the 1990s. St. Germain has also

written the plays The God Committee (2004: premiere, 2006: off-Broadway), Ears on a Beatle,

Out of Gas on Lover’s Leap, and Camping with Henry and Tom, the latter of which has been

made into a film with Alan Alda and Charles Durning. With Randy Courts, he has written the

musicals The Gifts of the Magi for Lamb's Theater in New York City, Jack's Holiday, and

Johnny Pye and the Foolkiller, which won the “AT&T's New Plays for the Nineties Award.”

Mary Mallon, the historical figure, was an Irish immigrant to New York City in the late

1800s.14 Mallon worked her way up the working class ladder to become a cook, which was

14 It is important to realize the general social disdain with which Irish immigrants to the United States were treated during this time. They were often associated with crowded slums and disease, and ugly caricatures of them were portrayed in newspapers. These feelings are articulated in a 2004 documentary about “Typhoid Mary” entitled “The

arguably the highest service position in a household. She was so good at what she did that she

cooked for some of New York City’s wealthiest families. Some of the people for whom Mallon

cooked began to become ill, and many contracted typhoid fever. Mallon moved from house to

house, unintentionally spreading the sickness through the food she prepared in each household.

History records that, eventually, these dozens of cases of illnesses resulted in at least three

documented deaths.

After the first death, that of a young girl, Mallon was apprehended by New York City

officials and quarantined against her will on North Brother Island in the waters

surrounding New York City. North Brother Island was where Riverside Hospital was

located; the staff at this hospital specialized in quarantinable diseases. Mallon was

eventually released from her hospital “prison” upon her agreement to not return to

cooking. However, after several failed attempts at other occupations, she became a cook

again. It is from this time period that the other two documented deaths are recorded, both of

which occurred, unintentionally, from Mallon’s cooking.

Mallon was one of the very first healthy carriers of typhoid fever to be identified in the

United States. Her distrust of science and medicine is quite understandable, as the breakthroughs

about the role of germs in the transmission of infectious disease were relatively new. When this

new, strange-sounding medical “jargon” of sorts (to Mary’s mind, at least) is coupled with the

way that Mallon would have been viewed as an unmarried immigrant woman, as well as with the

fact that she was held against her will and treated as sick although she wasn’t sick herself, her

strong reactions against her surroundings and the medical staff, as dramatized by St. Germain,

seem to be less fanatical than they first appear.

Most Dangerous Woman in America,” which was broadcast by PBS on their series Nova. The companion website

The play is set in this historical context with the character Mary Mallon from history,

although the other major characters in St. Germain’s play are not representations of actual

historical figures. The action of the play is set primarily in her solitary cottage on the island

prison, with visits from a male administrative doctor (Dr. William Mills), a female practicing

doctor (Dr. Ann Saltzer), and a young male priest (Father Michael McKuen). The interactions

between Mary and these three individuals are contrasted with enacted flashbacks between

Mallon and the young girl for whom she cooked and who eventually died as a result. Sarah is

the fictionalized name of this girl in St. Germain’s script.

The play is set between July 1909 and February 1910, with an epilogue set in

December 1938. St. Germain states that Mary’s cottage is to be “a small room which should

give the impression of an island amid the empty darkness of the surrounding stage” (6). The set

should include a stove from the time period, a bed, and a rocking chair. It should also include a

desk or hutch or cabinet that can house mugs, papers, and other miscellany.

The play opens with what the audience will later understand to be a flashback in the

memory of Mallon: her first encounter with Sarah. The action of the scene has Mary cooking

pudding on the stove, and establishes Mallon as a confident and competent worker with a tough

exterior. Yet, it also provides a glimpse into an interior tenderness. Following this scene, Mills,

Saltzer and McKuen stand in separate spots on the stage, conveying Mary’s backstory in a

presentational style.

Immediately after establishing this context, the scene shifts to depict Mary in her cottage,

talking with Father McKuen. In a visit to express his condolences that her appeal to the courts to

be released from quarantine was denied, he brings her lilacs from the rectory, which also seem to

can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/.

soften her hard demeanor. In this first scene, after the priest begins to encourage Mary to find comfort in the Psalms, Mary’s experience with the Bible is also presented, and they have the first of what will become several exchanges of reciting Scripture to each other in a somewhat mock- combative manner:

FATHER. [. . .] You said last week you’d been re-reading

the Bible. You might find Psalms to be some

comfort. I always have. (Leafs through [the Bible],

reads) “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;

cease from anger and forsake wrath, fret not in any

ways to do evil.”

MARY. I have been reading the Bible, Father. Proverbs

also says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”

FATHER. Yes. Of course, you have to read things

in context.

(MARY puts out hand for the Bible, he surrenders it.)

MARY. I’ve been re-reading Deuteronomy. Would you

like to read it? In context? (Reads) “And the

generation to come of your children that shall

rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come

from a far land shall say, when they have seen the

plagues and the sickness which the Lord hath

laid upon it: Wherefore hath the Lord done this?”

(MARY puts down the Bible.)

I take some comfort in that. (15-16)

This interchange prefigures several to come after it in a similar vein, where Mary uses words from the Bible to support her arguments against Christianity, as it has been traditionally understood in her cultural context. These instances of discussion between Mary and McKuen about issues of faith serve as interesting examples to mine in future chapters for their representation of the nature of God and the experience of the crisis of faith.

Later in the first act, when Father McKuen is visiting again, Mary says that she wants to ask him “some questions about God” (30). The conversation quickly delves into complicated areas of theology, where Mary questions the reason that sickness exists and what God’s role is in creating germs. The scene contains another exchange of Scripture that is, at first, seemingly contradictory, which involves Mary articulating her belief that “I’m just His cook. His servant.

It’s His hand that cures, His hand that kills, not mine” (33). Mary feels that God has created the germs, and that “God let them die” (34), referring to those who contracted the typhoid disease.

The first act ends with an intern in Mary’s room, preparing to give Mary an injection of more of the germs which her body carries (in an attempt to immunize her to them). As he fills the needle, Father McKuen occupies a corner of the stage and reads, a bit bewilderedly, from the biblical book of Isaiah:

FATHER. “I am the Lord, there is no other…

FATHER. (continued) I form the light and create the

darkness, I make peace and create evil. I,

the Lord do all these things.”

(FATHER closes the book.)

FATHER. (continued) Revelations.

(He bows his head in prayer. INTERN injects MARY’s

arm; MARY screams in pain and rage. Blackout.) (42)

A God who “creates evil” seems foreign to the idea or understanding of God as McKuen has been trained to understand and preach.

The second act, like the first, begins with a flashback to Mary’s days spent as a cook for

Sarah. They are reading together from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Also similar to act one, we see the three other characters (Saltzer, Mills, and McKuen) in three distinct areas of the stage, providing more back story, in the same presentational style that was enacted at the beginning of the first act. However, this time they are not providing more of Mary’s back story; instead, they are providing more of their own. Dr. Saltzer speaks of how her parents were killed by the horse and carriage of a drunken man; Dr. Mills talks of having recurring dreams of Mary; and Father McKuen states that he has asked that someone with more experience be assigned to visit Mallon.

Saltzer’s story seems especially compelling here because of how it illuminates her approach to Mallon. She tells of moving to live with her Aunt Katherine after the accident which killed her parents. She explains that her aunt was to bestow her entire estate to Saltzer, and that she would be able to do anything she liked with the money. Saltzer’s drive and ambition are reflected in her retelling of an exchange with her aunt:

SALTZER. “Do you have dreams,” she asked me?

“Oh yes,” I told her, “I want to be a doctor.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Doctors cure people,” I said. “I want to cure

people.”

“Do they?” she said. “Dream bigger.”

“Alright,” I said, “I’m going to cure death.” (44)

As the play progresses, it is evident that Father McKuen has won Mallon’s trust. The atmosphere of the scene, as is generally typical of previous scenes between them, is not as contentious as the scenes between Mallon and either of the doctors. Mary and Father McKuen continue to discuss questions of the Bible, of God, of faith in an environment which exudes acceptance and comfort. Although Mary admits that she believes in miracles, she still accuses

God of not acting to save those who were ill: “It could have happened. A miracle. He could have saved them” (51). Her frustrated anger continues to grow against what she believes to be

God’s implacability, and this anger is reflected in her statement to McKuen that “maybe we are made in His image. Maybe if we work all our lives to feel nothing we can become the monster

He is” (51-52).

Eventually, Mallon is granted a release from the hospital, to the chagrin of one of her doctors and even to the skepticism of Father McKuen. As Mary is packing to leave her cottage, in a scene near the end of the play, McKuen visits for a final time. He has learned more information about Sarah, that she died after Mary was committed to the hospital. She refuses to believe it, but he refuses to let her ignore it or refute it:

FATHER. I want you to come to the shelter with me.

They can help you –

MARY. No one can help me!

FATHER. Not if you won’t accept it. You have to,

Mary. You have to realize God can forgive

anything we do.

MARY. I don’t forgive Him!

FATHER. God didn’t kill Sarah, you did!

(MARY slaps him.) I want to help you!

(MARY is about to strike him again; FATHER catches her arm.)

MARY. Let me go –

(FATHER grabs her by both arms. MARY struggles.)

FATHER. You have to face what you’ve done –

MARY. Take your hands off me –

FATHER. You killed them, all of them!

(MARY spits in his face. FATHER, furious, strikes her. They separate.)

MARY. This is your help?

FATHER. No. I’m sorry –

MARY. This is what you and your religion come to!

FATHER. Forgive me; please.

MARY. Forgive you? Who’s ever forgiven me?

Did you? Did He; your Lord of death and

silence? You want me to pray, Father;

I do pray. I pray there is no God. I do.

Because that would be better than this God

who does nothing. (62-63)

In this excerpt, Mary gives voice to many of those who have experienced crises of faith. Her assertions that God is impassive and distant are not unfamiliar ones. Her frustration at being alone, feeling unheard are not unshared ones. Her experience with an established religious system that “slaps her in the face,” so to speak, is one that has arguably been shared by others.

The scene above details how the one remaining relationship in which Mary found acceptance crumbles. After this lost connection comes another heartbreaking scene with Dr.

Saltzer. After a conversation which seemed to hold the promise of a newfound connection for

Mary outside the walls of her confinement, Saltzer displays an unwillingness to take a specific action for which Mallon pleads. Mallon subsequently leaves her cottage and goes out into the world, alone.

Saltzer, Mills, and McKuen appear again, conveying to the audience what became of

Mary after her release. After attempts at other jobs, she “returned to what she knew best” (70): cooking. Their statements about Mallon in this concluding scene are true to history: that Mary cooked for hotels and a restaurant, leaving each post as soon as a case of typhoid was discovered. Mary started cooking at Sloane Maternity Hospital under the name of Mrs. Brown.

When twenty-five employees and patients contracted typhoid, the police investigated. They found Mary at her home, where she “put up no resistance. It was as if she expected them” (70-

71). Mary returned to her cottage on North Brother Island at Riverside Hospital, where she lived for her remaining twenty-three years. Her gravestone, for which she paid, reads “Mary Mallon.

Died November 11, 1938. Jesus. Mercy” (71). For some, this sentiment on Mary’s tombstone may seem “too little, too late.” Perhaps, though, these are carefully chosen words that emerge

out of decades of reflection in Mallon’s isolation. If so, then in them there is tremendous hope.

Hope for redemption. For healing. For wholeness. For ultimate reconciliation.

THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God by Djanet Sears was published by Playwrights

Canada Press in 2003. Sears is the recipient of the 1998 Governor Generals Award for Drama, for her play Harlem Duet, a prequel of sorts to Shakespeare’s Othello. Harlem Duet also earned

Sears a Chalmers Award and two Dora Mavor Moore awards.

The play is set in the present and takes place in the actual area of western Ontario that came to be known as Negro Creek, due to the large number of inhabitants who descended from

African Canadian soldiers who were given the farmland after the War of 1812. In this play,

Sears creates a fictionalized account of Dr. Rainey Baldwin-Johnson, a black doctor in her 30s or

40s, who is dealing with the death of her young daughter, the deterioration of her marriage to the local minister Michael Baldwin, and the aging of her father, the retired judge Abendigo (Ben)

Johnson.

In her introduction to The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, Sears addresses some of the reasons which motivated her to write this play: “[. . .] Many of us have been participants in, or witness to catastrophic life-changing events where the presence of God or even the faintest hint of grace could not be located” (iii). Sears continues to list instances which seem to her to be devoid of God’s presence: when a black man “last year [. . .] was dragged by a chain from the back of a pick-up truck, by a trio of White supremacists;” the Auschwitz concentration camps; “when my great, great, great grandmother Yaa was abducted from her tiny village on the coast of Ghana;” “the atrocities of slavery;” September 11, 2001; etc. (iii-iv). In

all of these instances, asks Sears, “Where was God? And what keeps us going in the face of such utter desolation?” (iv).

African tradition plays a strong role in Sears’s work. In addressing this, Sears writes that the play is “deeply rooted in African oral tradition” (iv), and she structures the play in such a way as to give that recognition a presence. Specifically, she notes that “the play makes use of a

‘living set,’ a 15-piece acappella chorus that is both the principal component of the physical set, as well as the non-verbal vocalese soundscape which accompanies the entire story” (iv). The play is structured into two acts, which are preceded by a prologue, and followed by an epilogue.

The characters include: Lorraine (Rainey) Baldwin-Johnson, the “girl” of the play’s title;

Michael Johnson, a minister and Rainey’s husband in his early 40s; Abendigo (Ben) Johnson, a retired judge in his 70s who is also Rainey’s father; and several of Ben’s elderly friends: Ivy,

Darese, Girlene, and Bert.

In the prologue, Sears uses the “living set” to set the mood of the piece: “From a deep darkness, a dissonant CHORUS of naked voices rises up out of the morass of earth and water”

(3). This Chorus will continue to be present onstage throughout the entirety of the play, shifting shapes and creating various environments as the production progresses. “As the lights come up,

Lorraine (RAINEY) Baldwin Johnson stands alone. Her face is wet with sweat, tears and rain, masking her tarnished gold beauty. Her feet are bare. She stares at the heavens” (3). Rainey runs toward the audience, with the chorus surrounding her. She is intently pleading “Oh God!

Please, please, please God! Oh Jesus. Please. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God” (5). And so this play about love and loss and faith begins.

The prologue continues, with Rainey holding up to heaven a small bundle. “The leg of a child involuntarily kicks free from the bundle, then relaxes. The sound of a siren can be heard in

the distance” (5). At the same time, and in another part of the stage, Michael is preaching from the biblical story of the crucifixion of Jesus: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying,

Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (5). A paramedic enters and takes the child from Rainey. It is clear that Michael is speaking at the child’s funeral. Rainey begins to walk slowly back up the road she ran down with the bundle at the beginning of the play. Through a shifting of the bodies of the chorus members, the road where Rainey was standing now becomes the aisle of the church, and she finds herself at the funeral.

When Michael cannot continue to speak due to overwhelming emotion at the loss of his and Rainey’s daughter, members of the congregation begin singing the hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus” (6-7). Fraught with grief, Rainey cannot stand to stay in the place, and leaves the church. When Michael tries to stop her, she responds: “I begged. I begged him. I begged him,

Michael. Michael, I begged God. I begged you. I begged you. I begged you” (7). These statements can potentially illustrate a resentment or frustration on Rainey’s part at not feeling heard or not having her prayers answered in the way she had desired.

In the first scene following the prologue, Sears introduces Abendigo, Ivy, Darese,

Girlene, and Bert. They are dressed in dark clothing and wearing dark sunglasses. Sears says that “they stare out at us from beyond their dark lenses like an army of Black 70- year-old 007s” (8). In this scene, they are plotting some scheme where they need to synchronize their watches and develop a plan to infiltrate a residence, the purposes of which are as of yet unclear.

In scene two, Rainey has a monologue which helps to provide some exposition of the back story of the play. She tells briefly of her own stepmother, Martha, who is dead: “I hate that word – “passed.” Gone on. Like there’s something to go on to” (19). Rainey moves to share more about her feelings on the loss of her own daughter Janie. Her reflections are interrupted by the arrival of Michael. They talk about their own academic work, Michael’s in theology and

Rainey’s new ambition to do doctoral work in the area of science and theology. Their interchange introduces a few ideas which will become recurring themes in this play: the presence or absence of God, the nature of God’s will, the drive to act when we feel God is not acting as we would wish, and the resilience of African cultures.

Later in the same scene, when Rainey shares that her current thesis title is “The Death of

God and Angels,” a “quantum theoretical challenge to contemporary monotheism” (28), Michael is taken by surprise and congratulates Rainey on “becoming an atheist” and states that “tragedy strikes and suddenly all your faith dissolves” (29). When Rainey replies with “And your faith grows stronger,” Michael says that “we only grow through suffering. He has a plan” (29). The conversation escalates in its tension, which propels Michael to eventually leave the scene. As he leaves, Rainey muses to herself about the strength of his faith. Again in this scene, the contrast is displayed between someone of faith who is quick to adhere to the principles of faith in the midst of crisis, and someone of faith who is quick to doubt those same principles in the face of the same, or similar, crisis.

In the next scene, scene three, the five elderly “secret agents” have returned from their previously planned mission. Sears reveals that they have taken a “little Black garden gnome” (34). Rainey sees it and assumes that it’s just a hobby of the group of older individuals, buying these collectibles in their old age. However, at the end of the scene,

she discovers her cellar to be full of them – 357 of them to be precise. When approaching the group about it, her father says that they are “liberating” these “lawn ornaments, cookie jars, piggy banks, plaques, figurines, visual images and ephemera” (41). The group members call themselves the Lotsa Soap Cleaning Company, an acronym for “Liberation of Thoroughly

Seditious Artifacts Symbolizing (the) Oppression (of) African People” (43). In scene four,

Rainey and her father continue to argue about the illegality of such an endeavor. In the midst of this disagreement, Abendigo suffers a collapse. As Rainey leans down to check his pulse, she pleads “Oh God! Please, please, please God! Oh Jesus. Please. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God”

(47), an exact duplicate of the prayer that opened the play. This does not mean that Rainey has displaced all of her doubts to fully embrace all the tenets of Christianity, but rather serves simultaneously as an expression of a faith tradition which she has likely practiced for many years and as a connector to her words from the earliest scene, binding her loved ones (her daughter, her father) through her shared words of spontaneous prayer for them.

In the next few scenes, Rainey learns that her father does not have very long to live. He has a heart condition which he has known about but did not want to burden her with the knowledge of it. Rainey, later, wonders aloud about being surrounded by death throughout her life: her mother, then her stepmother, then her young daughter, and now her father. “I just get stuck in all those dead places. Why do people have to die?” (52); this question seems to reiterate her own choice in life to try to do something about death by becoming a doctor while it also seems to bemoan the fact that that choice has not led her to the place where she can make the changes that she wants to make, at least in regard to preventing the deaths of those who are close to her.

In scene seven of the first act, Abendigo approaches Rainey with his desires for how to be buried. He wants her, as a doctor, to prepare his body for burial, without the use of funeral home services. Resistant to the idea, Rainey does not want to discuss it. In the last scene of the first act, Rainey leaves the house to walk down to the creek, where she muses aloud: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” (72). Michael, on his way out of a church service where he was speaking from the book of Job, walks into Rainey’s yard in time to hear this last phrase.

Surprised, he asks her: “Job? You’re quoting from the book of Job?” (72). Both of their references to the story of Job make a strong case for examining their own struggles and moments of crisis through the lens of that particular biblical story.

In the second scene of the second act, Rainey tells Michael that she went into medical school after her stepmother Martha died, because she wanted to be able to help people herself, after feeling helpless when her prayers for Martha’s healing seemingly went unanswered. She does not seem to be able to forgive herself for being a doctor and not being able to save her own daughter. Michael convinces her to finally visit the grave of their daughter. At the cemetery, in the very next scene, Michael confesses that he, too, has had a loss of faith since Janie’s death.

Only, for Michael, God still seems to work through the small kindnesses of people, all of the various people who care about Michael and Rainey and Janie.

The tenth scene of Act Two contains no words, only the movements of Rainey, Michael, and Ivy moving over Abendigo’s body after his death. They are preparing him for burial as he requested. Their movements exhibit honor, respect, and love in the careful details. In scene eleven, Michael and Rainey meet after the funeral service. The two of them share a meaningful moment talking about the power of life that they feel from both Abendigo and Janie. The song

“Precious Lord, take my hand” is sung as the coffin is closed and brought to the gravesite, where the chorus joins in a hymn of celebration, per Abendigo’s wishes:

Abide with me: fast falls the even tide,

The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide.

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me! (115)

This hymn is an expression of someone facing a crisis. It is a request for God to be near when the darkness comes. It is a plea for nearness when others leave and one is lonely. It is a cry for help that God would come to live with the speaker of the prayerful hymn. Michael says that Ben chose the song and called it a “joyful hymn” (115). The only way the words of this hymn could be joyful is if the requests therein were met. Perhaps Ben is communicating, through his death, that God is nearer to those experiencing crises than they might think or feel.

Indeed, in the epilogue, Michael and Rainey meet again, and Sears ends the play with a glimpse of hope. In a moment fraught with things unspoken, Rainey manages to say: “People.

That’s all we have left in this world really, isn’t it?” To which, Michael gently pleads: “Don’t go” (117). As they hold each other, it seems as though their moments of crisis have just become a little more bearable, a little less dark, with the presence of someone who has come alongside the other to “abide with” them in the midst of their darkness.

In this chapter, I have endeavored to introduce each playscript, providing an appropriate synopsis of plot, character, and themes. I will be using these scripts as texts through which to study how Christianity within their pages is presented as both a cultural phenomenon and a religious expression. These scripts share some commonalities in certain themes yet remain distinctly unique. In chapters four through six, I will make specific connections between how

these plays address both the intersection of Christianity and contemporary culture and the investigation of moments of faith crisis. In the meantime, in the next chapter, I will focus on an examination of Christianity within the contemporary culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

CHAPTER THREE. CHRISTIANITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY MOMENT

“Christian.”

The very word invokes such a variety of emotions and responses. Depending upon a person’s unique experiences, some of these responses can include a sense of belonging and community, of intolerance and oppression, of ambivalence and detachedness, of peace and purpose, or of hypocrisy and hidden vice; the list most certainly goes on. It is not my intent to categorically determine what is “Christian.” In this project, I use the term to describe those who desire to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Throughout history, many types and varieties of

“Christians” have articulated their own specific systems of belief regarding Jesus, many of which are similar to each other, and some of which seem a bit rogue or cavalier. Even today, certain groups of individuals who call themselves Christians find themselves at strong opposition to each other, which seems to follow only too well a historical pattern: the Protestants and the

Catholics, the Anabaptists and the Calvinists, the “Religious Right” and those more concerned with issues of social justice, to list just a few examples. How does an individual encounter a

“Christianity” whose adherents include, for instance, both the Crusaders and Mother Teresa? It gets confusing when we try to ask ourselves who the true mouthpieces of such an enduring movement / tradition / faith really are.

In this section, I broadly trace the movement and development of Christianity in North

America in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. I acknowledge that such a study will not be completely thorough, for it would be both unwise and perhaps a bit haughty to assume that I would be capable of successfully defining every “branch” of Christianity in a way that would both honor and satisfy the disciples of each particular denomination or group.

Instead, my attempt is still to honor and respect these individuals while painting with a more broad-stroked brush, so to speak, in charting the presence of Christianity in the culture of North

America at the end of the 1900s and the beginning of the 2000s. In this section, I also prefigure an argument which I will make later in this chapter, that modernism and postmodernism can be understood more as conditions of knowledge than as distinct periods of time.

Many scholars have contributed to the theological discussion of Christianity in this time period, and I have selected a few of them to introduce in the pages of this study. John Caputo is one of these scholars. A contemporary Catholic who has intensely studied Derrida, I suggest that Caputo’s insights are relevant to a study of Christian culture in our time period. As a

Christian who does not reject Derrida’s philosophies, Caputo’s ideas can help bridge a perceived

(or even actual) gap between Christian thought and the prevailing attitudes of a non-Christian or, some might say, “secular” mindset. I will conclude this chapter with some reflections on

Caputo, but will move first to discuss the writings of three individuals who have articulated the place of Christianity in contemporary culture: Philip Yancey, Robert Webber, and Brian

McLaren. In the 1990s, Yancey wrote about a return to a less “cluttered”15 Christianity in books such as The Jesus I Never Knew and What’s So Amazing About Grace?. Yancey’s works articulate a Christian faith which generates thoughtful reflection on behalf of Christians in regard to how they explore the intertextuality of faith and culture. Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, some Christian scholars have followed in his wake, articulating a Christianity that distances itself, with an absence of malice, from such social stalwarts of the 1980s like the

“Religious Right,” and which focuses more on what can be considered to be a biblical interpretation of Christian faith unburdened by an imposed political lens.

Representative of this trend is the late Robert Webber. In his book The Younger

Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of a New World, published in 2002, Webber articulates a

history of how Christianity has approached culture. He offers a very useful guide to charting this

progress over the years, a guide which I describe later in this chapter. As I will explain,

Webber’s use of the word “evangelical” is not limiting to Christians who define themselves as

“Evangelical,” with a capital E. It has broader implications for all adherents to Christianity.

This book of Webber’s follows another of his books that studies Christianity within its

surrounding culture, Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World, which was published in 1999. In this book, Webber articulates what he believes to be the value of connecting the expression of Christian faith today with how similar faith was expressed in ancient biblical times. This approach values the Christianity of today and celebrates a rejuvenation of faith, so to speak, without heralding contemporary Christianity as somehow better than anything that has come before it.

Two individuals mentioned in Webber’s 2002 book as leaders in this new, “young” movement of Christianity are Brian McLaren and Rob Bell16. McLaren has encountered both

praise and scorn from various Christian leaders for some of his ideas, which seem to break down

some barriers between long-existing Christian groups. Many applaud his focus on the elements

of Christianity that unite, and many others deride him for what they consider to be his

15 By “cluttered,” I mean concerned primarily with issues of denominational interpretation, where the methods become the focus of worship instead of the means to worship God. This is my word in this context, and not Yancey’s.

16 Rob Bell’s 2005 book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith follows in a pattern of examining a Christian faith in its contemporary cultural setting. Bell seeks to understand how Christianity has changed and how it needs to change to be culturally relevant as time continues to pass. Additionally, Donald Miller is a third contemporary Christian author who seeks to understand this dynamic in such books as Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (2003), and Searching for God Knows What (2004).

dismantling of historic (and perhaps even biblical, in their view) distinctions of specific

Christian faiths. Although my inclusion of McLaren’s work is not to be taken necessarily as an endorsement of his positions, I do feel that it would be somehow lax on my part if I were to omit

McLaren from a study of Christianity in the contemporary moment, as his writings are having a widespread and marked impact on young Christians in North America.

Thus, I investigate his book A Generous Orthodoxy (2004), in which he attempts to articulate why he is a Christian, and why Christianity for him includes the richness of many

Christian traditions. In an attempt to reflect this, his subtitle is: “Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian.”

Such a thorough list has the potential to seem convoluted, and seems certain to awaken skepticism in the minds of Webber’s readers, in part due to its seeming over-ambitious or too- inclusive nature. However, I propose that it yet remains a study worthy of examination and application, especially for this dissertation as McLaren’s both/and language in many of these descriptors is reflective of the move from “otherness” and to “difference,” a move that can be characteristic of contemporary Christian culture.

In the pages ahead, I endeavor to use the words and insights of Yancey, Webber,

McLaren, and Caputo to investigate how Christianity and the contemporary culture intersect and interact. From that point and in further chapters, I will examine the playscripts mentioned in my previous chapter in light of the concepts explored in this third chapter.

Re-examining Christianity in the 1990s: Philip Yancey

I cannot point to one author or movement that helped to “turn the tide” in regard to how

Christianity engaged with American culture between the 1980s and the current time. Although I

use the ideas of Webber and McLaren more extensively, I feel that it is important and useful to

examine the words of another Christian writer who prefigures them by about a decade or so:

Philip Yancey. I am not advocating that Yancey somehow “paved the way” for the likes of

Webber and McLaren; however, I do not believe it to be a stretch to state that perhaps some

individuals are more open to hear the ideas of Webber and McLaren partly because they were

similarly receptive to considering the ideas of Yancey.

In the 1980s, the term “Christian” in America, especially when used outside of a

traditional church setting, would likely bring to mind Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” or Pat

Robertson’s “Christian Coalition.” Today, these once-stalwart organizations still evoke

powerful reactions, from admirers, loathers, and skeptics alike; yet, they also seem to wield less

power than they once were afforded.17 Philip Yancey, in his book The Jesus I Never Knew, sketches some of the reasons that this shift is true for some people:

The institutional church expends much energy positioning itself

against the sinful world outside. (A term like ‘Moral Majority’ only

sounds appealing to someone already included in it.) [. . .] Ever since

Constantine, the church has faced the temptation of becoming the

‘morals police’ of society. The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages,

Calvin’s Geneva, Cromwell’s England, Winthrop’s New England,

the Russian Orthodox Church – each of these has attempted to

legislate a form of Christian morality, and each has in its own way

found it hard to communicate grace. (Yancey 259-261)

Yancey communicates that his desire to understand Christianity was clouded by such attempts. Echoing what is certain to be an experience that is not solely his, he writes:

All through my own quest for Jesus has run a counterpoint theme:

my need to strip away the layers of dust and grime applied by

the church itself. In my case the image of Jesus was obscured

by the racism, intolerance, and petty legalism of fundamentalist

churches in the South. [. . .] “What a pity that so hard on the

heels of Christ come the Christians,” observed Annie Dillard.

Her statement reminds me of a T-shirt that can be spotted

at contemporary political rallies: “Jesus save us . . . from your

followers.” (Yancey 233-234)

Often, the faults of Christians can cloud the message and mission of Christianity.

Yancey’s experience is not hard to substantiate when one looks at the role of organized religion in America in the 1980s. Robert Wuthnow, director of the Center for the Study of Religion at

Princeton University, in a 2002 article in The American Prospect entitled “The Moral Minority,” briefly substantiates the prominent role the “Moral Majority” and the “Christian Coalition” had in the United States at that time, and investigates his own questions about the seeming lack of presence of representatives of other, perhaps less polarizing branches of Christianity.

Yancey indicates that he “worr[ies] about the recent surge of power among U.S.

Christians [as of the time of his writing in 1995], who seem to be focusing more and more on political means.” More specifically, he writes, that this trend is troublesome to him “because the

17 Upon the occasion of the death of Jerry Falwell, the Washington Post published an article by Alan Cooperman

gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform. [. . .] Jesus did not say, ‘All men will

know you are my disciples . . . if you pass just laws, suppress immorality, and restore decency to

family and government,’ but rather ‘. . . if you love one another’” (246-247). Now, there are

undoubtedly Christians who would advocate that they are indeed showing their love and concern

for humanity through the very means Yancey denounces. Whether or not those activities are true

expressions of love is not something that I attempt to determine, for it would be quite difficult to

attempt to fully understand the inmost motives of the participants.

However, I can say that it seems that, too often, Christians have fallen victim to acts of

“legalism,” wherein their attempts to understand their fellow humans are stopped, or perhaps not

even begun. It is often more difficult to listen and to love than to blindly apply a religious

cultural “standard” and move on. Yancey affirms this difficult work when he says that

a society that welcomes people of all races and social classes,

that is characterized by love and not polarization, that cares most

for its weakest members, that stands for justice and righteousness

in a world enamored with selfishness and decadence, a society

in which members compete for the privilege of serving one

another – this is what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God. (253)

All of this talk about the insensitivity of some Christians quite logically may lead some to

question why even bother investigating Christianity or associating with those who adhere to a

Christian faith. Indeed, there are a good number of individuals who have selected this option.

Yet, just as one representative of a group cannot adequately or sufficiently represent the opinions

of everyone in the group, so one representative of Christianity cannot adequately or sufficiently

entitled “Evangelicals at a Crossroads As Falwell’s Generation Fades,” the content of which supports this

represent the opinions and beliefs of everyone who calls themself Christian. It would be too

easy to dismiss all of Christianity due to the discomforts we might have with those in the “Moral

Majority” or “Christian Coalition.”

Yancey writes that the “kingdom of God [. . .] is humble and unobtrusive and coexistent

with evil” (242-243). This statement, too, seems to parallel a biblical passage, found in Matthew

13, in which Jesus tells his disciples a parable about wheat growing alongside weeds. The land

owner instructs his servants to let the weeds grow alongside the wheat, so that pulling the weeds

will not also unintentionally remove the planted wheat. At the time of harvest they can be

separated. Christians have often looked at this passage to indicate that they, the “good wheat” in

the field of life, so to speak, are surrounded by “evil weeds” of what is bad in culture and

society. While I am not necessarily speaking against that view, I think it would also be

beneficial for the Christian to turn their gaze inward and examine how both wheat and weeds

grow simultaneously within their own lives.

This advocacy to look inward, espoused by Yancey, was not a new concept in the 1990s.

It is not as if no Christian prior to that time ever participated in self-reflection. However,

Yancey was part of a wider move in the Christian faith to intentionally value the importance of

this self-reflection. Robert Webber and Brian McLaren would soon have the opportunity to

contribute their own viewpoints on this transitional period in the life of the Christian church.

Christianity at the Turn of the Millennium: Robert Webber

Robert Webber’s book The Younger Evangelicals was published in 2002. In it, Webber

offers a thorough investigation on the development of Christianity’s interaction with/in the

sentiment.

culture of North America throughout the twentieth century, charting its transition across the years to its positioning on the cusp of the twenty-first century. Near the very beginning of the book, Webber writes that “evangelical Christianity is in a state of change. The change taking place is not abrupt, nor simple” (13). He also states that “two paradigms – the older evangelicalism built around twentieth-century culture and the evangelicalism being formed around the twenty-first century – are in conflict” (14). From this point, Webber delves into more detail which helps to describe each paradigm more fully. Specifically, Webber writes that

the current dilemma of twentieth-century modern evangelicalism

is that the twentieth-century cultural paradigm in which the

evangelical faith was explained, proclaimed, and defended

has come to an end. Because culture is in a new paradigm,

the old wineskins are collapsing. It is not the faith that needs

to be changed but the paradigm or the wineskin in which

Christianity is communicated. The current transition from

the old to the new paradigm has created a great deal of

dissonance and confusion. (15)

Webber divides the second half of the twentieth century into two equal sections of twenty-five years each, and offers an adjective to best describe the types of Christian movements and beliefs that he believes typified those eras. He calls the time period from 1950 to 1975 the time of the “Traditional Evangelicals,” and the time period from 1975 to 2000 the time of the

“Pragmatic Evangelicals.” Then, he continues to say that, since 2000, we are currently in the

time of the “Younger Evangelicals;” hence, the title of his book.18

For each of these three generations of evangelical Christianity, Webber examines how

these three “types” of Christian groups approach, think about, and understand such things as

their cultural situation, their communication styles, church style, spirituality, worship, art,

evangelism, and activism (17-18). Webber provides a chart (16-18) which I think can serve as a

helpful guide in comparison and contrast among these three movements, which I copy here for

reference and to stimulate further connections and ideas:

Traditional Pragmatic Younger Evangelicals Evangelicals Evangelicals (1950-1975) (1975-2000) (2000-present) Approximate Year of 1950 1975 2000 Origin In History After World War II After the 1960s After modernism and Sept. 11, 2001 Cultural Situation Modern worldview Transitional paradigm Postmodern Industrial society Technological society worldview Post-WW II Vietnam War Internet society War on terrorism Communication Print Broadcast Internet Styles Verbal Presentational Interactive Generation Booster Boomer “Twenty-something” Traditional Innovative Deconstruction / Reconstruction Attitude toward Maintain distinctive Get a fresh start Draw from the History of twentieth-century Ahistorical wisdom of the past fundamentalists The road to the future runs through the past Theological Christianity as a Christianity as therapy Christianity as a Commitment rational worldview Answers needs community of faith Ancient/Reformation Apologetics Style Evidential Christianity as Embrace the

18 All capitalizations of these terms are of my own doing, to aid the reader in understanding these terms as labels. Throughout these pages, I will capitalize the references to these three groups, as they are terms coined by Webber, that are not generally known to the common Christian, and that represent specific approaches. By capitalizing the word “Evangelical,” I am not intended to associate the word with any right-winged, conservative branch of Christianity, as the capitalization of this word might occasionally otherwise suggest.

Foundational meaning-giver metanarrative Experiential Embodied apologetic Personal faith Communal faith Ecclesial Paradigm Constantinian church Culturally sensitive Missional church Civil Religion church Countercultural Market driven Church Style Neighborhood Megachurch Small church churches Suburban Back to cities Rural Market targeted Intercultural Leadership Style Pastor centered Managerial model Team ministry CEO Priesthood of all Youth Ministry Church-centered Outreach programs Prayer, Bible study, programs Weekend fun retreats worship, social service Education Sunday school Target generational Intergenerational Information centered groups and needs formation in community Spirituality Keep the rules Prosperity and success Authentic embodiment Worship Traditional Contemporary Convergence Art Restrained Art as illustration Incarnational embodiment Evangelism Mass evangelism Seeker service Process evangelism Activists Beginnings of Need-driven social Rebuild cities and evangelical social action (i.e., divorce neighborhoods action groups, drug rehab, etc.)

Over the course of the following pages, I explicate this chart of Webber’s, summarizing some of his arguments as they are presented in The Younger Evangelicals.

The Traditional Evangelical: 1950-1975

According to Webber, the Traditional Evangelical represents the Christians who, at the midpoint of the twentieth century, were responding to what they believed was the “anti- intellectual,” “anti-ecumenical,” and “anti-social action” stance of “Fundamentalist” Christians

(25). Feeling that these fundamentalists represented a Christianity that was too negative, these

Christians, calling themselves “New Evangelicals,” incorporated viewpoints into their faith that were more receptive to intellectualism, ecumenicalism, and social action.

This strategy included a new name, ‘new evangelicalism’;

the organization of the National Association of Evangelicals

(NAE) in 1943; the founding of Fuller Seminary in 1947;

the establishment of Christianity Today in 1949; the

development of specialized ministries such as Young Life,

Youth for Christ, and Campus Crusade for Christ; and

the emergence of Billy Graham as the movement’s

central figure. (Webber 30)

By today’s standards, the Traditional Evangelical style would not be one generally considered

“cutting-edge,” yet it was certain to disorient other more conservative fundamentalists in its day.

In fact, Bob Jones, Sr., the first president of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, “launched an aggressive campaign against Billy Graham, [. . . saying that he was] the tool of the devil in the twentieth century” (Webber 32), largely because of Graham’s willingness to engage with ecumenical ideas.

Despite this difference between the Traditional Evangelical and the Fundamentalist, the

Traditional Evangelical still maintained what could be considered a conservative approach to

Christianity and to the elements of what constitute the church. As just two small examples, its musical worship style was generally characterized by traditional hymns of the faith, and its approach to day-to-day living was generally characterized by an emphasis on sober responsibility and abiding by the rules established in the Ten Commandments.

The Pragmatic Evangelical: 1975-2000

While those able to be defined by the Traditional Evangelical were by no means nonexistent after 1975, Webber indicates that there was indeed a marked shift in Christianity that is represented by the group he calls the Pragmatic Evangelicals. The Pragmatic Evangelical represents the Christian who, near the end of the twentieth century, wanted to maintain a fully

Christian commitment to their faith while also endeavoring to be more welcoming to individuals who were not necessarily from a background of Christian faith. Many Pragmatic Evangelicals became known by the title “seeker-sensitive,” which essentially indicated that these Christians wanted to be more aware of how a non-Christian would encounter their faith. Not only that, but they wanted to take active steps to make that encounter one that would not alienate the individual who was not a part of that faith community.

The Pragmatic Evangelical embodied “a method of evangelism that paid attention to marketing issues, sought to meet people’s needs, and relied on a seeker service,” which Webber states “transferred easily into any theological tradition” (36). Due to this fact, the Pragmatic

Evangelical stance, like the Traditional Evangelical one, generally embraced ecumenicism, which pitted them against the Fundamentalists, for the most part. Unlike the Traditional

Evangelicals, the Pragmatic Evangelicals frequently held a skepticism (if not, in some cases, disdain) for tradition.

The practitioners of the Pragmatic type of evangelicalism also became more media-savvy than their predecessors, the Traditional Evangelicals. With the rapid growth of media at the end of the twentieth century, these Christians sought ways in which to utilize media as a means to convey their message. “By the end of the twentieth century, this movement, fueled by church-

growth principles, the rise of the megachurch, and the popularity of contemporary worship, became the most influential of all late twentieth-century evangelical movements” (Webber 36).

The Younger Evangelical: 2000-present

According to Webber, “the younger evangelical is anyone, older or younger, who deals thoughtfully with the shift from twentieth- to twenty-first century culture” (16). That description, admittedly, seems a bit too broad. What, in fact, actually distinguishes the Younger

Evangelical from the Traditional Evangelical and the Pragmatic Evangelical? Part of it begins with a move away from traditional ways of understanding various groups within the Christian faith.

Twentieth-century evangelicals maintained distinctions between

groups such as fundamentalists, neoevangelicals, ethnic

evangelicals, mainliners, Reformed evangelicals, Holiness,

Pentecostal, and charismatic types, as well as historic churches

such as Orthodox and Catholic. But the new movement of

the younger evangelicals doesn’t have tight boundaries.

They come from every branch of the church, every

denomination, every parachurch movement, and every

ethnic background. [. . .] It cannot be contained or

circumscribed, because it is taking root in every branch

of Christianity [. . .]. (Webber 18-19)19

19 This breakdown of tight denominational boundaries for the Younger Evangelicals in the contemporary moments also somewhat prefigures my assertion that preconceived, tight divisions between “modernism” and “postmodernism” can begin to break down in the contemporary moment, as well.

Just because tight boundaries of Christian denominations are loosening for some Younger

Evangelicals, it does not mean that the Younger Evangelicals necessarily wish to separate themselves completely from the Traditional Evangelicals or the Pragmatic Evangelicals. As

Webber writes, “the clash between twentieth- and twenty-first century evangelicals is not over truth but over the cultural garb in which truth is clothed” (17). Another way to interpret that statement is that the essential message of the Christian faith has not necessarily changed over the generations; however, how that message exists and operates over the years should absolutely give much consideration to the role of the contemporary culture, and how Christianity is perceived by it, and how Christianity engages with it. The Younger Evangelicals share many, if not most, of the same “core” belief concepts of the Christian faith as their twentieth century predecessors; yet, the Younger Evangelicals are operating with the specific cultural context of the beginning of the twenty-first century.

I believe it to be useful for the larger scope of my study, due to my perspective of viewing playscripts from a contemporary cultural lens, to consider how the Younger

Evangelicals operate within the culture at the beginning of this century (millennium, even). As a starting point to investigate the Younger Evangelical, I pull eleven characteristics of the Younger

Evangelical, from a list of twenty-two developed by Webber, to briefly list here. The Younger

Evangelicals:

1.) “are conscious that they grew up in a postmodern world” (47),

2.) “differ with the pragmatist’s approach to ministry” (48),

3.) “must minister in a new paradigm of thought” (48),

4.) are “committed to the plight of the poor” (49),

5.) “communicate through stories” (50),

6.) “grasp the power of imagination” (50),

7.) emphasize “the resurgence of the arts” (51),

8.) have a “new appreciation of performative symbol” (51),

9.) “yearn to belong to a community” (51),

10.) “are highly committed to multicultural communities of faith” (52), and

11.) actively seek “authenticity” (53).

In the following paragraphs, I briefly explore these eleven characteristics.

Although the term “postmodern” is certainly loaded and often difficult to define, due in part to the seeming proliferation of various definitions available, I believe that it is used here

(Younger Evangelicals “are conscious that they grew up in a postmodern world” [53]) to make a statement regarding the Younger Evangelicals’ awareness that, unlike modernity, rationality is not always “king” in contemporary culture. Additionally, Younger Evangelicals typically tend to be skeptical of the approach of the Pragmatic Evangelicals, which is arguably market-driven and often characterized by big displays of technological savvy, sometimes for showmanship in the vein of attracting individuals in a similar way as large musical concerts or similarly huge events do.

When endeavoring to communicate how the Younger Evangelicals “minister in a new paradigm of thought” (48), Webber quotes Dawn Haglund, a graduate of Trinity Evangelical

Divinity School, as someone who can give a good understanding of this shift: “The ‘old paradigm,’ she writes, is ‘behave, believe, belong.’ But the new paradigm is ‘belong, believe, behave.’” (48). In previous generations, a sense of belonging in Christian circles would occur only after behavior of the newcomer would become in synch with other “typical” Christians, and once the Christian belief was vocally owned by this “new” individual. In the generation of the

Younger Evangelical, however, belonging comes first. The Younger Evangelical generally desires to welcome another human into a genuine relationship with them rather than requiring, first and foremost, a commitment to changed behavior at the outset.

Many Younger Evangelicals are concerned with issues of social justice, seemingly in a much stronger way than the Pragmatic Evangelicals or the Traditional Evangelicals before them.

These Christians take very seriously the biblical instructive to take care of the “fatherless and the widows,” and feel compelled to challenge notions, strongly perpetuated by Christians in the

1980s especially, that Christians are primarily capitalists. Andrew Black, in an article entitled

“Don’t Call Us Slackers,” found in the November/December 1998 edition of Faithworks, says that “new research suggests this generation [. . . is] looking for new ways to serve others. There is indeed apathy toward big programs, big ministries, big ideologies, and big solutions. But there is growing eagerness to work together to address problems on a more manageable level”

(4-7). The Christians who are a part of the Younger Evangelical movement feel compelled to carry out issues of social justice, to be active rather than passive in cultural engagement. This spreads beyond issues of class, too, to concerns about the environment and the earth. Younger

Evangelicals generally feel a responsibility, rooted in biblical teaching, to be stewards of the earth, as they believe it to be part of the creation of God.

When Webber states that the Younger Evangelicals “communicate through stories” (50),

I do not believe that this means that Traditional Evangelicals and Pragmatic Evangelicals somehow disdained stories. Indeed, stories have endured for generations. However, inasmuch as modernism sometimes focuses on rationality, logic, and fact at the expense of all else, then the current contemporary moment allows these Christians to once again engage in the intricately personal and emotional details of storytelling. Building upon the idea that it is valuable for the

Younger Evangelical to communicate through story, characteristics six, seven, and eight listed

above20 seem to share some qualities with each other. The imagination, the arts, and the nature

of performance (including symbols in performance) indeed have a shared value of the place and

power of story. Another commonality shared by imagination, the arts, and performative symbols

are their connection with the senses. This approach, which also extends beyond traditionally

modernist boundaries of the rational and logical, appeals to the sense of the possible as well as to

an appreciation of the aesthetic.

Younger Evangelicals are certainly not the first Christians to incorporate the arts into

their worship. Even Pragmatic Evangelicals incorporated a version of it, but the two versions

can appear as distinctly different. “The pragmatists reintroduced drama skits and the

entertainment arts, but the younger evangelicals are returning to much greater appreciation and

use of the classical arts. This new, more compelling use of the arts in the church corresponds to

the return to classical Christian thought” (51), writes Webber, before quoting David Taylor: “‘If our theology is not good, our art making will be bad; it will be sentimental, narrow minded, functionalist, and trite.’ [. . .] Younger evangelicals appreciate art not as mere presentations of the gospel message but as visions of a transformed and redeemed world” (Webber 51). I believe that such a perspective gives more credibility to the arts in the communities of contemporary

Christians who espouse it. This credibility can also be extended to be inclusive of theatre, which has often been held at arm’s length by Christianity, as briefly detailed in my opening chapter.

Webber writes that the Younger Evangelicals “do not embrace the individualism birthed out of the Enlightenment and dominant in the twentieth century, nor are they attracted to the me- ism of the eighties. They have rejected the culture of narcissism and seek community” (51).

20 See pages 79 and 80.

This new generation of North American Christians seeks to find camaraderie with others, to find a sense of group identity that is meaningful to them. It does not mean that the individuals who comprise these communities will not struggle with pride and selfishness, but it does indicate a desire to overcome such “vices,” if you will, for an often greater “high” achieved through a sense of purposeful belonging and shared experience. Not only do Younger Evangelicals typically desire to to “belong to a community” (51), but they often desire for those communities to be multicultural in their makeup. Although racism still exists in hateful and ugly ways throughout

North America, the Younger Evangelical has typically “grown up in a society that is more integrated than it has been in previous generations” (Webber 52). These Christians are not perfect in their interactions with members of other cultures, races, and ethnic groups; however, they do exhibit a desire to bridge those gaps while still honoring the unique distinctions of people who look or act differently than themselves.

Webber believes that the Younger Evangelical “actively seeks ‘authenticity’” (53). It is my opinion that this search for authenticity can often be accompanied by a keen ability to spot insincerity. This insincerity can be something that gets in the way of honest, truly reciprocal communication. It prevents others and themselves from being understood. This is not to say that the Younger Evangelicals advocate for an uber-emotional, tearful “soul-bearing” simply for the sake of that heightened emotional experience. In fact, Webber argues that that is something that would also grate against the Younger Evangelical: “The pragmatists were attracted to a transparency that demanded ‘highly personal information.’ [. . .] The urge to be transparent fits the ‘therapeutic culture’ and has become a kind of Christian exhibitionism. The shift among younger evangelicals is toward being real and authentic” (53).

Due in part to the facility with which the Younger Evangelical seems to be able to engage with works of art in their contemporary culture, there seems to be an accompanying freedom to being a Christian in contemporary society and investigating playscripts like the ones in this study. The Younger Evangelical is willing to engage with the unknown, to enter struggle, and to dialogue about life in a way that doesn’t seek to immediately sugarcoat or find a “happy ending” because somehow doing otherwise would seem un-Christian. No; instead, the Younger

Evangelical feels that experiencing both the intensity of struggles and the euphoric joys can better reflect the life of a Christian. This, too, is not something new to Christian faith. Many individuals in biblical stories fully enter the sorrow of life. Look, for instance, at the biblical characters of Job, Elijah, Ezekiel, and even David. It does seem, however, to be experiencing a resurgence of attention in contemporary culture. This also does not mean that Christians in the time periods between Old Testament writings and the contemporary culture are somehow all naïve and narrow-minded. I cannot stress that point too much. I do not believe that Christianity has progressed in some kind of positivistic way that in any way negates, demeans, or disregards the meaning of the traditions and expressions that have been expressed by Christians throughout the centuries. Instead, I am simply trying to describe how contemporary Christianity interacts with its surrounding culture, and to recognize shifts in how that interaction has been characterized.

It would seem that the Christian typified by Webber’s description of the Younger

Evangelical appears more willing to engage with the difficult topics than those of the immediately preceding generations21. It seems that older generations, like the Traditional

Evangelicals, were not likely to be inclined to engage with controversial topics, for fear that

questioning faith would be akin to disowning it.22 Next, it seems that more recent generations,

like the Pragmatic Evangelicals, were perhaps slightly more willing to engage with these

questions, but perhaps largely for the goal of “fixing” any problem in a relatively quick way.

The current generation of Christians, however, seems to display a desire to enter into potentially

messy discussions about struggle, about questions of faith, about disappointment and despair, with the goal of listening, connecting, and achieving sympathy if not empathy. The goal is to celebrate a connection, largely free from any desire to prove someone wrong, to highlight difference, or to perform a “quick fix” to the troubling issues.

This is not to say that all Younger Evangelicals are good, or somehow brilliantly intuitive, completely non-judgmental, and warmly nurturing while all Traditional or Pragmatic

Evangelicals are “bad” or out-of-touch, misguided, ill-intentioned fools. I do not believe that to be the case. Also, I do not consider all Christians who are young in age to necessarily be

“Younger Evangelicals.” However, I do believe that it is important to recognize that something has occurred culturally that has shifted how many Christians interact with the world around them in ways that are generally considered to be more receptive to ambiguity, and a bit less apprehensive about the ugliness of life. Perhaps this concept of ambiguity is key, here. If modernism can be said to be affiliated with the idea of understanding everything in a totalizing way, perhaps postmodernism can be said to embrace more fully the ambiguities of life.

After all this discussion on the Traditional Evangelical, the Pragmatic Evangelical, and the Younger Evangelical, I feel it important to include Webber’s disclaimer that he does “not suggest that all evangelicals lie within one of these three movements. The spread of evangelical

21 Again, I assert that it is not my goal to generalize or broadly stereotype or misrepresent Christians from previous generations. 22 It is also important to recognize that “controversial topics” might be defined very differently then than they are now.

Christianity is far too complex to reduce it to three movements,” (41) a notion with which I

agree. He goes on to articulate that part of his goal in all this is to recognize “that the two most

visible movements at the end of the twentieth century were the traditionalists and the

pragmatists” (Webber 41).

Webber assigns a notable Christian figure as a representative “leader” of sorts for each of

the types of evangelical Christian in his book. For the Traditional Evangelical, he lists Billy

Graham. For the Pragmatic Evangelical, Bill Hybels. And for the Younger Evangelical, Brian

McLaren. Graham is ostensibly so well-known that I do not need to write here a description of

who he is. Bill Hybels is the senior (and founding) pastor of Willow Creek Community Church

of South Barrington, Illinois, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Willow Creek holds three weekend services in their primary auditorium, which can seat over 7,000 people. The church is a leader among megachurches, and in 1992 began the Willow Creek Association, a non-profit group which is currently comprised of 12,000 churches of various denominations in multiple countries. Brian McLaren was the senior pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in the

Baltimore/Washington DC area for twenty years, from 1986 to 2006. He “is on the international steering team and board of directors for ‘emergent,’ a growing generative friendship among missional Christian leaders,” serves on the board of “Sojourners/Call to Renewal,” and “is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a group of communicators seeking to broaden and deepen the dialogue about faith and public life” ().23

Graham, Hybels, and McLaren would not necessarily be diametrically opposed to each

other, or the work that the others do. Certainly, their common claim to be Christians, at least, is

something one could argue binds them together. Webber’s categories serve to position these

three individuals with a distinctive way of approaching Christianity (a faith which they share) within the culture of their time. This is not to say that they are necessarily still “stuck” in the time period generally associated with them by Webber; it is only to say that, from 1950 to 1975,

Graham was a good representative of the Traditional Evangelical and that, from 1975 to 2000,

Hybels was a good representative of the Pragmatic Evangelical.

People in our contemporary culture who are largely unfamiliar with Christianity, beyond a basic “working knowledge,” will likely still be familiar with Billy Graham, as well as with the existence of large megachurches – perhaps even Bill Hybels’s Willow Creek. However, they are likely to not be as familiar with names and terms like Brian McLaren, the “emergent” movement, or “younger evangelical.” Maybe one reason we do not hear much of the Emergent/Younger

Evangelical movement outside of Christianity is that participants in this movement have been somewhat hesitant to adopt the “marketing strategies” that are so frequently affiliated with the

Pragmatic Evangelical? However, since this group is still very technologically savvy, I would suggest that another, more likely reason is that it still is a relatively newer movement or expression of the Christian church. In order to better understand this movement/expression, I move now to consider the writings of Brian McLaren in his book A Generous Orthodoxy.

Published in 2004, this book has become both a symbol of contention for some in Christianity and a rallying point for others who share McLaren’s viewpoints.

Christianity as Represented by Elements of Its Many Factions: Brian McLaren

First, let me start by noting that McLaren, in this book, acknowledges Robert Webber’s inclusion of McLaren’s own name as a representative leader of the Younger Evangelicals.

23 Graham, Hybels, and McLaren have not self-identified themselves as the leaders of, respectively, the Traditional,

McLaren says: “I thought this was either (a) an honest mistake, (b) an overstatement, (c) a

premature assessment, (d) evidence of Robert Webber’s generosity, or (e) evidence for how hard

up younger evangelicals must be for leadership to have to settle for a middle-aged” person

“without proper credentials” (127). A friend of McLaren’s asked him if he was offended at this

inclusion, due to the “negative connotations” that are often associated with the word

“evangelical” (McLaren 128). McLaren responds to this question in his book by stating that he

is indeed “nervous about calling myself an Evangelical of the Big-E type,” as he feels that “the

term (especially in the U.S.), increasingly refers to ‘the Religious Right’ [. . . and] sometimes is

akin to a definition of “Fundamentalists” as “narrow-minded and arrogant” (128). Instead of

completely rejecting the term, he is more comfortable with the word evangelical, with the

absence of a Capital E.

McLaren writes A Generous Orthodoxy with a desire to draw out the good elements of so

much of Christian tradition, which has been largely fractured into different sub-groups, sects,

and denominations. In his introduction to the book, McLaren begins by acknowledging the

baggage that is generally associated with the word “Christian”:

You may not be a Christian and wondering why anyone

would want to be. The religion that inspired the Crusades,

launched witch trials, perpetuates religious broadcasting,

presents too-often boring and irrelevant church

services with schmaltzy music – or else presents manic

and overly aggressive church services with a different

kind of schmaltzy music – baptizes wars and other

Pragmatic, and Younger Evangelicals; it is completely Webber’s doing that he lists each one of these individuals as

questionable political programs, promotes judgmentalism,

[. . .] it doesn’t make sense to you why anyone would

want “in” on that. (19)

In this work, McLaren seeks to recognize with honesty the blights in Christianity’s past and

present while simultaneously working to present a Christianity that is less encumbered by the

baggage associated with it – baggage that has been demonstrated by some of its followers who

have, over the years, presented a vision of Christianity which has been somewhat skewed, even

if unintentionally, to portray a faith that seems boorish, boastful, harsh, and even hateful.

A Generous Orthodoxy begins with two forewords, the second of which is written by

theologian John R. Franke. Franke first notes a shift in Christianity at the turn of the millennium

when he writes that: “[. . .] followers of Jesus Christ from across the diverse ecclesiastical and

theological spectrum of North American Christianity have a growing sense that the world they

have known is changing” (McLaren 13). Franke states that “long-familiar assumptions are being

called into question, and new conversations are taking place between longtime adversaries,

sometimes resulting in surprising alliances” (McLaren 13). A remarkable thing is occurring,

according to Franke. It is not unprecedented, certainly. However, it seems to be happening in

greater numbers across the continent to provoke significant reflection on the change. Christians

seem to be becoming more receptive to other Christians who do not share their exact same

convictions in regard to issues of church practice and similar subjects. After giving a few

examples of how this is true, Franke continues by articulating that:

Many of these developments can be traced to the failure

of modernity’s categories and paradigms to recognize

representatives of the movements he discusses in his book.

the social and cultural diversity of the human experience.

This failure has prompted the emergence of postmodern

theory with its critique of certain, objective, universal

knowledge and its quest to construct new forms of thought

in the aftermath of modernity. These new forms of thought

have significantly reshaped our common cultural and

intellectual life in a variety of ways, including the standard

assumptions that have guided Western culture and expressions

of Christian faith since the Enlightenment. (14)

However, I do not believe this to be a deterministic view of the present being superior to the past, of the notion of “progress” somehow eclipsing everything that has come before what is current. No; rather, the present can incorporate elements of the past. Franke explains by writing: “It is important to remember that postmodern theory does not support the rejection of rationality but rather supports rethinking rationality in the wake of modernity. [. . .] These postmodern ideas,” states Franke, “produced a more inherently self-critical view of knowledge than modernity.” (McLaren 14). It was out of a cultural moment like this, that Hans Frei, a theologian at Yale University, “sought to move beyond the liberal/conservative impasse of modernity and coined the term generous orthodoxy to describe an understanding of Christianity that contained elements of both liberal and conservative thought” (McLaren 14). Franke expounds on this notion by writing that:

“Post-liberals” and “post-conservatives” have sought

to move in the direction suggested by generous

orthodoxy [. . . to] be identified by some common

characteristics and commitments, such as strong

ecumenical interests, a desire to move beyond the

liberal/conservative divide, and a willingness to think

through old questions in new ways that foster the

pursuit of truth, the unity of the church, and the

gracious character of the gospel. (15)

This intriguing notion compels McLaren’s thoughts in this book, and serves as the foundation for

the exploration McLaren endeavors in its pages. He writes that “this generous orthodoxy does

not mean a simple merging, mixing, conflating, or reconciling of the two schools of thought,

though” (McLaren 28). Instead, according to McLaren, “it disagrees with both regarding the

‘view of certainty and knowledge which liberals and evangelicals hold in common,’ a view

[theologian Stanley] Grenz describes as ‘produced. . .by modernist assumptions’” (28).

McLaren notes that “already, many people are using terms like post-Protestant, post-

denominational, post-liberal, and post-conservative to express a desire to move beyond the

polarization and sectarianism that have too often characterized Christians of the past” (74).

Instead, he proposes this new “generous orthodoxy,” and spends the following pages articulating

how he desires to claim certain aspects of various Christian traditions for how he seeks to live

his life.24 Earlier in this chapter, I included McLaren’s subtitle to A Generous Orthodoxy in its entirety (“Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian”). McLaren recognizes the unwieldiness of this subtitle,

acknowledging that it “creates a term so awkward and confusing that it’s certain not to catch on”

(23). This, he argues, is intentional and a

good thing, because what we need is not new sectarian

terminology or new jargon or a new elitist clique, but

rather a humble rediscovery of the simple, mysterious

way of Jesus that can be embraced across the whole

Christian horizon (and beyond). What we need is some-

thing lived, not just talked or written about. The last

thing we need is a new group of proud, super protestant,

hyper puritan, ultra restorationist reformers who say,

‘Only we’ve got it right!’ and thereby damn everybody

else to the bin of five minutes ago and the bucket of

below-average mediocrity. (23)

McLaren feels it important to recognize that his work is not intended to be the ultimate

authority on Christianity in the contemporary moment, and says as much when he writes that

“this book is offered with all due apology and retraction for my errors, [. . .] along with a ready

acknowledgement that this is neither the first nor the last word on anything. It is simply one

attempt at offering something helpful in a needed and ongoing conversation” (29). In this next

section, I will briefly examine some of the elements of McLaren’s lengthy subtitle in order to

help elucidate how McLaren describes his own Christianity in the context of our contemporary

moment.

24 This concept seems to have a strong connection to the title of another one of McLaren’s books: A New Kind of Christian. Some people object to the use of the word “new” here, believing that the main tenets of Christian faith are not new in and of themselves.

By “missional,” McLaren means that it is important to “find a generous third way beyond

the conservative and liberal versions of Christianity so dominant in the Western world” (115).

More specifically, being missional implies that a Christian strives to be less concerned with

themselves, focusing first on loving and serving others around themselves, regardless of the

personal belief system of the others.

After recognizing the baggage that comes with the term “evangelical,”25 McLaren articulates what, for him, are the positive associations with this word, stating that the term is generally associated with “people who (a) highly respect the Bible [. . .], (b) emphasize personal conversion [. . .], (c) believe that God can be known and experienced with something like intimacy [. . .], and (d) want to share their faith with others [. . .]” (129). He warns against the tendency of some evangelicals to let their passion become judgmental or even too sentimental, and affirms the root words of “evangelical” as “pertaining to the good news” (133).

“There long have been Christian traditions recognizing the profound importance of mysticism and poetry, and even the corresponding limitations of rationality and prose,” says

McLaren (167). In supporting his notion that a generous orthodoxy should be “Mystical/Poetic,”

McLaren quotes theologian Walter Brueggemann, who argues for a new kind of Christian who speaks in a new kind of language, one that is “dramatic, artistic, capable of inviting persons to join in another conversation, free of the reason of technique, unencumbered by ontologies that grow abstract [. . .]” (quoted in McLaren 162). This new kind of Christian would be characterized by a generous orthodoxy that “is humble; [. . .] doesn’t claim too much; [. . . and] admits it walks with a limp” (McLaren 171). McLaren focuses on articulating a balanced approach to Christianity, which involves both the rational as well as the mystical.

25 Refer to discussion on the word “evangelical” earlier in this chapter

Many Christians throughout history have given a bad representation of the Bible because

of how they have (mis)appropriated its words to justify their own actions. This, thankfully, is

not the only representation of the Bible by Christians in culture. McLaren states that Christians

should be “Biblical.” “[B]iblical Christians have thrived when we’ve used the Bible with the

goal of becoming good people who, because we follow Jesus, do good works in God’s good

world” (McLaren 183). But there has been failure, too: “And we have languished and wandered

when we have used the Bible as a weapon to threaten others, as a tool to intimidate others and

prove them wrong, as a shortcut to being know-it-alls who believe the Bible gives us all the

answers, as a defense of the status quo [. . .]” (McLaren 183).

Yet another binary that McLaren complicates is the one that has traditionally been

understood to exist between “Fundamentalists” and “Calvinists.” Christians who pursue a

generous orthodoxy may likely be uncomfortable with much of what has come to characterize

fundamentalist Christians, namely intolerance and separatism. However, McLaren finds value in

the fundamentalist’s desire to “affirm the fundamentals of the faith” (205). For him, these

fundamentals “boil down to those given by Jesus: to love God and to love our neighbors”

(McLaren 206). In regards to Calvinism, McLaren focuses on an area of it which he finds

amenable to being a part of a generous orthodoxy. He says that, when “anti-intellectualism” was

“rampant in Evangelical Christianity [, . . .] it was mostly in the Reformed churches

(Presbyterian, Christian Reformed, etc.) that one found much intellectual vigor and life of the

mind” (210). When other Christian groups or denominations exhibited a skepticism of this area,

Calvinist/Reformed churches actively encouraged it. Additionally, McLaren values that the

Calvinist/Reformed Christians “have one of the slogans of the Reformation in their trunk [. . .]: semper reformanda, or always reforming” (212). This “slogan” seems close to Webber’s

assertion that Younger Evangelicals, in changing and adapting to contemporary culture, seek to maintain a connection with historic Christian faith in the midst of contemporary changes.

McLaren continues to draw inspiration from church history when he writes that a generous orthodoxy should include Christians who are “(Ana)Baptist/Anglican.” Anabaptists separated from the Reformed church largely because of a disagreement about baptism. The

Reformed Christians advocated for infant baptism, while the Anabaptists felt that a Christian should consciously make the choice to be baptized as an adult. From the Anabaptists came groups like the Amish and the Mennonites. McLaren values that the Anabaptists “have represented a needed a radical counterculture, quietly proclaiming through their noncomformist ways that the land is important, community is important, the extended family is important,” while simultaneously implying “that speed, style, technology, convenience, efficiency, and mechanization are not all-important, contra modernity” (230). Another element of the

Anabaptists which McLaren values is their emphasis on peace. He writes that “while a generous orthodoxy does not assume that everyone will become a strict pacifist, it does assume that every follower of Christ will at least be a pacifist sympathizer and will agree that if pacifism is not required for all followers of Christ just yet, it should be as soon as possible” (McLaren 232).

McLaren finds some practical expressions of faith in the Methodist tradition which he is anxious to apply to a contemporary expression of Christian faith. One of the expressions does not seek glib or formulaic responses to tough questions, but rather explore the unknown in an atmosphere of belonging: “It will focus not on fill-in-the-blank answers but on queries – questions that make one reflect, think, take stock, and pay attention to what’s going on in one’s own soul” (246). McLaren also writes that Christians are to be “Incarnational,” explaining it to mean that “because we follow Jesus, because we believe Jesus is true, and because Jesus moves

toward all people in love and kindness and grace, we do the same” (emphasis his) (281).

McLaren believes that this requires those who call themselves Christians to extend love and

kindness and grace to all people, not just those who are of a similar faith background or mindset

to their own.

Whereas Webber extensively uses the term “younger evangelical,” McLaren suggests the

term “emergent.” Indeed, this term has seemed to have taken root in the contemporary culture of

Christianity in the last few years. McLaren encourages his reader to “think of a cross section of

a tree. Each ring represents not a replacement of the previous rings, not a rejection of them, but

an embracing of them, a comprising of them, and inclusion of them in something bigger” (315).

However, he also stresses that what he calls an “Emergent” Christianity is not somehow the

ultimate form of Christianity or superior to everything that has come before it. Instead, he states

that “the tree’s previous growth is integrated into, and in fact is essential to, the tree’s continuing growth and strength” (315). Additionally, he states that this kind of Christianity is “Unfinished.”

It is not a form that will “yield a superior and ultimate form of Christianity;” rather, “a generous orthodoxy is [. . .] never compete until we arrive at our final home in God” (323). This, too, reflects the notion that contemporary Christian faith is not positivist and progressive, but rather reflective in a way that considers and celebrates the past alongside the present.

It is perhaps easy to get temporarily lost in some of these arguments from McLaren and

Webber, yet I find them to be very useful in helping to present a Christianity in the contemporary moment which infuses elements of the modern with elements of the postmodern. As I will articulate again later in this chapter, this Christianity can be considered to be a “new” type of

essentialism. “Essential” because the values of the Christian faith still include a “core” belief in

Jesus Christ, and “new” because Christianity in the contemporary moment can strive to be

perceived without some of the cultural baggage it has accumulated over the years. Again, it has not progressed in a positivist way over the years to be “the best it has ever been;” rather, it can take elements of the condition of modernity and the condition of postmodernity to best apply to the current cultural context.

This connects to Jean-Francois Lyotard’s statement which asks: “What, then, is the postmodern? It is undoubtedly a part of the modern” (Lyotard 79). As I will argue, new methodologies may keep portions of the old ones, but they will still introduce new and important aspects for consideration and implementation. In this section, I have provided examples from

McLaren, Webber, and Yancey as to how this is true for Christianity in the contemporary moment.

Lyotard also writes that “a work can become modern only if it is first postmodern.

Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and the state is constant” (79). This continuous, circular notion of the cooperation of the modern and the postmodern is seen in contemporary Christianity, both in Webber’s argument of “ancient-future faith,” a Christian faith that is distinctly contemporary while affirming certain aspects of history, and in McLaren’s series of combinations of supposedly opposite notions (liberal/conservative, fundamentalist/Calvinist, charismatic/contemplative, etc.).

Theologian John Caputo argues that a better word for postmodern is “post-secular,” not meaning “‘over and done with’ but rather after having passed through modernity” (Caputo 61).

In this cultural moment, then, Yancey, Webber, and McLaren are endeavoring to articulate a

Christianity which seeks to maintain distinctives of its history while allowing for a more open exchange of ideas in a safer place of dialogue than has recently been the case in much of North

American Christianity. Instead of being “impossible people” who “battle with those of different

confessions” and “[try] to make people who do not agree with them look bad” (Caputo 32), these

emergent, “younger evangelical” Christians are working to incorporate and evidence a “generous

orthodoxy.” This sets the stage for an environment that can potentially be largely free from

hostility in which to investigate culturally relevant issues and discuss various examples of how

Christianity interacts with its contemporary moment. I engage in such investigation and

discussion in my next chapters, with the six chosen playscripts of my study.

Approaching the Modern and Postmodern as Conditions of Knowledge, and Creating a “New Essentialism”

The scripts that are a part of this study portray strong elements of Christianity, which

historically can be considered to evidence or espouse a type of “essentialism;” I use this word

(“essentialism”) here to indicate a narrow way of understanding how Christianity functions or

how it should be evident in the lives of its adherents. However, while this kind of essentialism

may exist within the stories of these scripts, it is important to underscore the fact that the

Christian faith is not always necessarily limited to such a narrow definition. Additionally, the scripts themselves operate within a cultural context that, apart from Christianity, largely and decidedly sees itself, arguably, as operating outside of any essentialist notions as they have traditionally been understood.

How, then, has essentialism been traditionally understood? I suggest that it can be represented by providing “essentially” two options to questions and issues: There is Option A, and Option B, and not much else. In other words, essentialist choices are typically considered to be black or white with not much room for a gray area in between. This is not to say that there has never been the potential for multiple options in past eras of history, and that we are somehow more sophisticated and progressive in our contemporary cultural moment. No; it is simply

intended as an observation of a cultural trend that seems to move from a mainstream acceptance

of essentialism to a mainstream embrace of the space that exists between binaries.

The late 1960s are often characterized as a time period when the concept of “questioning

the mainstream” started to become mainstream thought in itself. This move is sometimes called

a shift from a more modernist thought toward a more postmodern thought. However, as

mentioned earlier in this study, I consider modernism and postmodernism to be more conditions

of knowledge than distinct periods of time, a concept connected with French philosopher and

theorist Jean-Francois Lyotard. Theorist Linda Hutcheon writes that, “rather than eulogize or

ridicule” the contemporary moment, or the moments of the past, she wants to “study a current

cultural phenomenon [postmodernism] that exists, has attracted much public debate, and so

deserves critical attention” (ix, emphasis hers). Instead of attempting to take sides for or against

postmodernism, it is rather beneficial to take a critical view, as Hutcheon suggests, considering

its connotations and contextualizations before making any sort of value judgment or

categorically forcing it to fit neatly into one definition. This is important for this study, because

the word “postmodernism” carries with it so much cultural baggage, and can mean different

things to different individuals.

At this time, then, I find it useful and valuable to write about the postmodern and the

modern and how they have been articulated and understood. A good place to begin is with

Hutcheon’s argument that “postmodernism cannot simply be used as a synonym for the

contemporary” (4). This correlation is too simplistic. Postmodernism, now, interrogates its own

context because, as Mark Fortier writes in Theory/Theatre, “[in] the postmodern condition, [. . .] tradition and the longing for certainty are bound up with a deep cultural and formal scepticism”

(124). This skepticism of anything that can be called “certain” may characterize what

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postmodernism is often considered to represent. An instance of how this is true can be seen

through the postmodern loss of faith in “master narratives.”

Similar to how postmodernism needs to be understood as a construct, Peter Berger wants

to understand religion “as a historical product” (Sacred Canopy vi). Religion has been defined

in different ways by different people groups throughout different eras and ages. Robert

Wuthnow agrees with Berger’s notion of religion as a construct when he suggests that both

conservative and liberal “versions” of religion are “also conditioned by the social circumstances

under which they [arise]” (148). Part of these social circumstances for the past twenty to thirty-

odd years is to recognize that American culture is now “a culture that is neither entirely Christian

in its logic nor entirely alien” (Vincent Miller 13). Contemporary culture features traditionally

“Christian” and “non-Christian” elements, and contemporary society must avoid easy description

or uniform labels, including as they relate to issues of faith. As discussed earlier in this same

chapter, contemporary Christian faith is not easily labeled or defined.

Recognizing that contemporary American culture is neither fully Christian nor fully non-

Christian can help shed light on the reception of the particular plays in this study. Sometimes,

there exists a struggle between the two disparate categories of “Christian” and “non-Christian”;

sometimes the two, however, are incorporated into each other. Additionally, there is frequently a

struggle within these segments, as well, where those who claim to be Christians might disagree with others who claim the same faith. I want to explore how these plays, which themselves navigate the space between these two categories, portray these struggles and/or attempts at incorporation. This exploration of life “between the extremes,” so to speak, can echo notions of differance as articulated by Derrida. That is to say, there are subtleties and nuances in life that

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do not neat fitly into an understanding of life as a series of binaries or extreme opposites. I believe this to be true, too, for the plays that are a part of this study.

Postmodernism is sometimes stereotypically considered to call into question the salience of religious expression; however, Vincent J. Miller states that “changes that were once understood as the inevitable decline of religious belief in the face of secularization have in recent years been reconsidered” (6-7). Instead, it seems that religious practice and religious belief are remaining strong, but that it is the “organized” religions that have lost some of their ability to influence large-scale cultural response.26 Robert Wuthnow suggests that the outward sense of how religion is viewed has religious organizations being replaced with “social movements raising issues about social justice and human rights,” and that the “interior sense of moral principles has [. . .] become more hidden” (149). Instead of being associated with a particular church, many religious people have become affiliated with other humane causes or have even grown to have no affiliation with any particular group, causing religion “to reside more and more in the hands of individuals and less and less in the hands of institutions, denominations, congregations, or para-church groups” (Hoover 50). This phenomenon of “fracturing,” so to speak, is reflected in the description of contemporary Christianity in the first part of this chapter, especially considering McLaren’s definition of the contemporary “emergent” Christian.

Stewart Hoover, a director of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, writes that this shift away from denominationalism and “established” religion can be known as “the rise of personal autonomy in matters of faith. It is rooted in the twentieth-century revolution that has brought the self and the construction of the self and personal identity to the fore as central logics of social practice” (50). Because of this shift from a focus on the group to a focus on the

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individual, contemporary culture sees much more of the “sacred [being] defined at the level of

personal experience” (Stout 10). This is not a completely new phenomenon, however. People

are not just now discovering that individual faith matters. Despite the fact that it is not a new

phenomenon, the focus on the individual is indeed a prevalent one, especially in the North

American context. Individuals can now have a “greater sense of ownership” (Hoover 50), not only of material things, but of the intangible parts of themselves, as well. In this individualization of faith, “elements of religious traditions are fragmented into discrete, free-

floating signifiers abstracted from their interconnections with other doctrines, symbols, and

practices” (Vincent Miller 4). They are “torn from their traditional, communal contexts”

(Vincent Miller 6) and incorporated into the “reality of the contemporary passive believer as a

postmodern peasant who takes what she finds useful or desirable from official religion and pays

little attention to the demands for consistency from church authorities, who are largely irrelevant

to her faith and practice” (Vincent Miller 10). Thus, the tradition of structured church history

somehow morphs into a new, personalized experience of faith. The contemporary Christian, as

depicted by McLaren and especially by Webber, seems to have moved through this focus on the

individual, which can be considered to be a mark of modernism, back to a focus on the

community. However, the focus on the community in the current contemporary moment is not

necessarily a return to a focus on solely the large mainline religious or denominational traditions.

The two seeming extremes of community and individualism do not have to remain

separate, and indeed they are not isolated from each other. The personal experience of faith can

be one that is a part of the larger religious tradition. There can be a strong connection between a

developed sense of self-awareness and a distinct commitment to a larger community. John

26 This statement seems to be echoed/supported by the emergence of the Younger Evangelicals as detailed earlier in

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Caputo, a professor of religion at Syracuse University,27 writes “I have no desire to twist free

from [. . .] historical situatedness in the name of some purely private religion or of some

overarching ahistorical universal religious truth, which would be the religion of [. . .] an

intellectual with a feeling of superiority over garden-variety believers” (34). Yet, the decision to

remain a part of the larger cultural form of religion does not mean that the individuals who

comprise it must surrender all innovation or uniqueness. On the contrary, Caputo warns that

much of organized religion gets caught up in itself instead of the one whom it purports to

represent:

They [. . .] devote an ungodly amount of time to bringing order to

their ranks, silencing the voices of dissenters and excluding - ‘ex-

communicating’ - those who beg to differ from their communities

and institutions, doing battle with those of different confessions

and in general trying to make people who do not agree with them

look bad. So the people of the impossible are also impossible people. (32)

Although Caputo speaks out against this tendency of people of Christian faith becoming

“impossible” people, he does not go so far as to say that organized religion is worthless because

some of its members get caught up in questionable issues. Indeed, he argues that he is “not

making a brief against the confessional faiths” who “perform innumerable acts of service and

generosity” and “preserve the name of God by proclaiming it and praising it systematically and

consistently” (Caputo 32). Doctrine can be valuable. So can tradition and distinctiveness. But

“Christianity” should not be limited to only to expressions through religious denominations as

this chapter.

27 Caputo is perhaps better known as a former professor of religion at Villanova University in Pennsylvania (from 1968 until 2004).

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traditionally understood, especially when those denominations begin to prioritize tradition over

message. There is room for both the group and the individual dynamic in the expression of

Christian faith. I believe that this is evident in the pages of the scripts in this study, in addition

to how this amalgamation is present in contemporary expressions of faith.

In fact, sometimes the radical ideas of the individual are shared by other individuals and

can come together to form a new collective. “This spirit of religion, in fact, is what gave rise to

nonconformist denominational movements such as Methodism, the Disciples of Christ, and

Evangelicalism more generally” (Hoover 52). Now, these three once-nonconformist movements

have become ingrained into the fabric of established religion in contemporary America. What

new radical, individually-based movements can upset them?

There is another notion to consider in relation to Christianity and contemporary culture,

and that is the notion of secularism and how it connects with the concept of exploding binaries in

our current cultural moment. Peter Berger, in The Desecularization of the World, reiterates that modernism and postmodernism can be understood as conditions of knowledge rather than opposite extremes of a spectrum:

Although the term “secularization theory” refers to work

from the 1950s and 1960s, the key idea of the theory can

indeed be traced to the Enlightenment. That idea is simple:

Modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion,

both in society and in the minds of individuals. And it is

precisely this key idea that has turned out to be wrong.

To be sure, modernization has had some secularizing

effects, more in some places than in others, but it has also

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provoked powerful movements of counter-secularization.

Also, secularization on the societal level is not necessarily

linked to secularization on the level of individual con-

sciousness. Certain religious institutions have lost power

and influence in many societies, but both old and new

religious beliefs and practices have nevertheless continued

in the lives of individuals, sometimes taking new insti-

tutional forms and sometimes leading to great explosions

of religious fervor. (3)

As Berger asserts, modernism does not necessarily lead to a decline of religion, as

Enlightenment or essentialist notions might lead us to believe. To be sure, modernism has produced moments that are defined as secular, but it has also produced moments that can be defined as counter-secular. In fact, Stout notes that a “historical examination indicates that while religious leaders often feared the secularizing powers of new forms of communication, religion turns out to be a consistent element in popular culture throughout much of history” (8). While religion may not always seem to be in agreement with various positions of modernity, it has the potential to strengthen as it responds against those positions. Also, says Berger, “religious communities have survived and even flourished to the degree that they have not tried to adapt themselves to the alleged requirements of a secularized world” (The Desecularization of the

World 4). The Christian church, today, seems to be a resilient community. While many

Christian groups have traditionally perpetuated essentialist notions throughout the years, many

Christian communities today are complicating the concept of the binary.

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Similar to this argument that modernism does not necessarily lead to a decline of religion is the argument that postmodernism does not necessarily equal a rejection of faith, either. In discussing our contemporary cultural moment, John Caputo wants to take “advantage of this moment that is sometimes called ‘post-modern’” (37). Because this word has been traditionally difficult to define in contemporary society, Caputo suggests a way to reconsider what this word might signify: “One of the most important things this word would have meant had it not been ground senseless by overuse is ‘post-secular’” (37). He goes on to explain that “the ‘post-’ in

‘post-secular’ should not be understood to mean ‘over and done with’ but rather after having passed through modernity” (61). As such, if an argument can exist that a type of “secularism” has taken place in the late twentieth-century, with the cultural context becoming largely non-

Christian, we should not forget to explore what it means to be post-secular in the “postmodern” age, according to Caputo. To do this, it is my opinion that we must acknowledge the spiritual nature of the current cultural moment. Just as modernism did not quench religion (although it arguably and certainly affected it), so has postmodernism not quenched religion (again, although it certainly has affected it).

How, then, has religion existed with postmodernism? I cannot attempt to fully answer that question in these pages, as the nuances would arguably fill the pages of several dissertations in and of themselves. However, I would like to briefly explore their connection/intertextual relationship, such as it relates to my study. First, I wish to focus on the nature of postmodernism itself. Linda Hutcheon articulates what she calls “a ‘poetics’ of postmodernism, a flexible conceptual structure which [can] at once constitute and contain postmodern culture and our discourses both about it and adjacent to it” (ix). She says that postmodernism is “fundamentally

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contradictory,” and that “these contradictions are certainly manifest in the important postmodern concept of ‘the presence of the past’ ” (Hutcheon 4).

Hutcheon notes that “those who lament the ‘loss of meaning’ in the world or in art [that is postmodern] are really mourning the fact that knowledge is no longer primarily narrative knowledge [. . .]. This does not mean that knowledge somehow disappears” (6); no, instead, what things represent “is self-consciously shown to be highly filtered by the discursive and aesthetic assumptions” of whomever is the one privileged to be providing the visual frame on what we can see or grasp or understand (6).

Bearing this in mind, then, it would seem that everything that is presented to us in contemporary culture is presented to us through the lens of a particular perspective or point of view. There is a greater sense of the subjective in the postmodern. “What, then, is the postmodern?,” asks Lyotard. “It is undoubtedly a part of the modern. All that has been received, if only yesterday, must be suspected. What space does Cèzanne challenge? The

Impressionists’. What object do Picasso and Braque attack? Cèzanne’s” (79). Essentially, the warning here is to not completely adhere to one particular way of doing things, because whatever is to come next will likely call that methodology into question. The new methodology may keep portions of the old one, but it will still introduce new and important aspects for consideration and implementation. Interestingly, Lyotard says that the postmodern is “undoubtedly a part of the modern” (79): “A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant” (79).

No longer do we understand cultural theory as a linear, positivist progression. Instead, Lyotard posits a circular, continuous notion of the cooperation of the postmodern and the modern, once

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again supporting the notion of the two as conditions of knowledge as opposed to delineated, specific periods of time.

For Lyotard, then, there exist elements of both modernism and postmodernism in all things. This argument serves to support the notion that the sometimes typified “essentialist” notions of Christian faith are not somehow mandated to fall away when entering a new cultural moment which may not be receptive to essentialism. The essentialism can exist within the new cultural moment, becoming for me, in this study, a “new essentialism.” By this term, I mean to suggest a Christian faith which adheres to certain “essentials” of doctrine yet which simultaneously does not adhere to any one specific cultural interpretation of that Christian faith, which again connects with Webber’s definition of the “younger evangelical” and McLaren’s notion of the “emergent” Christian. When applying this concept to the plays in this study, not every character embraces or affirms the tenets, say, of the Apostles Creed at the end of each script. Instead, some of the characters are encountering the sacred while not necessarily affirming what has been considered to be stereotypically “Christian” within the contexts of the plays or within the culture at large.

A characteristic that has defined Christian faith across the years, irrespective of time period or prevailing thought is the notion that not everything can be known or experienced tangibly. The writer of the biblical book of Hebrews says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” The “new essentialism” of Christian faith in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries can also adhere to this blind belief. “Jung says that we are far more than the part of ourselves we can know about, and that one of the most crippling errors of twentieth-century culture has been our tendency to limit ourselves to our intellect”

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(L’Engle 126). There is a mystery to life which we cannot fully grasp or understand, a mystery which is primarily religious in its make-up.

This element of Christian faith has continued to be perpetuated across generations, and that has withstood influences both modern and postmodern. Caputo notes that, although “by the end of the nineteenth century, God was indeed all but dead among the intellectuals” (Caputo 55-

56), there were still emphases in that contemporary culture on the sacred. Caputo argues that

“modernity had no spiritual vision to offer in the place of the one it had torn down, which is perhaps why religion still prospered among the poor and uneducated rank and file in the churches” (56). What did disappear “under the guns of modernity was the robust faith of the medievals where [. . .] the love of learning and the love of God went hand in hand (Caputo 56-

57), but religion did not disappear altogether as had been predicted by some of the well- educated, scientifically-minded modernists. It, along with culture as a whole, found a way to adapt into the time period that has generally been known as the postmodern era. “To the great astonishment of learned despisers of religion everywhere, who have been predicting the death of

God from the middle of the nineteenth century right up to Y2K, [. . .] the flower of religion is one of the blossoms in our post-modern anthology” (Caputo 66).

Here again, it is clear that Christian faith and its essentialism has not become extinct. Its essentialism has been adapted for the new cultural contexts, and Peter Berger attests that it will continue to do so when he states that “there is no reason to think the world of the twenty-first century will be any less religious than the world [of the late twentieth century]” (The

Desecularization of the World 12). Robert Wuthnow seems to agree when he says that, “despite the secularity evident in American culture, the future will still be a time when people yearn to

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hear the voice of God” (180). In this study, I explore whether, and to what extent, the characters in the plays of this study reflect this statement.

In further attempting to understand the term “postmodern,” it may be useful to consider more fully the argument referenced above that the word “postmodern” is essentially a synonym for our current contemporary time. Mark Fortier writes that “if postmodernism is the condition of contemporary culture, then all culture produced in our time is by definition postmodern”

(120), and that there can remain “a residing faith in art, words, love and reality which runs counter to the reputed postmodern investment in overriding irony” (124). If these plays, then, are to be called postmodern, according to Fortier, it can be because of their virtue as a product of contemporary culture. Thus, the term “postmodern” is complicated even further. However, it would seem that my articulation of postmodern and modern as conditions of knowledge are actually confirmed by this complication.

The scripts that are a part of this study can, in some respects, be considered as anti- postmodern because of the essentialism of Christianity that is represented or implied within them, although they all do not necessarily embrace that essentialism. They all represent a worldview that is not stereotypically postmodern, given that this term, as a philosophy, is generally associated with the rejection or failure of master narratives, and the skepticism of anything that can be called certain. Christianity, with its belief in the certainty of its God and the master narrative given in the Bible, surely runs counter to these concepts.

However, these scripts are also presented within a contemporary culture that allows for a flexibility of theoretical approaches. Perhaps some of the characters in these plays do indeed point toward the Bible as master narrative and embrace the certainty of their God, but it is not always an easy or automatic response. Christian faith is not simply blithely accepted in the

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pages of these pieces of dramatic literature. It must endure being interrogated by those who claim it, by those who ask the difficult questions in order to better understand their own commitment to or rejection of the faith.

Therefore, these plays can present a “new essentialism,” an essentialism, espoused by some of the Christian characters, that believes in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in the inerrancy of Scripture, but which allows for a multiplicity of options within Christian essentialism. What I mean by this, in terms of this particular study, is that there does not always have to be one way that Christian faith is presented by a dramatic script nor does there always have to be one way that Christian faith is exhibited by the characters who exist in the worlds of these plays. How Christian faith is expressed or understood from culture to culture can be very different, although the principles to which the seemingly disparate individuals adhere are quite similar. For some of the characters, there remains a strong belief in the inerrancy of Scripture and the Lordship of Christ, but it not rooted in one particular denominational interpretation or understanding of Christianity. The belief is accompanied by a strong focus on the belief in the grace of God, and a desire to have the faith of those who came before, only reconstituted in a way that is perhaps less strident. These plays engage fully with Christianity, yet do not offer easy answers about issues of faith.

In this chapter, I have articulated that the contemporary “movement” of the Younger

Evangelicals does not have tight boundaries in understanding Christianity. The transition out of modernism, and even away from postmodernism, has led to a new moment, in which religious expression has not been quenched, and in which “otherness” can now be understood as

“difference,” a less alienating distinction which leads to the appreciation of several approaches to how Christianity is lived within the contemporary culture. Still, for these Younger

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Evangelicals, it does not mean that the “new” is somehow “better” than anything that came before it. Yet, the desire of many of these Christians to move past polarization can allow for a freedom within the current cultural moment to explore intertextualities between Christianity and culture perhaps a bit more freely and fully.

In future chapters, I explore the connections between how characters express their religious commitment and how Christianity exists in the contemporary moment as has been articulated in this third chapter. In chapter four, I examine how these plays present characters who help to create, sustain, and consume culture; and, in chapter five, I examine how these plays portray representatives of Christian faith as they undergo and react to moments of doubt and faith crisis.

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CHAPTER FOUR. CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE: MAKING, CONSUMING, BATTLING CULTURE

In an earlier chapter, I quote Andrew M. Greeley as stating that “popular culture is a [. . .]

theological place - the locale in which one may encounter God. Popular culture provides an

opportunity to experience God and to tell stories of God or, to put the matter more abstractly, to

learn about God and to teach about God” (9). In the next three chapters, I consider the

playscripts as elements of culture through which stories are told of how people experience God

and Christianity. The primary thrust of this chapter is to consider how these plays, and the

characters within these plays, represent, reflect, criticize, investigate, or interact with

Christianity.

In this fourth chapter, I consider how the characters in these plays function within culture, and how they make/create, sustain, consume, or even battle culture. By “battling” culture, I mean to investigate how the characters engage in a “culture war,” defined by Daniel Stout as occurring “when competing moral beliefs conflict in public discourse” (5). When asking how these Christians/religious groups help to create, sustain, or consume culture, I will endeavor to explore if their attempts are intentional, and what the goals of such attempts seem to be. Also, I am interested in discovering what “habits of consumption transform [their] relationships to religious belief” (Vincent Miller 13), and if culture is commodified in any way. Additionally, when investigating whether the characters engage in a type of culture war, I will ask what kind of a “culture war” it is. For example, how is it manifested, and what are its connotations? How, specifically, do competing moral beliefs conflict in each case?

How do these Christians/religious groups help to create, sustain, or consume culture?

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Cultural critic Vincent J. Miller stresses the importance of not forgetting that our

contemporary culture in America is one that relies heavily on consumerism. He desires to

explore “how consumer culture changes our relationships with religious beliefs, narratives, and

symbols” through what he calls the “commodification of culture” (3). He posits that “the habits

of consumption transform our relationship to the religious beliefs we profess” (11). Because we

desire to acquire and accumulate, we are never satisfied. We continue to seek to consume more,

and it is the same with religious pursuit. We can never fully inhabit the present, because we are

always on the lookout for the next high. Miller says that this “weakens our ability to commit to

others and to accept the suffering that their mortality brings;” additionally, “it lessens our ability

for thankfulness and sacrifice” (7). Because we have treated everything in life as commodity, including religion and faith, we have lost part of our dimensionality because our cultural and religious traditions have subsequently lost “their power to inform the concrete practices of life”

(Vincent Miller 13). What we have to guard against, in advanced capitalist societies, is reducing religion to a “decorative veneer of meaning over the vacuousness of everyday life” (Vincent

Miller 225). When we mindlessly keep pursuing the next religious “high,” we are depriving meaning from our religious pursuits. We will fail to investigate the complexities of the moment, and will focus instead on what can next entertain us, thus neglecting to nurture the religious part of our selves. This unknowing covering-over any emptiness our souls might feel is essentially an attempt to hide a void that needs to be filled. We need to become a society that is familiar and friendly again with silence and unafraid to address the issue of loneliness in the hopes of some type of resolution toward betterment of the whole person. In this chapter, I investigate instances in the plays of such struggles between consumerism and contentment. Perhaps I will

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discover that, sometimes, the things individuals consume, instead of covering over the emptiness, can make them more aware of it.

THE SEPARATISTS: QUIET IN THE LAND AND AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

• QUIET IN THE LAND

When Menno tells Yock that God wanted Menno to be baptized, Yock retorts “Your Pa, you mean” (16). This short exchange belies the opinion that sometimes younger members of religious communities are perhaps pressured into conforming with tradition by older members of the community, which would be a way of sustaining the specific Christian subculture that the

Amish have cultivated and maintained over the years. As a separatist community, there are many traditions and rules which are implemented to maintain the distinctives of the Amish religion. In one instance, Kate hears that Yock has been admiring a non-Amish girl named

Moira O’Rourke. “He can’t look at her,” she says, “She’s not Christian” (17), also sustaining the principles of the Amish Christian subculture.

Menno tells Bishop Frey that he wishes the elders of his local church group had better answers for the religious questions of the young people: “Mostly the elders just tell us to obey and leave the worry to them” (21). This exhibits Menno’s frustration with being told to toe the line and not engage with issues in intellectually critical ways, which is another way of sustaining the specific culture that has been created.

Yock accidentally confesses to frequently reading English-language newspapers, a confession which Christy meets with unease and disappointment. In a later scene, Hannah affirms Christy’s apprehension at accepting too many of the technologies of the non-Amish world around them: “Your doddy had a rule. If you’re going to make a mistake, make it on the

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side you’re sure is safe” (33). The Brubachers, on the other hand, are a little more lenient when it comes to accepting “worldly” technologies. Lydie, Kate’s mother, tells an animated story of when she was visiting their non-Amish neighbors, the O’Rourke’s, for a visit to show some kindness to Mrs. O’Rourke who was not feeling well. The O’Rourke’s are one of the first families in their community to have a telephone. When it rings, Mrs. O’Rourke tells Lydie to answer it. In telling the story to her family, Lydie says “I couldn’t have a Catholic thinking the

Amish are afraid of the Devil, could I?,” referring to the beliefs of some Amish individuals that the devil is associated with “worldly” technology. “Only it wasn’t the Devil at all,” says Lydie.

“It was her sister from Kitchener” (35). In later scenes, Lydie playfully and persistently asks

Zepp to let them get a telephone of their own, indicating that there is potentially some room for accommodation or compromise in how their Christian culture is sustained.

Advanced education is treating with skepticism by the Amish. Children generally attend school only until a certain age. In multiple scenes, Nancy Brubacher, Kate’s youngest sister, is featured reading books. When Lydie says to Zepp that she can’t keep Nancy away from books,

Zepp wonders what the harm really is. Lydie’s response is that “knowledge puffs up. You don’t want her to turn out like. . . some,” referring to Yock” (72). This limited schooling is another way in which their created culture can be sustained.

In the second act, months have passed and Yock has left the community. Kate meets

Christy to try to convince him to write to Yock to invite him back. Christy maintains that Yock

“spit on you, on me, on the church, on Christ himself. Don’t waste your tears, Katie” (79).

When Katie later says to Christy of Yock, “But he’s not dead,” Christy replies “As far as we’re concerned, yes, he is” (81). This excommunication of sorts is not unusual for Amish communities, and it serves to maintain and sustain the Christian cultural community the Amish

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have created for themselves to operate within. In this same conversation, Christy’s words to

Kate stress his still-strong views to maintain Amish tradition: “You’re putting your will above doing your duty. That is not serving God, and you know it. [. . .] Work, girl. Keep going. [. . .]

It does get easier. Kate, we’re only promised happiness in heaven. All this is just a means of getting there” (81). Christy’s value of his spiritual tradition is strong within him even to the very end of the play. In the final scene, he tells Zepp that he is more convinced now that his “father’s rules are right. [. . .] Working the land the old way, the women’s coverings [. . .] They won’t buy our salvation, but those are our fences. And they’re not there to keep us in, you know. What they do is keep the wolves from coming in and tearing out our hearts, like they tore out Yock’s”

(109). These affirmations of Christy’s again serve to publicly claim a sustained belief in the particular cultural traditions that have been created as part of the Amish expression of faith.

• AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

This group of Shaker Christians chooses to live an entire lifestyle that is defined by decisions which help them to create and sustain their own culture. Some of these decisions include participation in many distinctive ceremonies like group prayer, group confession of sins, and group singing. In the Shaker Christian culture, traditions and ceremonies are especially valued for their sense of utility. When Betsy shows Hannah a heart-shaped “gift drawing,”

Hannah immediately responds that “they are not permitted to make such things” (35), reflecting how they understand their culture as it is perpetuated and sustained.

When the older Shaker women begin to be suspicious of the younger ones, they find themselves unexpectedly full of bitterness. One of them observes that “there is poison here”

(50). Hannah firmly believes that order must be restored, and that to accomplish it, they need to

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“interrogate the girls,” because she feels that “the community is more important than one individual” (50). She ostensibly initiates this interrogation as a means of sustaining a culture that has been created to value order, utility, and propriety.

When Hannah feels that her culture is being threatened, she takes actions to protect it in ways she believes are necessary. When she asks Fanny to leave, Fanny responds that she wants to sign the covenant and that she wants to be a part of the community. Hannah, anxious to be rid of Fanny, tells her that she “won’t need to” (64). But Fanny is persistent, too: “Why wouldn’t I?

No better place than this. It’s heaven on earth here. Learned that from you” (64). Here, Hannah finds herself in an interesting place – a place where the culture she has sustained and helped to create has become attractive to a newcomer (Fanny, in this case), yet it is simultaneously a place where Hannah would like to continue to manipulate the culture in new ways in order to exclude

Fanny.

Hannah, feeling that the order in their community is being wildly disrupted, decides to organize a religious service for all of the women. It cannot be denied that she is motivated to do so also out of a desperation to regain control herself. Additionally, she boldly asserts that she

“will have a gift. I will have a gift that we are to have a service at our own Sacred Site. [. . .]

We will unite together in worship” (68). She tells Betsy and Phebe that “we are the leaders and we must lead. The girls are little lambs lost in the valley. They have forgotten their simplicity”

(68). Hannah allows her pride to get in the way, and her leadership becomes characterized by a forced or contrived control rather than a genuine and healthy confidence. Such a stumbling block is dangerous, for it threatens to re-make Shaker Christianity in light of Hannah’s personal opinions of how the culture should be sustained or re-created, removed from larger issues of

Christian tradition or spiritual guidance.

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THE FUNDAMENTALISTS: GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS AND GRACE

• GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS

The extent of Rock Baptist Church’s desire to influence the culture around it is found throughout the pages of Rambo’s script. Hugo mentions that Gottschall speaks in three services each Sunday morning, in addition to heading Gottschall College, and the Christian school (10).

Gottschall himself elaborates on the scope of what Rock endeavors to accomplish: “See, a baby’s born, I dedicate that little baby to Christ. He’s cared for in our Little Lambs day care, then our nursery school, and our Blessed Flock Sunday School. [. . . then] Rock School for [. . .] elementary schooling, then Rock High School, and Gottschall College” (24). However,

Gottschall’s goals do not only focus on traditional educational training: “Young people spend their summers at our Camp Galilee, keep their bodies clean and fit for God’s work right here in our Family Life Center gymnasium” (24). All of this is evidence of the fact that Gottschall wants to cultivate a culture of Christianity which he himself has essentially created and sustained for others to consume. Gottschall further states that he “had to fight battles to build” the two swimming pools. He “had to get hold of the movers and shakers and shake the loose change out of their pockets to build it.” He claims that the reason for it was to attract even more people to

Rock Baptist Church: “I knew more and more young people and families would come if I did.

Get ‘em in the pool on Saturday, they’ll be in a pew on Sunday” (24), again displaying his objective to essentially create consumers of the culture he himself is creating. The megachurch complex he describes is clearly geared toward meeting all of an individual’s primary needs

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between birth and death.28 Gottschall says as much when he tells Jerry that “when that young man, raised in Christ is ready, he joins our singles ministry and meets a pretty Christ-centered girl, they go on dates right here on campus at our dinner theater or our bowling alley” He continues, to explain that “they get married, have children, and with those little babies the process begins all over again. Continuity. Continuity is very important to me” (25). It seems that what is important here is what is missing. The items listed in Hugo’s footnote below seem to be primarily focused on material life, with very little focused on strengthening the faith. It would seem that, for Gottschall, Christianity can be created to be packaged and purchased/consumed.

Philip Gottschall’s wife, Julia, wields a lot of power from behind the scenes. She leads a

Sunday School class which Hugo calls “the Who’s Who of Houston” (11). Gottschall himself

acknowledges that “membership in her Sunday School class is harder to come by than

membership in any country club in Houston. There’s a lot of big deals have been made out of

relationships forged in that class” (38). This privileging of social status over spirituality seems

to speak loudly for the concept that there is some material capital that exists in membership in

this class; it is a place created to sustain a consumer culture.

After Jerry’s first visit, both Hugo and Gottschall encourage him to be more “folksy” in

his preaching style (18, 26). This encouragement seems to be evidence of an effort to have Jerry

sustain a culture of perceived sincerity in the ministers at Rock Baptist. Even Gottschall’s

28 Hugo recites a fuller list to Jerry, of things at Rock that move beyond meeting “needs,” on pages 29-30: “a dinner theatre, bowling alley, eight-screen cineplex for family movies, Christian satellite network – [. . .], restaurants, coffee shops, snack bars – [. . .], full-equipped gymnasium, two swimming pools, baby care, day care, counseling center, kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, Gottschall College – [. . .], gift shop, book store, music store. (Beat.) Ballpark, football stadium, summer camp, singles ministry, full orchestra, three hundred in the choir, two marching bands, the world’s biggest Christmas electric light parade they hire show people from Las Vegas to design the floats for, parking for two thousand cars – [. . .]”

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sincerity is packaged, and performed in a way that contributes to the creation and sustenance of

Gottschall’s particular brand of Christianity, with eager consumption of it as his goal.

Numbers play a very important role in how Gottschall’s church is run. When Jerry says that he “was gratified to see so many walk the aisle when [he] made the call,” referring to a traditional altar call, Gottschall replies with “It’s all in the numbers” (19). Later in that same scene, Hugo enters with the official report: “I got the numbers, Dr. G. Twelve hundred and thirty-one in attendance, sixty walked the aisle. Income: nine thousand one hundred and eighty- four dollars – that’s low” (26). Numbers and appearances hold such importance for Gottschall that he even goes to the extent to questionably influence them. Evidence is given of this in a later scene, when tensions (and suspicions) are thickening between Gottschall and Mears:

JERRY. I must have had over two hundred walk the aisle

when I made the call. That’s the size of my

entire first congregation!

GOTTSCHALL. Praise God. Two hundred!

JERRY. At the eight-thirty.

GOTTSCHALL. Hugo, did we have any spikes at the eight-thirty?

HUGO. No, we stopped spiking a couple weeks ago. Dr.

M.’s been doing fine without ‘em.

JERRY. You’ve been spiking the call?

GOTTSCHALL. Just to get things off to a good start, help you

make a good name for yourself.

HUGO. It worked real good when you preached that

month of guest sermons, before –

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JERRY. Why wasn’t I told?

GOTTSCHALL. The worship committee makes these decisions.

HUGO. The marketing boys get in on it, too.

JERRY. I should have been told. (45)

The choreographed response, carried out by Gottschall and Hugo, helps to support and sustain the culture of placing value on large, external responses in the context of church services.

Gottschall assures Jerry that the respondents were sincere and not paid to act; they wanted to make a commitment to Christianity over the phone, but were encouraged to come to a church service on Sunday to do so. Even so, the “spiked” calls, partially orchestrated by “the marketing boys,” seem to be less than straightforwardly honest and again support Gottschall’s manipulated culture of a packaged and consumed version of Christianity. He and Hugo even use “business” language, speaking of “the marketing boys” and specific committees who make the decisions about these types of things. The sense of dishonesty rings especially true in a later scene, where

Jerry reports to Gottschall that the marketing department holds the view that “it’s not a matter of message, it’s a matter of demographics” (47). Sincere expressions of faith, on behalf of those who have phoned their desire for conversion, have been delayed and harnessed to be used as a publicity stunt which will help increase numbers for Rock Baptist, both in congregants and finances.

Also in the excerpt above, Gottschall uses the phrase “Praise God” when he hears of the high numbers. This phrase and others like it can often be used as a holy “seal of approval” which prevents the issue from being given careful thought. For example, saying “Praise God” in this instance would seem to indicate that it was God’s will to have increased numbers of people in the service. Such a phrase used repeatedly by Gottschall would likely cause his parishioners

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to blithely accept his declamations of divine assistance, without feeling the need to investigate issues more fully, as they would assume the issues already have God’s approval. This again points to an area where Gottschall is creating and sustaining a particular kind of Christian culture to be consumed.

Gottschall’s Rock Baptist Church also seems to be a “personality-driven” church in many respects. Philip Gottschall is a godlike figurehead overseeing all of the church’s programs and functions. He is virtually synonymous with the church. Early in the play, when he and Mears are just beginning to know each other, Gottschall tells him “Lad, you’re a superstar in some circles” (23), with clear esteem for the reputation. Other scenes in the play betray Gottschall’s obsession of sorts with the culture of celebrity. First, he continues in attempts to persuade Jerry to become more physically fit and presentable for television audiences. Among these instances include his question “You want the girl to come and give your face a little color? [. . .] Just for

TV. [. . .] You need a little color. Half of Texas, half the country tunes in for the ten o’clock”

(37). Later in the same scene, Gottschall cannot help but to exclaim over the media coverage that has surrounded Rock Baptist Church since it was announced that Jerry Mears would be joining its pastoral staff: “Forget the Texas Baptist Standard, forget the Texas papers, period.

Your picture was in Time magazine!” (38). To perpetuate the culture of celebrity on the campus of the church, Gottschall wants Mears to “have a high visibility” (39) and to be the beneficiary of extravagant accessories like “carved bookcases and gold bathroom fixtures” (40). All of these exclamations by Gottschall exhibit his own willingness to consume the culture.

One of the ways that Rock Baptist Church seeks to add to its numbers is by creating or sponsoring a number of activity groups and support groups. While some of these groups may be meaningful and helpful to some members, Rambo’s script also seems to illustrate the ridiculous

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extents to which this type of programming can go. In Jerry’s new position, he is expected to appear at many of these meetings, which include an alcohol recovery group and a singles ministry, but also a weight loss group and a bowling league. At the latter group, he is asked to give the dedicatory prayer: “Lord, [. . .] we thank you for the blessing of six new lanes and computerized scoring [. . .]” (43). These programs seem to borrow from patterns outside the church, to replicate them into a cleaner or safer version of what might otherwise be considered worldly. This certainly is another way of creating and sustaining a particular kind of Christian culture (and is, by the way, not without precedent in contemporary culture outside the pages of this dramatic script).

Early in the play, Jerry makes some observations about how Christianity is connected with marketing. In talking of his father, who was a traveling salesman, Jerry says: “Dad said

Jesus was the greatest closer, ever” (20). He explains by considering the gospel of Christianity

“as a model for sales technique” (20): First, establish credibility. Then, express empathy. “I know how you feel” (20). “Then,” Jerry says, “they close them” (20). At this point, Gottschall is repulsed by such a notion, even if he is unaware of the evidence of the same model in his own life. He calls it “either pure hogwash or outright blasphemy” (20-21). Jerry clarifies that the point is only well-applied if Jesus is viewed as the “model” or “ideal” (21). His connections with individuals were not calculated but, rather, sincere.

When Gottschall feels his authority is being challenged, he takes strong action to try to preserve it. Near the end of the play, Jerry learns that Gottschall has fired Hugo for

“insubordination,” “collusion,” and “working against the interests of [the] church” (59-60).

Gottschall tells Jerry all of this as they are preparing to ride together on the pastor’s float in the

Christmas electric light parade sponsored by the church. Jerry tells Gottschall of Hugo’s

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confidential issue. Gottschall, instead of apologizing, states that Hugo would have confided in him if Jerry had not “poisoned him with [. . .] whisperings” (61). Jerry, disgusted with

Gottschall’s actions regarding Hugo as well as the garish spectacle of the parade, speaks of getting rid of the parade, calling it a “carnival” (62):

GOTTSCHALL. Membership recruitment, lad. People want to

be part of the excitement.

JERRY. Big numbers.

GOTTSCHALL. Big numbers make big deeds possible. God’s work.

JERRY. Where is God in all this?

[. . .]

JERRY. How can you hear him over all this noise? (62, 63)

This last line of Jerry’s here does a good deal to capture the frustration at obscuring God through polished programming. As Vincent J. Miller states, “habits of consumption transform our relationship to the religious beliefs we profess” (11). Here, indeed, is a shining example of how these habits of consumption change how Gottschall and many in his Rock Baptist Church understand the nature of their Christianity.

• GRACE

Steve, in his zeal for combining business and his Christian faith, dreams of the day when

he can buy a lot of hotels with the hopes of retrofitting them and creating a new brand. Early in

the play, he tells Sara that “maybe what will happen is [. . .] I’ll witness to Mister Himmelman,

he’ll get saved and, get this, we’ll start a Gospel Hotel chain. [. . .] Here’s the idea. What if

Christians got it in their heads to start staying at only Gospel-themed hotels? If there were such

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a thing?” (10). Sara is not quick to join in Steve’s excitement, but he persists in his vision: “[. .

.] do you realize what a force that would be in the marketplace? ‘The Passion’ is the biggest

selling movie of all time! Imagine doing that with hotels!” (11). In this section, Steve’s desire

to help create and sustain a marketable Christian culture to be consumed is clear.

Later, when Steve is pitching the same idea to Sam in hopes that he will want to invest

some money into the project, Steve works to “sell” the concept further: “[. . .] here’s the point,

Sam. Gospel hotels. Every one with a sanctuary. Baptismal pool. [. . .] Promise Keepers29

strength training. Full-on Gospel hotels. ‘Where Would Jesus Stay?’30 [. . .] This idea, whether

you like it or not yet, is gonna make a lot of money. God wants it to happen” (32). These

excerpts are strong pictures of a phenomenon in contemporary culture where marketing concepts

have infused Christian-related products and developed a slew of Christian-themed paraphernalia,

under the auspices of spreading Christianity but too often seeming to capitalize on the

consumerism of contemporary culture. Additionally, these excerpts speak to an often troubling

notion of Christians feeling assured of their role as God’s mouthpiece. Sometimes, people of

faith fail to reflect on whether or not their thoughts or ideas have been truly inspired or

“approved” by their God.

Christians often help to create or sustain a contemporary culture around them by utilizing

key words or phrases which they feel confident will resonate with many other Christians. Words

or phrases like this can include “God’s will,” “I’ve prayed about this,” and “I feel led by God’s

Spirit.” Sometimes these phrases are sincerely spoken, and other times they are used without

reflection. When Steve is “closing the deal,” in his efforts to recruit Sam as a financial donor, he

29 Promise Keepers is a parachurch organization formed in the early 1990s to “ignite and unite men to become passionate followers of Jesus Christ,” according to their own website: . 30 This is a wordplay on the seemingly ubiquitous bracelets worn by so many in the American Christian subculture at the turn of the millennium: “WWJD: What Would Jesus Do?”

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says: “The work of real-estate development [. . .] – ooh, it’s so important – is belief. That’s what

I’m talking about. Belief. Don’t invest in this hotel. Don’t. Please. Don’t. Invest in believing.

Invest in the believing part of yourself” (36). Here, Steve uses “belief” as a catch phrase of sorts, even with someone who does not claim to be a Christian. The word, however, is still a part of Steve’s approach to creating and sustaining a specific kind of Christianity to be consumed.

Christians are often viewed with a range of trust and distrust in contemporary culture.

Wright has Sam’s character articulate what is likely a not-too-uncommon opinion of many representatives of Christianity:

I think Jesus was probably someone who lived and died and

did some impressive things, politically and personally. And

today he is a mythical figure used by charlatans and multi-

national corporations to extort money from people who find

life too difficult to face without hearing some lie every Sunday

morning like ‘It’s all gonna work out,’ or ‘God’s on your side’

[. . .] I’m mad at people who suck money and life out of other

people in the name of some idea about God that isn’t true – (43)

This type of representative of Christianity has indeed been all-too-present in contemporary culture, and they are often unattractively connected to the desire to sustain a Christianity that has been created to be marketed. Frequently and unfortunately, this connection to ugly motives is merited.

Even Sara recognizes that sometimes the pictures painted by Christians about

Christianity are perhaps a bit too rosy and not sufficiently thoughtful: “There was a guest

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speaker at [Bible] camp all week. [. . .] And I went the first night to the big welcome, you know, prayer service, where it was like, ‘We’re all here to have fun and the pancakes’ll be good and

Jesus, y’know. . . wow!’” (56). This portrait of Christianity in contemporary culture, as seen in the words of the guest speaker, seems perhaps a little too optimistic or idealistic without being grounded in a reality that is understood by those outside of Christianity. I am not saying that

Christians cannot or should not be enthusiastic about their faith; rather, only that such enthusiasm is often first treated with suspicion by those who do not share it.

THE MARGINALIZED: A PLAGUE OF ANGELS AND THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK

GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

• A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

In this play, the “official” representative of the Catholic church, Father Michael McKuen, is portrayed as genuinely interested in the lives of others, earnest in tackling his first

“assignment” after being ordained, and a little “green,” perhaps somewhat idealistic to a fault.

When Mallon first opens up to McKuen, she asks him to keep their conversations private. When he agrees, Mary asks him “What would happen if you lied to me about that?”

FATHER. I wouldn’t lie.

MARY. What if you did; how mortal a sin is it?

FATHER. I’d be violating my vows.

MARY. Would you go to hell?

FATHER. Yes.

MARY. Good.

FATHER. Unless I confessed my sins. If we do that, God will

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forgive us anything.

MARY. That’s the rumor.

FATHER. It isn’t a rumor, it’s a fact. It’s why Christ died for us.

MARY. There are so many facts in the world, you’d think

people would know more. [. . .] (31)

In this scene, Father McKuen’s words to Mary perpetuate the Christian understanding of the doctrines of forgiveness and atonement. One could argue that such dialogue helps to sustain a specifically Christian culture.

Later in the play, when the hospital has decided to release Mallon, Dr. Mills requests a private meeting with Father McKuen. When the priest expresses his own doubts about Mary’s leaving, Mills seeks to reassure the priest, as well as himself. He tells McKuen: “She’s very fond of you, Father. The staff says they can tell when you’ve visited. She’s stronger, less melancholy. You’re a real inspiration to her” (54). McKuen denies the truth of that statement, so Mills demurs: “Then let’s say it’s a testimony to your faith” (54). He continues to tell

McKuen that the board was very favorable toward releasing Mary because of how “religious” she is, as understood by her weekly meetings with the priest. To this, McKuen responds that

“Mary doesn’t believe in anything!” (54), knowing that Mary’s appearance of religiosity has helped to create a context of Christian culture around her which he feels is false or fabricated.

• THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

In Rainey’s first long monologue in scene two of act one, she conveys some of the history of how her family has been connected with the area by Negro Creek: “My Pa’s family lived and died on this bush land – been ours since the war of 1812. [. . .] My great grandmother

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gave her life to this water trying to save a soldier’s uniform. Lorraine Johnson. I was named for her” (19). Rainey continues recounting the richness of her family tree: “Her [Lorraine’s] grandfather Juma, Juma Moore was granted this Ojibway territory for fighting against the

Americans in the Coloured Militia. Once a year his uniform would get a ritual cleaning” (19).

This passage seems rife with connections to the culture: Rainey speaks of the history of the land, her family’s connection to it and claim on it, and even how her ancestors participated in ceremonies that helped to sustain their culture.

When Rainey and Michael are having an intense discussion about challenging God,

Michael accuses Rainey’s faith of “dissolv[ing]” as soon as “tragedy strikes.” Rainey replies to

Michael: “And your faith grows stronger” (29):

MICHAEL. We only grow through our suffering. He has

a plan.

RAINEY. And Janie was all a part of God’s plan?

MICHAEL. I’m in sales, not management.

RAINEY. Spoken like a true broker for God.

MICHAEL. Let’s not do this. (29)

Here, Michael’s words seem to sustain a Christian culture which accepts all things as coming from the hand of God. Some Christians who share Michael’s perspective may cite the Old

Testament book of Jeremiah (chapter 29, verse 11) here: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future.” Such a perspective might indeed defer to a faith in God’s purposes and plans, but it also might sustain a culture of contemporary adaptation of Scripture without awareness of original contextual intent. This can potentially lead to the consumption of a diluted version of Christianity. I also

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find it interesting that Michael and Rainey use the language of “sales,” “management,” and

“broker,” further identifying Christianity in this context as something that is peddled and consumed. Such language is potentially troubling.

The members of the “Lotsa Soap Cleaning Company” provide another example of how culture is attempted to be created. When Rainey asks them what they were thinking by attempting to “liberate” local cultural artifacts, Darese responds: “We want to change the world”

(42). Bert echoes that statement: “We want to change the world, and we’ve started with our neighborhood” (42). These statements can serve as examples of how habits can be changed regarding how culture is created or consumed. Specifically, here, there is a kind of power in the work of the members of the “Cleaning Company.” It reflects the importance of community- based programs, and points to the value of a phrase that has become cliché: “think globally and act locally.”

Do the characters engage in a culture war?

In this section, I explore if and how the characters engage in any type of what Daniel A.

Stout calls a “culture war,” where moral beliefs compete in the public discourse. The notion of culture wars motivated by a difference of religious opinion is certainly not a new one. Robert

Wuthnow, a scholar of religion and culture, notes that, “as the twentieth century began, conservative Christianity was already at war, it seemed to many, with the prevailing values of an enlightened society” (204). Not only can there be a potential “culture war” between the apparently religious and the apparently non-religious, but there can be similar “culture wars” between the conservatives and the liberals who claim to be people of religious faith. Wuthnow argues that liberals have the potential to find themselves “uncertain in the private religiosity,”

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while conservatives have more potential to “attempt to turn private certainties into public

doctrines” (150). This can certainly be seen in contemporary American society through the

many criticisms of the recent presidential administration of George W. Bush, in the form of

accusations that it attempted to legislate morality. Regardless of where one’s opinion rests in

this disagreement, one would have a difficult time denying that this polarization between liberals

and conservatives certainly has existed in this instance, and that notions of Christian faith,

whether or not they are “legitimized” by Scripture, so to speak, play a large role in this issue.31

In the recent past in North America, there have surely been times when Christian groups

have felt as though they were somehow different from non-Christians in more ways than their

faith tradition and commitment. However disparate these groups may have felt, they still have

played a role in helping to shape the broader culture in which they exist. Although religious

groups may sometimes be “at odds with popular culture, [. . .] they also help create and sustain

it” (Stout 8). Daniel Stout argues that this notion of culture wars “unravels as a theoretical

construct [when] it fails to account for the dialectical nature of popular culture where religion is

both friend and foe” (9). As an example, Stout points to the part of society that has been

typically known as “Generation X.” While, Stout says, these individuals have engaged in

behavior that could be called “outwardly irreverent” by “some religious leaders,” they still are

quite religious in very “nontraditional ways” (9). Perhaps members of Generation X might not

appear to embrace the religion of more fundamental or conservative adults; however, they still

search for meaning through music, film, and other expressions of popular culture. Stout quotes

scholar T. Beaudoin, who notes that “religious statements about the generation must take popular

31 Even evangelical Christians, frequently considered to be “safely” Republican in their voting history in most recent elections, have expressed discomfort with this idea and are not so easily pigeonholed into one particular political expression. See, for example, Jim Wallis’s God’s Politics, as well as the Christian group called Sojourners (Faith. Politics. Culture.)

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culture into account. [. . .] We express our religious interests, dreams, fears, hopes, and desires through popular culture” (xiv). “Gen X-ers” may not fully participate in the religious structures that have typically housed the expression of Christian faith in the early to mid twentieth century, but they may seek to participate in newer, less structured expressions of the same faith. The plays in this study, written during a time when Gen X-ers were/are coming of age, can certainly be participants in popular culture which can express religious interests, dreams, hopes, fears, and desires. This example of younger evangelicals seeking new, less structured expressions of

Christian faith, can break the mold of what has been considered to be the social norm of religious expression in recent North American history. It is my opinion that contemporary expressions of

Christian faith certainly cannot be limited to some type of narrowly prescribed behavior.

THE SEPARATISTS: QUIET IN THE LAND AND AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

• QUIET IN THE LAND

One of the primary “culture wars” present in this script is the tension that exists between the Amish and their non-Amish Canadian neighbors. The historical setting of the play is 1917 to

1918, during the time of the Great World War (World War One). The play opens with a visiting

Amish bishop, Eli Frey, giving a sermon before the baptismal service: “But the world won’t leave us alone. And now this country has declared its Military Service Act. That means they will try to make us fight in their sinful war” (13). The Amish are pacifists, believing, as their early Amish ancestor Menno Simons did, that “the weapons of our warfare are not weapons with which cities may be destroyed and human blood shed in torrents like water. Love is the only weapon a Christian can know [. . .]” (13). Bishop Frey, from Ohio, also relays to some of the

Amish men a story of his minor trouble at the border. “They wanted to know if I was going to

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preach against the war. ‘What else can a Christian do?’ I asked” (20), indicating that his pacifist stance is interconnected with his Christian beliefs.

When the government begins issuing written summons for every Canadian male to register their name with officials, Christy advises Yock to “put these [summons] in the stove”

(29). Later in the play, Zepp has received advice from another Amish bishop to fill out the cards but to write “Amish Mennonite” across the top of them, which would mean that they would not be called to fight in the war effort. Christy resists even this notion, believing that the government will force them to serve. Zepp says that Bishop Coffman has “got it all worked out with Mr. Borden” from Ottawa, the capital. Christy’s response is: “Has he got it all worked out with God?” (54), suggesting that Coffman will need to answer to a higher power than a government official, and that God will hold him to a different standard. The two friends then embark upon a dueling “Bible war” of sorts, where they quote references to Scripture passages in order to prove their point. This scene presents two separate types of moral conflicts, then: one which pits the competing moral beliefs of the Amish and non-Amish in the public arena, but also one which depicts a “duel” of sorts between individuals who share the same faith.

As the war effort intensifies, the differences between the Amish and their neighbors begin to foster some resentment in Mr. O’Rourke, one of the non-Amish farmer neighbors to the

Amish community, especially when his own son is severely wounded in battle. Although he has generally maintained friendly relations with the Amish, he warns them that “it makes some folks mad to see you all doing so well out of the war” (40). Later, upon hearing the news that his son

Paddy has lost both of his legs, O’Rourke drowns his misery in alcohol and stumbles into an

Amish corn-shucking. In his anger, he says: “We’re going to run you out of this country. The boys won’t be sharing it with the likes of you, that keep your sons safe and see ours ruined.”

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When Christy asks O’Rourke to leave and offers to pray for Paddy, O’Rourke spits in Christy’s face and says: “The Virgin herself would damn your prayers to hell” (65). Certainly, such personal tragedy that seems disproportionate to one side leads to escalated tensions between the groups.

Menno asks Bishop Frey about the possibility of starting a young people’s group to study the Bible. This “Sunday school” is viewed with apprehension by some of the older members of the group, including Yock’s grandmother, Hannah. It is viewed with even more forceful opposition by Christy. He says that he worries about young people “deciding what scripture means for themselves” (23). He’s worried that the Amish will lose some of their distinctiveness:

“Lately, I look around . . . I see us letting the world in one little step at a time. But that Sunday school, that’s a big step” (26). This statement also exhibits Christy’s apprehension of anything that might challenge the separatist notions of their faith tradition. Yock starts attending this

Sunday school of Menno’s, much to his father’s chagrin. Some of Christy’s fears are realized when he hears that the group is not talking about the Bible alone:

YOCK. What’s wrong with some of us talking things out?

HANNAH. Young folks knowing better than their elders.

YOCK. The world is changing, Pa.

CHRISTY. The world always changes, being a Christian

doesn’t.

HANNAH. That’s why we stay separate.

YOCK. But we can’t anymore. This is the biggest

war in history.

CHRISTY. (genuinely shocked) You didn’t talk about

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the war? (46-47)

Christy and Hannah try to convince Yock that “our people stand for peace” and that “heaven and

hell are the only countries a Christian has to worry about” (47), but Yock’s drive to join the war

effort is unthwarted.

A few other struggles and tensions occur as a result of Yock’s decision to not be

baptized. First, he wants to pursue a romantic relationship with Kate, yet is prevented from

publicly doing so. When Kate protests that they cannot begin “courting,” despite both of their

desires to do so, Yock says: “’Cause I’m not baptised? I love you. I want to be with you. What

the hell does that have to do with being baptised?” (53). Not only are Yock’s ambitions to date

Kate unable to be fully realized, but any potential shielding of him from the war effort is not permissible, as he is not an official member of the Amish church. When he joins Menno, Zepp, and Christy at a recruitment court, the others are exempt because, as Menno says, “my religion won’t let me fight” (56). However, when Yock is asked if he is also a “member in good standing in the Amish sect” he tells the truth (that he is not a member) and is then instructed to “report for induction” (57). Christy gives an impassioned speech about religious freedom, and they are deferred by the officer to another court in Toronto, but not until the officer has made clear his utter disdain for the Amish: “I have no use for pampering immigrants who came to this country with nothing [. . .] and who now [. . .] refuse to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. If it

were not for politicians, you would be imprisoned for treason. Personally, I would like to see

you shot” (58), illustrating how the tension between competing beliefs has the potential to

escalate into violence.

Yock’s brief trip to Toronto with Christy and Zepp give him a glimpse of the urban world

away from the Amish farmland. Upon his return, he cannot keep from exclaiming about the

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buildings, and the massive numbers of people, and the excitement of the fast-paced lifestyle: “I saw what the twentieth century is going to be. I sure wish I could be a part of it” (60). Such an expression represents Yock’s longing to experience something which seems compelling and full of promise while it simultaneously represents the chasm that exists in the public discourse between these two distinct ways of engaging with culture as individuals maneuver through life.

A strong conflict of two different approaches to culture occurs between Yock and Christy after O’Rourke’s drunken visit to their farm. Yock sees O’Rourke’s point of view and understands why the Amish are hated by their neighbors: “They’re dying for us so we can stay here and sing these stupid hymns” (66), implying that tradition lacks meaning without contemporary connection. Christy’s persistence that no Christian should kill prompts Yock to stand up for the service of his friend Paddy. Christy tells Yock that he “never asked Paddy

O’Rourke or anyone else to go and get shot trying to protect me or mine. Christ died for us, that was enough.” Yock immediately responds, “Did He? Well, I never asked him to” (66), partially out of frustration with what he perceives to be his father’s oversimplification of the issue.

At the end of the play, Yock returns to his father’s house. He has killed a man in battle, and is full of regret. He wants to be welcomed back, but because he has murdered, there is no longer a place for him in the Amish community. Although it pains him to lose his son for what is essentially a second time, Christy’s faith tradition tells him that Yock has “touched the unclean thing, and it touched him” (107). Christy, fraught with emotion, calmly tells his son “It’s not that I’m leaving you damned. . .” (105), recognizing that he does not hold bitterness in his heart toward Yock, but the fact remains that Christy’s desire to welcome his son back can not overcome the competing power of the moral belief of his Amish faith. In the same scene,

Menno, who is now married to Kate, recognizes that his wife has deep feelings for Yock. He

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calmly shares with her that “it’s not me and him you have to choose between. I know there

wouldn’t be much of a choice for you then. It’s him and the Christian life” (104), again

highlighting the stress between the competing moral beliefs in the public discourse and the rigor

of adhering to the Amish way of belief.

• AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

In the first scene, one of confession of sins before the community, one of the primary

struggles of the play is established when Peggy confesses that she is “frequently impatient with

the newcomers. With Sister Fanny and Sister Polly and Sister Jane. May I realize that they have much to learn about our ways” (13). This line can be interpreted as sympathetic to understanding that the newcomers should be extended some grace because they are new, or as condescending in a passive-aggressive way. Based on Peggy’s character throughout the entire

play, my judgment is that it is the former. However, that does not mean that the condescension

is absent from the play entirely; it does show itself to be present in the lives of others, such as

Hannah, as I will address shortly.

The Shakers aim to separate themselves from what is “worldly” in several ways: for one

example, the simplicity of their clothing and their furniture is free from adornment and fanciful

decoration. Their style of music also reflects this. It is typically sung without instrumental

accompaniment, and without vocal harmony. Hannah emphasizes this to Polly when she begins

to sing in a round during one group-sung hymn: “Sister Polly, we sing in unison. It is not permitted to embellish” (43). For the Shakers, this is not a matter of preference; it is representative of a larger conflict of competing moral beliefs, one belief that is distinctly

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Christian in their separatist Shaker understanding of the word, and one that is distinctly “of the world.”

As seems to be the case with many separatist groups, people on the “outside” (or in what others might call the “real world”) are often very intrigued by these groups, and likely are skeptical or even fearful that these sects are somehow socially or intellectually stunted. In

Hutton’s script, she writes of a fictional situation that illustrates the apprehension of the surrounding community members that arises from their ignorance and suspicion. Izzy, the youngest of the group, is pelted with rocks, along with Polly and Fanny, two of the newcomers.

Some neighborhood boys chased them, calling them names as they threw the rocks. Izzy says that “they called us shaking devils. Said we were going to hell” (55). When Polly proudly claims to have retaliated and hit the tallest boy, Sister Phebe is quick to say that the Shakers are

“a peaceful community” who “do not throw stones” (54). For the Shakers, it is not acceptable to resort or stoop to physical aggression, even when their traditions are attacked in a “war” of cultures.

There is a struggle among the Shakers regarding artistic expression. As is the case with their singing, clothing, etc., artistic expression that is present in the community should be for a utilitarian purpose. When Polly purports to have “a gift to draw,” Sister Betsy gently corrects her by saying she has a “talent to draw” (31). Later in the play, Polly gives Jane a drawing of

Jane’s children, who are dead; the drawing depicts her children in heaven. When Hannah discovers this drawing, she says that “it is a sin to create a picture of heaven” (62), again reinforcing the dichotomy between the competing beliefs of the Shakers and those who do not share the Shaker faith. After expressing her intolerance for “false gifts,” Hannah tears it up and keeps the pieces.

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There are even competing moral beliefs between Shakers themselves. One of the strongest examples of this “war,” so to speak, is the frequently strained relationship between the characters of Hannah and Fanny. When Fanny begins to receive a “message” in the middle of a group time of prayer, repeating “Holy Mother Wisdom speaks to me” over and over, Hannah

“abruptly ends the service,” her frustration with Fanny intensified (63). Hannah then instructs

Fanny that she must leave their community.

FANNY. You gonna send me out in the cold [. . .]

You gonna pray me to a safe life, or pray

that I go quickly up to heaven?

HANNAH. You cannot talk to me this way.

FANNY. Won’t you even pray for me then?

HANNAH. I pray for you every day.

FANNY. But what do you pray? That I will disappear?

Or that I will show you where the angels are? (65)

Hannah impugns Fanny’s ability to see these visions, asking Fanny: “Do you honestly believe that celestial manifestations would appear to you, an uneducated young woman who has not even signed the covenant?” (65). Hannah’s underlying bias against those underneath her station is further revealed as she continues: “If Mother Ann were to visit us, don’t you think it would be the elders who would see her first? You are not a stupid girl. Don’t you think Mother Ann would have something to say to us? To me?” (65). Hannah’s pride here also seems to be combined with a fear that perhaps her certainty is not so certain. Fanny’s response will only serve to fuel the fire of this uncertainty: “Would you recognize her if you saw her?” (65), implicating Hannah as one too concerned with appearances, order, and her own structured sense

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of how things should be than she seems to have forgotten the underlying motivations which should lead to the outward manifestations of her particular faith expression. Instead, Fanny implies, Hannah’s faith has become empty.

THE FUNDAMENTALISTS: GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS AND GRACE

• GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS

One of the biggest “wars” in Rambo’s script is the conflict between Dr. Philip Gottschall and Dr. Jerry Mears. They share a common faith in Christianity, yet they function as representatives of different approaches to how that faith is evidenced, both in individual lives and in the way they operate within a community.

When Hugo is providing Jerry with a brief orientation of sorts to Rock Baptist Church

Houston, he mentions with awe about Gottschall: “He can read the Bible in Greek, did you know that? Greek!” (10), understanding that Greek is the original language of much of the New

Testament. When he informs Jerry that the technicians need him to speak into his wireless microphone to “get a level,” Jerry chooses to recite a New Testament scripture verse in its original Greek. Perhaps he speaks Greek out of an impulse not to be outdone, or perhaps he speaks Greek in attempt to keep Hugo’s “hero worship” of Gottschall in check. Either way, it foreshadows a head-to-head struggle between Mears and Gottschall that will occur throughout the pages of the play, what will arguably become the strongest example in the play of competing moral beliefs.

When Hugo asks Jerry how many members are in Jerry’s current church in San Antonio,

Jerry replies “just over six thousand,” to which Hugo replies “Here at Rock, we got more than that in our singles ministry alone. Not to make this a pissing contest” (11). This brief exchange

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also serves as an introduction of sorts to what I believe is one of the primary conflicts presented by this script: that of a numbers-driven “ministry” as opposed to smaller groups of Christians, something I explored in more detail earlier in this chapter. Additionally, it can represent a larger conflict between a Christianity that is produced and packaged, like Rock Baptist, and one that is stripped of slick production quality and potential pretension, like Jerry’s small service at the flea market at the end of the play.

The pastoral search committee discovers that Gottschall is favoring Jerry Mears for the job instead of fellow candidate, and Jerry’s former college roommate, Chuck Bissonette. Half of them call Bissonette to offer him the job, because they are afraid of a dictatorial type decision being made by Gottschall. When Gottschall discovers this, he exclaims about “insubordination!”

(34). His next sermon is about the subject of time, specifically about the timing of when things occur. At the end of the message, Rambo writes that Gottschall “digs in at the pulpit” and says

“I’m not going anywhere until God says, ‘It’s time’” (36). This resolution can be equated with bracing for conflict or even combat. Gottschall will prepare to go to war to protect his position.

Despite any of his qualities which might be considered to be visionary or even noble,

Gottschall betrays an ugly streak of prejudice in a conversation with Hugo in scene four of act two. Hugo suggests that Jerry be the pastor to speak for the ten o’clock service; it is the only televised service, and would perhaps provide the church with an opportunity to showcase its newest minister. Already suspicious that others are essentially planning to “overthrow” him,

Gottschall asks Hugo if Jerry told him to ask Gottschall that question.

HUGO. Dr. M.? No. I was just thinking on my own.

GOTTSCHALL. Thinking is not in your job description. (45)

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This reiterates something I wrote earlier in this chapter regarding Christy Bauman in Quiet in the

Land, when he instructs Kate to work and not think: that thinking, for Christy and Gottschall,

can lead to potentially disturbing things. It can lead to complications and even doubts; blithe

acceptance is sometimes preferred by those who do not want their power challenged or who do

not wish to engage with difficult or complex issues.

Later in the same scene, Gottschall and Jerry have an uncomfortable conversation in

which Gottschall accuses Jerry of holding “secret meetings” (46). When Jerry’s responses seem

to illustrate flaws in Gottschall’s reasoning, Gottschall resorts to personal attacks to divert the

issue: “Look at you: pasty, worn-out, flabby. You got to start taking better care of yourself”

(47). This theme of “pastors in conflict” continues throughout the play. Instances run from the

seemingly trivial, when Jerry is upset that his parking spot is labeled “Co-Pastor” while

Gottschall’s still reads “Pastor” (51), to Jerry accusing Gottschall of being focused on external

showiness and Gottschall calling Jerry a “whiner” (63) and questioning his ability to truly hear

the voice of God.

Another “culture war” of sorts that is represented in this play is the struggle between a

Christian’s faith, which is something very personal, and the notion of that faith being marketed

or peddled, as I wrote about earlier in my section about how these characters help to create,

sustain, and consume culture. Jerry Mears’ father was a traveling salesman who became a

Christian. He then felt it was his “calling” to, in essence, market Christ. He was the man, in

fact, who convinced Hugo to become a Christian. In one conversation, Hugo tells Jerry that “He

[Jerry’s dad] saved me,” to which Jerry replies: “No, God saved you. You saved yourself. But

Dad. . . Dad wasn’t God. He loved God, but he was a closer. He didn’t know where the selling stopped and the saving began” (53-54).

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The very last scene of the play showcases another “war” of cultures, so to speak. Jerry has decided to leave Rock Baptist Church for what he deems to be key differences in the philosophical approaches to Christianity between himself and Gottschall. The scene opens with

“a solitary electric keyboard playing the old hymn, ‘Faith of Our Fathers’” (64). After a brief exchange between Jerry and Hugo, the scene shifts back to Rock Baptist Church: “The electronic keyboard ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ is drowned out by the Rock orchestra and choir concluding the same hymn as lights come up on Gottschall at the Rock pulpit” (64). This juxtaposition is not intended to cheer for simplicity in music and to deride orchestras and choirs as too showy.

However, it is a contrast that seems to work in terms of presenting the first, more simple expression as valuable in terms of understanding faith without embellishments, of recognizing that a foundation of faith needs to be present and strong underneath the expressions of that faith.

• GRACE

When Steve, in his evangelical fervor, begins to ask Karl about his religious background,

Karl asks if Steve is a “Jesus Freak” and then states decisively that “There’s no Jesus,” and

“There’s no God” (22). This frames a “culture war” of sorts between Christians and those who do not claim Christianity, certainly two competing moral beliefs in public discourse. Steve sees

Karl’s claim as an opportunity to prove some points which he believes to be true about

Christianity: that the world was created, for example, and that the story of Jesus is a powerful one. Karl just feels bothered, and is equally as firm in his own beliefs that God does not exist.

Karl tells of his own youth, growing up in Germany in the late 1930s. Karl’s family was not

Jewish, but his father believed in the importance of helping the Jews during the time Hitler’s

Nazi party was in power. Jews who were hidden in Karl’s house were discovered, including his

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first childhood sweetheart, Rachel. They were taken to concentration camps. “Ever since then,” says Karl, “I know [. . .] there’s no one watching the world, or keeping anything from happening” (25). The culture “war” present in this situation is further highlighted when Steve continues to discuss that story with Karl. In what Wright has scripted to be spoken “gently but clear,” Steve asks: “You don’t see God’s grace at work in that story? [. . .] Who gave your father the compassion to reach out to those people, sir? Who saved your life?” Karl’s response is simply: “Who killed everyone I know?” (25), reflecting not an openness toward God but a rejection of considering nuance. However, his words here are also based in legitimate emotion that reflects a sense of great and deep loss. Little do these characters know that they will be exchanging views by the end of the play, with Karl more willing to consider room for goodness amidst tragedy and Steve unable to detect nuance once he undergoes his own crisis of faith.

Another instance presented in the pages of Wright’s script of moral beliefs competing in public discourse is the war between faith and reason, religion and science. Steve is trying to recruit Sam as an investor in his plan to market a chain of Christian hotels. He tells that Sam that Sam is “a scientist,” an “athlete of the mind,” and that his (Steve) own expertise is “faith.

I’m not a knower. I’m a believer. And that’s what real estate is all about. It’s about faith” (36).

This scene can exhibit the tension between trusting one’s tangible senses and trusting one’s intuitive senses. Steve argues that faith is not “as stupid as you make it wanna sound” (45).

After Sam complains Christians who seem to use the name of Christ to swindle others,

Steve encourages Sam to admit that he’s “mad at God for religious hypocrisy” (44):

SAM. But I don’t think there’s a God to be mad at.

STEVE. And you’re mad about that. You’re mad that there’s

no one up there to stop these people from spreading

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these lies.

SAM. Yeah.

STEVE. Which is the same as being mad at God! (44)

Sometimes, a conflict exists in culture between those who claim to be Christians but whose lives do not give strong evidence to a charitable life and those who tire of such a Christianity which seems to be lip-service but nothing substantive. In this scene, Sam expresses his frustration with such self-proclaimed Christians.

When, in a mutually vulnerable moment, Sara begins to tell Sam a story of when she went to Bible Camp as a teenager, Sam responds initially with some apprehension. This dynamic is another example of the potential struggle that exists between those who claim

Christianity and those who do not. However, Sara’s response to Sam’s apprehension is also an example of another type of conflict – one between different representations of Christianity: “This is about me, just listen. I’m not Steve. I’m me” (55).

THE MARGINALIZED: A PLAGUE OF ANGELS AND THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK

GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

• A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

There are several different types of conflicts found in St. Germain’s play that can be considered to be “culture wars” of some kind. As one instance, Dr. William Mills, a hospital administrator, and Dr. Ann Saltzer, a practicing physician, have frequent ideological clashes in the play which illustrate a different type of conflict or culture war. In one scene, they are discussing plans for Mallon’s future, after Mary Mallon has continued to complain about being

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quarantined against her will. Mills tells Saltzer that the hospital is receiving much pressure from

the Health Department:

SALTZER. To do what?

MILLS. Cure her, educate her –

SALTZER. Anything as long as we release her?

MILLS. I’m not saying they would. . . But there’s discussion.

Yes. (28)

This short exchange can serve as an example of the type of culture “war” that exists when

individuals or groups are more concerned with public perception than with exhibiting real

concern in understanding a situation or seeking something more lasting than a “quick fix.”

Although it may not be understood, at first glance, as a pair of competing moral beliefs in public

discourse, the conflict indeed grows to address such competing beliefs. Doctors Saltzer and

Mills delve further into their argument later in the play: Mills assures Saltzer that he trusts Mary

not to return to cooking; she tells him that he does not know Mallon and accuses him of making

decisions based on “what the Board wants to hear” (41).

In one of the several theological/philosophical conversations between Mallon and

McKuen, McKuen asks Mary how she sees God, to which she quickly replies “I don’t. I’m not that crazy girl at Lourdes” (48). Although he persists, she is equally as quick to deflect to him, asking him the same question. His response to her question, including the words

“unimaginatively,” “a grandfather,” “white hair and beard,” “regal. wise. Victorian” (48), cause

Mallon to respond “Sounds a lot like Charles Darwin to me. Now there’s a God for you” (48).

McKuen and Mallon have a spirited exchange about the survival of the fittest, the existence of a

soul, and the nature of hell and heaven. Later, in the same scene, Mary articulates her belief in

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miracles, despite her myriad experiences with unfortunate circumstances: “A miracle’s the greatest gift, Michael. One of those rarest of moments that says God believes we exist, and we’re worth impressing” (50). This exchange is indicative of another competing set of moral beliefs: McKuen believing God to be detached and wise, and Mallon believing God to be able yet sparing in effecting miracles.

The character of Dr. Saltzer offers a good example of an inner “war” when she recounts a recurring dream of hers. Saltzer’s parents died when she was young. They were killed by an out-of-control carriage which was being piloted by an inebriated man. In her dream, Saltzer was

“sitting behind the coachman.” When she reached out for her parents, her “hands would push the driver off his seat to his death, instead” (53). Troubled by this dream the first few times she had it (“I was a murderer. Me.”), she began to have the dream again during the time when she and Mills were frequently debating about Mary Mallon’s future. This time, Saltzer received the dream calmly: “I had killed a killer. One man died so two could live. It wasn’t murder, it was saving life, and I’d do it again if I had the chance” (53). In this instance, differing moral beliefs have competed, but they have done so within Saltzer’s psyche. The results of this internal struggle eventually lead her to a position where she believes that acts of murder can be potential agents for good in society.

• THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

One of the cultural conflicts present throughout Sears’s play is between the African-

Canadian community of Negro Creek and the primarily white members of the surrounding community, none of whom of the latter are actual characters in the play. The foundation of this storyline comes from Michael in scene two of act one, when he tells Rainey about the “Save

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Negro Creek” committee (23). They have decided to sue the township council, because the council “changed the name of Negro Creek Road.” Michael continues by saying that “this bunch of white folks on the town council are saying they’re not comfortable using the word Negro.

The Human Rights Commission took the case” (23). Although this initially seems like a racial issue, I argue that it also is a moral one, as well, as these areas do not really seem to be able to be disconnected from each other. Michael’s approach to this struggle throughout the play supports the interconnectedness of this particular cultural issue as both social and moral. It seems to function like an extension of his own work as a graduate student, where his culminating work was entitled “Deliverance: The church as a fundamental vehicle for covert resistance from slavery to the civil rights movement” (24).

A different type of “culture war” is exhibited by how Rainey is unafraid to challenge a

God who she believes is distant and passive:

MICHAEL. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

RAINEY. But with him it’s personal.

MICHAEL. God is personal.

RAINEY. And that’s why I transferred to medical school.

MICHAEL. You didn’t want to be a preacher.

RAINEY. A doctor could, could really do something. . . .

Could really save souls.

MICHAEL. Could play God? (24-25)

It is likely an intensely helpless and isolating feeling not to be able to right the wrongs one sees around them, especially when those wrongs are so personal. Rainey, here, is unwilling to remain in a place of helplessness. Instead of remaining in a realm of the immaterial, Rainey chooses to

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explore more tangible work as a doctor. Frustrated with the supernatural, she turns to the

practical. Additionally, Rainey shares with Michael, that she, too, is planning on attending

graduate school where she can investigate these issues further. Her chosen field is “Science and

Religion” (24). When Michael asks her what her thesis title will be, Rainey replies: “‘The Death

of God and Angels.’ It’s a quantum theoretical challenge to contemporary monotheism” (28).

When Michael asks if it is a challenge to God, Rainey replies that it is “a challenge to the supposition of a Judeo-Christian God” (28). After some uncomfortable and stilted dialogue,

Michael says “Congratulations on becoming an atheist,” to which Rainey retorts “I never said I was an atheist” (29). This argument prefigures my discussion on faith crisis in chapter five while also serving as an example of competing moral beliefs. Rainey’s statements do not reject

God outright, but they do display her desire to try to investigate and understand the complexities of the challenges which she has experienced.

A large subplot of this play involves Rainey’s father, Abendigo, and his attempts, along with those of his elderly friends and peers, to “liberate” cultural artifacts that can be symbolic of oppression, including “lawn ornaments, cookie jars, piggy banks, plaques, figurines, visual images and ephemera” (41). Ben and his friends call themselves the “Lotsa Soap Cleaning

Company,” an acrostic for “Liberation Of Thoroughly Seditious Artifacts Symbolizing (the)

Oppression (of) African People” (43). Michael applauds their efforts, and defends them to

Rainey as “[believing] in something” (42). Rainey, however, is focused in this instance on living in a way that abides by established laws: “So what’s going to happen when you get caught? And you will get caught. What you’re doing is, is, commendable, honourable even. But it’s illegal,

Pa. That’s all” (43). Ben feels that his work is important as it challenges passivity about racial issues in the public morality. To support his point, Ben tells Rainey a story of when he retired as

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a judge. He had worked as a judge for twenty years alongside a white man named John

Sheppard. On Abendigo’s last day, Sheppard said to him, “we’ll miss you, the legal system will really miss you. You’re not like other Blacks. You’re a very special Black” (44-45). Ben was shocked at the lack of understanding shown by someone he considered to be a friend, and this insensitivity has motivated Ben to continue to fight against this prevailing mindset. He forcefully tells Rainey, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. TO TOLERATE AND TO ACCEPT

ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS” (45). Abendigo ties this to the work that he and the “Lotsa Soap Cleaning Company” are doing, as well as to the clash between the township council and the African-Canadian residents of Negro Creek. For Ben, tolerance does not equal acceptance, and he does not want to be only tolerated.

This next conflict is not one that features two communities, but rather two individuals.

Michael is finally able to express to Rainey some feelings that he has been harboring: “You couldn’t even look at your own daughter. You didn’t see Janie in that casket. You didn’t see her looking like she’d looked when we tucked her in nights. You couldn’t even go to the grave.

Have you even seen her grave? Have you? You had the affair. You wanted to give up medicine. You wanted to go back to school. You want the divorce. It’s always what you want,

Rainey. Do something for someone else for God’s sake” (64). This last sentence seems to be a key phrase, and is one which advocates for a focus shift, away from the self and toward others.

The tension in the larger community continues to mount between the African-Canadian members of Negro Creek and those who are not. Michael bursts into a scene to tell his father-in- law that their church building has been vandalized with racist epithets. At the next meeting of the church, Michael speaks to the congregation:

MICHAEL. “This kind of thing never happens here.”

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That’s what they think. That’s what we think.

“Everything is fine here in this country.”

We’ve grown so comfortable that we believe

racism, no, white supremacy is a phenomenon

that only happens south of the border. [. . .]

That they could do this to God’s house. . . .

And we will not take those hideous and

repugnant words down. We will not white-

wash the truth of our situation. We will

leave this desecration in place as a reminder.

[. . .] (82)

Michael continues to inspire his congregation to be “steadfast” and to “fight for our right to take up space on this earth” (82). The members respond by singing a refrain of the line “Singing with a sword in my hand. And the Angels are singing too” (82-83), yet again illustrating the power of their presence and reaching to claim equal recognition in the public discourse.

Reflections on Christianity and Culture: A Summary of Approaches and Themes

In this chapter, I have explored ways in which the characters in these plays have created, sustained, or consumed a specific culture, as well as ways in which these characters engage in culture wars which pit competing moral beliefs against one another in the public discourse.

When thinking about a contemporary consumer culture, Hanna Rosin addresses the notion of the marketability of Christianity: “Isn’t there something wrong with so thoroughly commercializing all aspects of faith?” (“Pop Goes Christianity). This commodification of Christianity seems to

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lessen the potential depth of meaning of faith to certain Christians, not to mention how it seems

to ring of the biblical story of Jesus angrily throwing the moneylenders out of the temple. Rosin

continues by asking “What does commercializing do to the substance of belief, and what does an

infusion of belief do to the product?” (“Pop Goes Christianity”).

The Pragmatic Evangelical, as described in my third chapter, embodied a “method of

evangelism that paid attention to marketing issues” (Webber, The Younger Evangelicals 36).

McLaren notes a shift away from this method when he writes that “speed, style, technology, convenience, efficiency, and mechanization are not all important” (A Generous Orthodoxy 230).

In this chapter, I have sought to illustrate how the characters in these six plays deal with issues of creating or sustaining their Christian culture, including attempts at marketing or commodifying their faith. Additionally, struggles are sometimes evident between consumerism and contentment in these plays. In God’s Man in Texas and Grace, for example, Gottschall and

Steve, respectively, struggle (to various degrees) with establishing or maintaining parallel

“Christian” cultures to the larger, “non-Christian” culture which surrounds them. This struggle

is one which might not be as strong for “younger evangelicals” in our contemporary culture,

perhaps. Regarding this, Rosin writes that “the new generation of Christians [. . . finds] it

difficult truly to commit to the idea of a separate Christian pop culture. [. . .] They are much

more critical consumers and excellent spotters of schlock” (“Pop Goes Christianity”).

As I quote in my first chapter, Vincent Miller guards against reducing religion to a

“decorative veneer of meaning over the vacuousness of everyday life” (225). In examples given

in this chapter, some of the characters have desired to explore the mysteries of life and faith,

while others have wanted to continue to affirm or maintain the status quo of their faith as they

understand it by continuing to create or sustain their culture, or even by engaging in a type of

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culture war. In my next chapter, I investigate moments of faith crisis as they are experienced by characters in these plays.

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CHAPTER FIVE. “OH, YOU OF LITTLE FAITH”: DOUBT & CRISIS IN CHRISTIANITY

In the case studies of this dissertation, I desire to investigate how individuals respond to

moments of doubt and faith crisis. Can they find hope when they are exposed to the radical

uncertainty of life? If so, what precipitates their willingness to take uncertain steps when their

faith is wounded? In this chapter, I explore some of these crises of faith, and assert that,

sometimes, very real moments of crisis or doubt can indeed lead to a truly felt, deep sense of

Christian faith.

Although the plays in this study are not geared only for Christian audiences, they do

focus on characters who hold Christian faith. I assert that one of the reasons that these characters

are accessible to a broader audience is because they experience particular crises of faith. Many humans, regardless of faith commitment, have experienced doubts or questions about faith, many of them stemming from moments of crisis which precipitated the questioning. Lyotard states that “modernity, in whatever age it appears, cannot exist without a shattering of belief and without discovery of the ‘lack of reality’ of reality, together with the invention of other realities”

(77). This disruption, then, of life is arguably a common one, to which many individuals can relate, regardless of the specific faith to which they adhere or which they reject.

Doubts and crises of faith are interconnected with faith itself. John Caputo notes that

“we do not find the religious without the tragic, or when you do it is because the tragic has been violently suppressed, repressed, or excluded” (124). This seems to run counter to some early modern theorists who argued that tragedy was impossible in a world that has Christ. For instance, Giambattista Guarini said in his Compendium of Tragicomic Poetry in 1599: “And to

come to our age, what need have we today to purge terror and pity with tragic sights, since we

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have the precepts of our most holy religion, which teaches us with the word of the gospel?”

(Gerould 133). While I understand Guarini’s desire to focus on the joy that is found in the gospel for the Christian, I also believe that, like Caputo and others articulate, tragedy is a part of religion to be faced and accepted, not covered over or ignored. “The great religious symbols and figures have always been figures of suffering [like the cross], for the love of God always comes to rest upon the least among us, upon the ones who suffer needlessly” (Caputo 123). Artistic expression can strive to help to remember the lessons learned from tragedy: noted author

Madeleine L’Engle writes that “in art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace” (19). God is able to use any means, including “aesthetic forms, among others, to mediate or prepare for divine self- disclosure” when such a “transcendent God wills to be encountered” (Brown 120). In these plays, I examine the crisis moments which are experienced by members of the community of

Christian faith. These crises are not literary or dramaturgical moments of climactic crisis in terms of plot structure, but rather are psychological or philosophical crises, particularly as they relate to Christian faith. When considering the crisis moment, I investigate how individuals respond to moments of crisis, as well as how Christian communities respond to them, and I explore how faith is evidenced in the lives of the characters in the plays. Does faith motivate them to find hope? Does it drive them to overcome discouragement? Is faith difficult to find or muster? Additionally, I consider how Christian principles can be communicated aesthetically.

THE SEPARATISTS: QUIET IN THE LAND AND AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

• QUIET IN THE LAND

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There are many moments of conflict and crisis experienced by characters in Anne

Chislett’s Quiet in the Land. Yock, an eighteen year old who has grown up in an Amish community, does not feel drawn to become an official member of the church. Christy, his widowed father, resists adapting to the changes surrounding their community in the early twentieth century. Bishop Frey and Zepp Brubacher both struggle with understanding how the

Amish should function in a world at war. Kate, Zepp’s daughter, has a romantic interest in Yock which cannot be realized due to the decisions he has made regarding their religion. Mr.

O’Rourke, a neighboring non-Amish farmer, expresses his resentment that his own son is fighting in a war to protect certain Canadians, like his neighbors, who are opposed to war. Yock says to his friend Menno that he “couldn’t just say the words, not when I don’t believe them”

(19), talking about the spoken faith commitment. Here, Yock’s crisis is one of conscience. It almost takes more courage to do something like this, than to do the “expected” thing and be baptized in order to appear to be more religious. Yock’s crisis of conscience exhibits that he has a sensitivity to issues of morality, despite his uncertainty with belief that is specifically Amish.

When O’Rourke discovers that his son Paddy is returning home from war, his celebration is cut short by the accompanying news that Paddy has lost his legs. Drunk and angry, he visits his Amish neighbors and expresses to them his wish that they would not be allowed to remain in the country: “The boys won’t be sharing it with the likes of you, that keep your sons safe and see ours ruined” (65). His reaction seems to stem from a frustration that certain individuals are kept safely sanctioned away because of their religious beliefs, yet people like his son are martyred on their behalf. Such a frustration has the potential to develop into a faith crisis, wondering why a

God would allow such sacrificial substitution. Yock’s response to the news from Mr. O’Rourke is one that perpetuates the crisis that he has already been feeling internally, the struggle between

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what Yock believes are two extremes: Amish pacifism and responsible social involvement in the

country’s war effort. He says: “No wonder they hate us,” and remarks that surely you can be a

Christian and not be Amish. What follows is a heated argument between son and father, the

results of which have Yock choosing to leave the community and enlist as a soldier. This

absence of Yock in the community also heightens the moments of crisis that Christy experiences.

Not only is Christy affected by Yock’s decision to leave, but so are Hannah (Yock’s

grandmother) and Kate. Kate, who would have gone with Yock were it not for her desire to have

a family in the Amish community she values, marries Menno, a friend of Yock’s who was

persistent in his romantic pursuit of Kate. Kate’s decision to marry Menno is perhaps

undertaken out of a desire to be a wife and mother in the Amish community. It ostensibly

prevents a potential crisis of identity for Kate, one in which she would remain single and only

yearn for community. However, this “solution” of sorts arguably only leads to another internal

crisis for Kate, one that pits Yock against her new husband Menno. When Hannah learns that

Yock has killed a man in battle, her resulting moment of crisis is such that she cannot fully

recover from it. She says to her son Christy: “How can I face your Sarah?,” referring to Yock’s

deceased mother. “How can I tell her the baby she handed me on her death bed is going to be

burning in hell?” (89). The next scene in the play occurs about six months later, and we learn

that Hannah has died in her old age, carrying her internal crisis with her to the grave.

Motivated by a desire for reconciliation, Yock returns to the community of his childhood

after being discharged from military service. Desperate to be heard, he tells his father, through

the locked front door of his former home, that he regrets leaving: “I wanted you to come over the hill and take me home. Because I knew, if I’d just stayed home. . . I guess that’s what I. . . what I wanted to tell you, Pa . . . If I’d just stayed” (102). Yock’s initial crisis of conscience has

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led to another, and his crises have contributed to an intensified conflict between him and his

father. A barrier exists between them that is not easily overcome due to Amish tradition and

belief.

Near the beginning of the play, Yock is honest enough about his lack of faith in the

Christian faith to not pretend to have it. What he does know is that, as he says to Kate after she

expresses her desire to live with the love of the Amish people, he has “never felt that love. I

keep hearing about it. But I never felt it” (68). After Yock’s disillusionment with the Amish

church causes him to leave the community, his father Christy buries himself in work and drowns

his sorrows in drink. He even encourages others to focus on being busy instead of thinking of

Yock. He tells Kate, for instance, to “work, [. . .] keep going. Don’t give yourself a moment to

think” (81). Christy’s response to Yock’s absence is not only to bury himself in his work, but to try to manipulate the spiritual lives of the people who are in his congregation, now that he is the local Amish bishop. Christy’s admonition to Kate seems to subtextually state that thinking is bad. Ignore the thoughts, for they may lead to doubt. Instead, busyness and preoccupation can prevent uncomfortable or uncertain thoughts or feelings from being registered or considered.

When Zepp expresses concern that members of their local congregation are leaving under

Christy’s leadership as bishop, he forecasts that the situation has the potential to turn into a scenario where it is “neighbour against neighbour, father against son” (95). Christy’s response attests to his belief that rigid adherence to an expression of religious tradition as he best understands it is more important than considering how that religious tradition could or should change to respond to a new cultural moment: “They’ve got a choice. . . like [Yock] had a choice.

. . and if they want to say I drove them out, then we’re well rid of them, like I’m well rid of him”

(96).

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After Yock’s return, he sees Kate outside his father’s house. Hopeful for some sense of reconciliation, especially in light of his father’s persistent rejection, he embraces her and dreams of having the life with her they had discussed before he went to war. When she soberly tells him that she is married to Menno, a heartbroken Yock conveys that “when I turned around and you were standing there. . . I thought it was a sign that God had forgiven me. Go home, Kate. Go home” (104). After only a momentary glimpse at a potential reprieve, Yock’s faith crisis continues. Kate, too, struggles in this moment with her understanding of faith. In her crisis moment, she is firm and resolute in admonishing Christy that “you thought he was dead to us.

And he’s home. I’ve got no choice left, but you do. You can leave him damned or you can help him” (105). Kate continues, incorporating herself more fully into the situation: “And if you turn your back on him now, I’m leaving the church. And I’m not just switching my membership, I’m clearing right out. Because the church is supposed to be about love, and it’s not” (105). In these instances, the crises of Yock and Kate seem to emerge when they are faced with measuring their hopes and dreams against the realities of the world around them. Even at the end of the play, when they want to be reunited, their wills cannot, or will not, overcome the strength of their surrounding society and what it considers to be appropriate behavior.

Even though Yock says he never did feel the love of the Christian church before he joined the war effort, his confrontation with the brutality of battle is enough to cause him to become open to other Christian traditions that were not those of his relatives. He acknowledges this recognition to Kate when he tells her that “[. . .] it’s not too late. Even if they won’t take me back, I could find another church. There must be one that’ll take a repentant sinner. . . one who’s willing to tell silly young boys how well off they are” (103). Even Christy recognizes that there is a value to Christian traditions that are not his own when he tells his son “You can be

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saved. . . you just. . . you can’t. . .” (107). The ellipses at the end of those words of Christy’s are key, in my opinion. They indicate that it is not a final statement that allows for a permanent exclusion from Christian fellowship. No, it signifies that, due to Amish beliefs, any place for

Yock in a Christian community will not be an Amish one; Yock recognizes this when he says, “I understand, Pa. This isn’t my home anymore” (107). Although this is still a wrenching exclusion, it is a scenario that still possesses some hope - because both father and son have recognized that the Christian faith is big enough to encompass each of them, and that perhaps they can look forward to a reunion freed from the constraints of human-devised religious forms.

For them, this hope exists because there is something to look forward to that transcends traditions devised in this world.

• AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Jane, Fanny and Polly, are the three newcomers to the Shaker community in Arlene

Hutton’s play As It Is In Heaven. Each of them has arrived at the village at Pleasant Hill from a place in which they experienced personal crisis. Fanny speaks briefly to having experienced what true hunger feels like (39). Although Polly does not speak of it herself, we learn from other characters that she “never had a childhood [. . . as she] was working on her back in a fancy house in Lexington when she was twelve” (35). Jane talks openly with her new sisters about dark moments in her past when she says that she doesn’t “miss havin’ a baby every year and wonderin’ if they’re gonna live long enough to walk” (27). She continues to talk about how even the ones that survive infancy might get sick. “All that pain for nothin’” (27). Jane expresses her experience with crisis in a way that is partially private yet not kept entirely from the larger community: her Shaker sisters remark that “she cries all night,” and that they “don’t

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think Sister Jane would be happy anywhere;” greater yet, that they “don’t think Sister Jane was ever happy” (16).

Izzy, the youngest in the community, faces a crisis of her own when her father comes to claim her. Since she has not yet signed the covenant, she must leave the Shakers and accompany her biological father away from the place she has come to call home. Understandably, this creates within her feelings of anxiety which is evidenced in part by her desires to take small pieces of the community with her and to stay in strong communication with the community.

Before this crisis moment in the script, Izzy’s faith enables her to see the angels that Fanny sees

(52). Even earlier in the play, when Izzy purports to see golden light and to hear rushing wings and “sounds like I never heard before” (25), Polly repeatedly shouts in disagreement that she’s

“making it up!” (25). Polly cannot yet believe in this supernatural something that transcends the crises of humanity.

Arguably, the deepest moment of crisis in the play is experienced by the character of

Hannah, the eldress. As the spiritual leader of sorts for the sisters, she struggles with accepting that God is able to use new arrivals to the community to be spokespeople for the faith, especially considering that the new members have not yet signed the covenant. Perhaps taught to be skeptical of false signs, Hannah embarks upon a crusade of sorts to prove the newcomers, most notably Fanny, to be false prophets, all the while re-establishing herself as the ordained voice of the sisters. Hannah responds to her crisis moments by attempts to control. At first, they are not necessarily selfish attempts to console or reaffirm herself, but, rather, attempts to maintain the order of the community over which she has been entrusted with a leadership role: “Ten years ago I was sent here [. . .] to restore order. [. . .] Are we to return to what was before? [. . .] The

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community is more important that one individual. We must tend to order. [. . .] We will interrogate the girls. [. . .]” (50).

In a later scene, when Hannah does confront Fanny about seeing visions, Fanny is resolute in her belief that angels are revealing themselves to her.

HANNAH. You have created this yourself.

FANNY. Why do they talk to me?

HANNAH. Indeed. Why would angels speak to you? (64)

Here, Hannah replies to Fanny’s sincere confidence with a condescending retort. I believe that there is no small amount of irony here in the pejorative rhetorical question from the eldress.

Hannah, the spiritual leader of the group, is essentially demanding proof that God would choose to use Fanny, even if she is unaware of this demand, as it is veiled in her condescension. This demand for proof seems to run contrary to a life which is supposed to be characterized by true faith. In the same scene, Hannah further instructs Fanny that she must leave the community. In a manner that is neither victimized nor brazen, Fanny challenges Hannah’s motivation for doing so.

FANNY. Where do you want me to go? [. . .] You

gonna pray me to a safe life, or pray that

I go quickly up to heaven?

HANNAH. You cannot talk to me this way.

FANNY. Won’t you even pray for me then?

HANNAH. I pray for you every day.

FANNY. But what do you pray? That I will disappear?

Or that I’ll show you where the angels are? (64-65)

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Hannah finally betrays her pride when she pointedly asks Fanny: “If Mother Ann were to visit

us, don’t you think it would be the elders who would see her first? You are not a stupid girl.

Don’t you think Mother Ann would have something to say to us? To me?” Fanny’s reply is

only “Would you recognize her if you saw her?” (65). Enraged rather than convicted, Hannah

thunders that Fanny will leave the community that very evening. Almost immediately, Fanny

sees another vision and is enraptured by the beauty of what she sees. Frustrated at what she has

tried to convince herself is false, and frustrated at not being able to see what Fanny sees, Hannah finally collapses and pleads to “Holy Mother Wisdom” to hear her prayer: “Let me see! Let me see!” (66). Her arguable lack of faith, evidenced by not being able to see what Fanny sees, leads her plea to turn more demanding, when she transitions to saying “ I will see. I will see. You will come to me” (66).

Soon afterward, Hannah decides to “have a gift” and gathers the women of the community at a place they have come to call the Sacred Site. She leads them through a ritual of receiving gifts of “fruit and flowers” and “cups of silver” while the others remain in confused silence, unable to see these gifts and this vision that Hannah has contrived (69). In the midst of these subdued theatrics, virtually every other Shaker women has a true vision of wings, clouds, rain, trumpets, and angels. The qualifier “true” is crucially important in the previous sentence, as their experiences are genuine in contrast to Hannah, who has essentially chosen to work on her own at manufacturing religious experiences. In fact, it seems quite the testimony to the supernatural that these true visions could “break through” Hannah’s manipulated facilitation of the receiving of spiritual gifts. While the others are enraptured, Hannah attempts to cut through the enthusiasm with reminders to “not hear false voices” and to “fight the temptation of false gifts,” to which Fanny replies: “Let not any think because they can’t see into every gift that is,

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they will not believe it to be a gift” (70). While all of her Shaker sisters experience a spiritual sense of joy, Hannah once again comes to a place of desperation. This time, it is not in a begrudged or demanding way when she looks up to the heavens and pleads: “Please. Please.”

(70). In fact, this desperate plea indicates that Hannah, too, finally believes. Her crisis has led her to a place of humility.

Hannah’s rediscovered belief also reconfirms her value of the spiritual community. It takes her longer to accept that the social constructs she has grown to associate with her particular doctrine do not always dictate through whom God speaks or who God chooses to reveal beautiful mysteries of faith. After her sisters have experienced a communal vision without her, she seeks to convey her love for Fanny in an expression that embodies humility. Fanny is preparing to leave the community at Pleasant Hill for another community at South Union. Not only does

Hannah affirm Fanny’s visions, telling her that “they have need of your. . . gifts. At South

Union,” but she asks Fanny if she may “help prepare [her] for [her] journey,” and then proceeds to kneel at Fanny’s feet, remove Fanny’s footwear, and wash Fanny’s feet (72). This act of footwashing is a traditional Christian practice that represents a humbling of one’s self to serve another out of love. Shortly after this beautiful expression of contrition, infused with the hopeful potential of reconciliation, the play ends.

THE FUNDAMENTALISTS: GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS AND GRACE

• GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS

“Winners win and losers lose.” So says Chuck Bissonette, a figure in Rambo’s play whom the audience never meets (13). Bissonette was a college roommate of Jerry Mears.

Although this quote does not explicitly refer to specific losses in the lives of the main characters,

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the concept of loss can be applied beyond the context of this reference. There are times in this play when each of the three primary characters feels as though he has lost something, when they experience personal moments of crisis. Jerry’s past holds the fact that his father left the family.

Ostensibly to carry out “God’s work” as a traveling preacher, Mr. Mears, Sr. “disappeared” as

Jerry says, abandoning his own family. Jerry has not allowed himself to feel victimized by this, or so he claims, but it does remain as a marker in his life of a crisis experience.

Hugo, too, has a life history that is peppered with moments of crisis. He confides in Jerry about his own past, only after knowing Jerry a relatively short while. However, it seems that

Hugo has grown comfortable in sharing with others the change that has taken place in his life; his trust of Jerry is not really out of the ordinary for Hugo. Hugo shares with Jerry about his own father’s desertion, about his experiences with drug and alcohol abuse, about past sexual experiences he considers to be cheap, and about living life aimlessly, drifting from place to place with no real ambition or anything of which to be proud. Later in the play, Hugo discovers that he fathered a son about twelve years ago, during a time when he exercised less discretion. At first, he resists accepting this news to be true. He is hesitant to admit that his actions in the past resulted in this consequence. He is resentful of the absence of his own father while simultaneously worried that he has unknowingly abandoned his own son. Jerry encourages

Hugo to accept responsibility and to give his son the opportunity to know his father.

Embarrassed at his past indiscretions, Hugo asks Jerry not to share the news with Gottschall, as it is something Hugo wants to work up the courage to do himself, due to his great respect and admiration for someone he considers to be a “great man of God,” so to speak.

The crisis moments of Philip Gottschall in this playscript are not crisis moments from his past. No; instead they are instances in his present that he believes to be crises. Gottschall allows

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himself to read into situations a level of subterfuge that is not truly present. He believes that others in his church have conspired against him to displace him, and it is that belief that causes him to drop small, snarky comments like “I know how you feel, Jerry. Dishonesty, secrets, little deceptions – not God’s way at all” (46) instead of directly communicating with the individuals with whom he is taking issue. This strong belief of Gottschall’s that he is the victim of conspiracy is also what drives him to extreme measures, such as firing Hugo from his position for “insubordination” (59). When Gottschall’s insecurities lead him to the action of firing Hugo,

Jerry’s crisis is compounded. After accepting a call to join the staff at Rock Baptist Church as pastor, Jerry was frustrated to find that Gottschall has no intention of leaving – at least anytime soon. Jerry is relegated to duties that are assigned to him by Gottschall, duties Jerry interprets as ones which Gottschall feels are beneath his own station somehow. When Gottschall’s skepticism of his colleagues results in Hugo’s unemployment, Jerry cannot easily contain his anger.

Near the beginning of the play, Jerry introduces a concept which will recur throughout the play, in terms of how faith is evidenced in the lives of the characters in this story. In Jerry’s first sermon at Rock Baptist Church, he quotes a story about the prophet Elijah from the biblical book of First Kings. When God chose to speak to Elijah, “it was in a whisper [. . .], an almost imperceptible murmur, a quiet voice” (16). This notion that Christians can hear God’s voice in the stillness and quiet is a notion that will resurface at moments throughout this script. This concept is evident in the lives of the characters of the play, as it can be argued that they need to attempt to get rid of the excess sensory “clutter” of their lives in order to focus on their spiritual connection to the supernatural. This discarding of clutter can be especially useful to those who are experiencing moments of doubt and faith crisis. Additionally, Gottschall’s actions and words

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seem to suggest that he cannot hear this still, quiet voice as he is surrounded by the accumulation

of his “empire.”

Gottschall exhibits some tendencies that seem to cut through the clutter, but some of

these same tendencies are likely to be representative of a consistent means of operating

throughout the years. As an example, when Jerry officially joins the church as a pastor,

Gottschall senses some kind of apprehension in Jerry during the first Sunday morning services

on staff together. In this scene, Gottschall asks to pray with Jerry, which can be construed as

beneficent. However, it also could be interpreted as a way for Gottschall to assert his own

position of authority, a way for him to manipulate Jerry while simultaneously acting under the

auspices of uplifting the spirits of his new colleague. This may seem to temporarily lift the spirits of a conflicted Jerry, but it also serves to re-affirm Gottschall as the “anointed one,” which echoes thoughts from my previous chapter about sustaining a culture which Gottschall has helped to create, one wherein he is established as a godlike figure.

Late in the play, after Hugo has been fired, Jerry wants to leave every other duty of his in order to find Hugo. Gottschall, however, is focused on one of the all-important events in the life of Rock Baptist Church, the electric light Christmas parade: “There are over two hundred thousand people out there waiting to view this historic moment, stuffing their faces with popcorn. And snow cones. Every TV station in Texas has a camera crew shivering out there, waiting for you” (60). Gottschall’s expression of faith seeks the limelight in this moment instead of seeking the “lost sheep” of Hugo, to use a cliché of Christian terminology. Gottschall accuses

Jerry of having “no vision, no sense of the greatness of God” (63), to which Jerry replies:

JERRY. The greatness of Dr. Philip J. Gottschall. . .

GOTTSCHALL. I thought you had what it would take to

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lead this church someday.

JERRY. What this church needs is to be a church,

not Las Vegas. (63)

This interchange can serve to reinforce concepts from chapter four regarding creating and

consuming culture, while also illustrating the crisis moment which it causes for Jerry – who

recognizes that the person with whom he is co-serving the congregants of Rock Baptist Church

has a different philosophy of ministry and, arguably, value system.

Jerry’s crisis leads him to leave Rock Baptist Church. At the very end of the script. Jerry

is now leading a small gathering of Christians at a rural swap meet. Hugo is with him, so we can

assume that he has been “sought” and “found.” The play ends with Jerry revisiting the biblical

character of Elijah, remembering how he heard God’s whisper, reiterating the point that he made

in his first sermon at Rock Baptist: “God came, God spoke, to Elijah in a whisper” (65). Coming

full circle philosophically, Jerry acknowledges that the noise of his life has been removed and he

is ready to listen in the quiet for the voice of God.

• GRACE

Each character in Craig Wright’s four person cast of Grace experiences (or has experienced) a faith crisis. Although the four crises experiences share similarities, they remain distinct. Steve and Sara, a young married couple from Minnesota, have recently relocated to

Florida, where they are neighbors with a young single man named Sam. Sam’s face was badly disfigured in a recent car accident which took the life of his fiancée. Their homes are adjacent apartments with identical layouts in the same building. Karl, the exterminator, makes

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appearances in a couple of scenes when he arrives to spray the apartment units for bugs at the request of the owners.

Karl, an elderly man with a German accent, has come through his crisis moments to a place where he does not feel the need to hide them from even these complete strangers. In their first meeting, he tells them that his “wife’s very sick with cancer in her female parts” (18). He also feels the freedom to share the crisis of Steve and Sara’s neighbor, Sam, with them. They have not yet met Sam, but Karl explains the “sad story” (19) of Sam’s accident. Later in the scene, we learn about Karl’s experience with the Nazis when he was a young man in Germany, and how they forced him to do physical harm to a young Jewish girl Karl’s family was hiding.

Sam’s crisis seems obvious, perhaps. He has lost his fiancée and part of his face, which makes his future seem bleak to him in the moment. To add to his crisis, the visual records of his time with his fiancée are eroding away as his computer is deleting the digital photographs of the two of them together. When Sara reaches out to Sam as a friendly neighbor, he is not receptive at first because he does not wish to be considered a charity case. However, he grows to value her company and finds himself drawn to want to know her even more. He asks her to stop coming to visit, because he knows that he cannot pursue a romantic relationship with a married woman.

Sara is facing a crisis of her own, as she has found her husband Steve to be more distant, busy, and preoccupied with business matters after their move from Minnesota. She does not feel that her opinion has been consulted regarding decisions that involve their collective finances, and she is skeptical of the too-good-to-be-true business deal that Steve has brokered with a Swiss businessman named Himmelman, whom neither of them have met. Sam becomes someone who listens to Sara and with whom Sara feels a strong emotional connection. Sara finds joy in

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connecting with people, as she tells Sam: “When we first moved down here, I hated it. I still don’t like it. It’s too hot, the people aren’t friendly, there are bugs everywhere. But from the day you let me in, it’s been better. Not simpler, I know that. But better” (53). The emotional connection Sara shares with Sam will indeed grow into a shared spiritual connection, the kind she no longer shares with her husband Steve. Sara helps Sam to face his own crisis. She insists to him that he can be loved “just because you exist,” and encourages him to “open up your heart to God again, or The World, or whatever you want to call it [. . .]” (54), because there is much life to live and much love to share.

Steve’s crisis matures near the end of the play, when he realizes that he has been swindled. At the end of one scene, he pathetically asks one of Himmelman’s representatives,

“Why are you people doing this to me? [. . .] Why would you make someone believe so much and then do this?” (64). Steve’s belief has arguably shifted from a faith in God to a faith in the system, laced with spiritual talk about God. Feeling swindled, one of his first expressions is a selfish one (“Why are you doing this to me?,” emphasis mine). He is not saddened that God’s work is not being done, but rather crestfallen that his own plans have been dashed. Instead of turning to his God, then, Steve treats his God as a participant in the swindle.

In the next scene, Steve is awake in the middle of the night because he has been having a strong physical reaction to something, which has caused tremendous itching to the point of pain.

In this scene, his crisis escalates when Sara quietly says to him, “I don’t think we should be married anymore” (67). These additional physical and marital crises add to his earlier financial and philosophical crisis, and Steve responds to his individual crisis by losing control of his temper. He flails a gun about, and threatens repeatedly to kill himself. He plays Russian roulette over and over, each time adding another bullet to his gun barrel. He yells at Sam, whom Steve

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has discovered to be “the other man,” fiery instructing him to “Shut up, Ice Cream Face!” (68).

As the scene builds in intensity, and as Steve’s grip on his life seems to become more slippery to himself, he rants about his situation. The content of these rants chronicle the deterioration of

Steve’s faith, which had been so important to him in earlier scenes. One example of this is his frenzied statement: “I was legally promised fourteen million dollars to purchase hotels and renovate them and re-sell them and the money never came, THANK YOU JESUS!” (72). Here,

Steve chooses to blame God for his problems. This is not an unusual choice, as it rises out of his thought process that God is in control of everything and so much have “intended” for these things to happen.

Other characters respond to their crisis moments in ways that are less inclined to violent tendencies. Earlier in the play, Sam agrees to give Steve fifty thousand dollars to help with the investment, despite his initial (and even sustained) skepticism. Perhaps he views it as a type of absolution of sorts for the guilt he carries about his role in the car accident. Steve’s insistence that he and Sam talk about matters relating to God actually serve to change Sam’s mind, especially after Steve pushes the conversation a bit too far. Immediately after Sam gives Steve his check, Steve turns the conversation to religious issues, probing Steve for answers to his own spiritual history and commitment. After a mild disagreement about the figure of Jesus, Sam articulates his opinion that the concept of Jesus has been manipulated to make religious people feel better about themselves. Steve replies, “So you’re mad at God” (43). Although Sam denies it and attributes his anger to those who do the manipulating, Steve goads Sam by claiming that

God must be allowing these people to do those things:

STEVE. So just admit it, you’re mad at God for religious hypocrisy.

SAM. (after a beat) But I don’t think there’s a God to be mad at.

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STEVE. And you’re mad about that. You’re mad that there’s no one

up there to stop these people from spreading these lies.

SAM. Yeah.

STEVE. Which is the same as being mad at God.

SAM. No, it’s not the same at all!

STEVE. Sure it is, Sam, you’re mad at God for not existing!

Just say it! You’re mad at God for not existing!

SAM. (experimentally) I’m mad at God for not existing.

STEVE. You’re mad at God for religious hypocrisy!

SAM. (less so) I’m mad at God for religious hypocrisy.

STEVE. And you’re mad at God for letting kids in Africa

starve to death and get AIDS, probably. Any smart

person would be.

SAM. Yeah.

STEVE. You’re probably mad at God that people have

to die at all.

SAM. Yeah, I am. . .

STEVE. You’re mad at God for killing your fiancée.

(A long moment passes.)

STEVE. And you’re mad at God for what He’s done to

your face. Just admit it, Sam. It’s okay.

You’re allowed to say it. Just say it.

You’re mad at God.

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SAM. (after a beat, experimentally) I’m mad at God.

STEVE. I know.

SAM. (unexpectedly moved) And, uh, you’d be mad

too, if you woke up tomorrow without her in

your life, and, uh, with a face that looks like this. (44-45)

Steve’s argument here seems to lack some substance. It is a very “black and white” argument which does not allow room for nuance. In the end, this kind of thinking causes his view of the world and of God to implode, once confronted with various crises in his own life. Sam, however, seems willing to engage with more nuanced thinking. The doubt that he expresses does not preclude him from ever accepting faith. In fact, I would argue that his potential adherence to faith in the future would be stronger because of having worked through issues of doubt.

Faith is evidenced not only in ways that are explicitly connected with religion or spirituality, but in ways that seem at first glance to be separate or more “secular.” For instance, when Steve discovers near the beginning of the play that there have been highway shootings in their area of Florida, his first reaction is to “get a pistol for the car” (18), again betraying Steve’s extremism and lack of willingness to consider a nuanced and balanced middle ground.

Additionally, it displays Steve’s faith in what a gun can accomplish as opposed to what his religious faith can accomplish. Late in the play, when Steve threatens Karl with his gun, Karl yells at Steve: “I was having guns in my face before you were even born, Jesus Freak! You wanna shoot me, shoot me! (after a beat) SHOOT ME!” (74). In this moment of crisis, Karl exhibits some perspective and presence of mind, whereas Steve’s world has been so thrown into

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tumult that he does not know what to do except to begin attempts at destroying things around him. His so-called faith has crumbled into a lack of faith.

When Sara is sharing her prayer with Sam, the words she speaks reveal how she has grown to understand and articulate her faith. Not only does she admit that she’s not perfect and ask for forgiveness “for the ways I’ve failed myself” (60), but she then prays “And I’ll forgive you for the ways you’ve failed me” (60). Sam, having been repeating each line after Sara, is taken out of the moment with this phrase. Incredulous to what initially seems heretical, he quickly assimilates it and makes those words his own, continuing his repetition of Sara’s phrases: “And together we’ll start over [. . .]” (60).

Christian principles are communicated in several instances in Wright’s script. Sara’s words echo the Christian sentiment of the value of community when she tells Sam that she despised living in Florida when she and Steve first moved there. “But from the day you let me in,” she says, “it’s been better. Not simpler, I know that. But better. It has been. The idea that maybe, just maybe, knowing you might be the reason I came here got my mind off my own stupid life for a second” (53). Finding joy in relationship with another was a legitimate way for

Sara to work through her moments of crisis. When Sara tells Sam about the prayer she prayed at camp when she was thirteen, he asks her if she “actually felt something,” to which Sara simply replies “Yeah” (56-57). There is a sense of meaning which is experienced or felt by many in the

Christian faith. This sense is often hard to define or describe, yet Sara’s response is perhaps typical of this kind of experience.

Because Sam promised that Sara could see his face if she shared her prayer with him, he allows her to unbandage him. He is reticent at first, yet Sara kindly persuades him that “it’s okay” (58). Her unbandaging is slow, according to Wright’s stage directions, and she takes care

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to calm his anxiety and affirm his value in what is a very vulnerable position for Sam. Sara’s approach to Sam here contrasts with Steve’s approach earlier, which was a casually combative approach in which Sam’s ideas were belittled. Instead, this physical act of Sara uncovering

Sam’s bandages can serve as a metaphor for stripping away what is on the surface in order to reveal one’s self, and of somehow softening Sam’s crisis. There also seem to be echoes of the biblical concept of footwashing, in terms of humbly serving someone else and confronting what might be understood to be ugly about that person, all from a subservient position to them.

In a later scene, Karl feels that he “owes” it to Steve to say that, even though he still doesn’t believe in a God, he does now believe in something. This belief was generated by a chance encounter with Rachel, his Jewish childhood sweetheart who was taken by the Nazis. He saw Rachel at his own wife’s funeral:

KARL. [. . .] I tell her how sorry I am for what happen,

you know? I say, ‘I was scared, Rachel, I’m sorry.

I don’t know what to do, I don’t how to be, you

know, brave enough, and, uh, I’m sorry.’ (beat)

And she says to me [. . .] the sweetest words

I ever in my life. [. . .] I never hear this so big in

my heart. She says: “I understand.” [. . .] She says,

“I understand.” After what I did, she says that to me. (75)

Although Karl’s crisis of faith has not ended, here he recognizes the feasibility of receiving grace or forgiveness. There is value to being offered another chance or a new start, and those chances are not impossible.

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THE MARGINALIZED: A PLAGUE OF ANGELS AND THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK

GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

• A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

In Mark St. Germain’s A Plague of Angels, the character experiencing the greatest amount of crisis is, arguably, Mary Mallon. She has found little welcome as an Irish immigrant to New York City in the early 1900s. She has been apprehended and quarantined in a cottage owned by a hospital on an island near New York City. She has been treated as less than a person by governmental authorities, and caricatured as an agent of death by the newspapers. Her isolation leads her to experience a crisis of faith, as well. She questions God’s motives and purposes and character.

The priest who regularly visits Mary also experiences his own crises. Michael McKuen is a newly ordained minister, and is assigned to meet with Mary, and he finds her to be strong- willed and resistant at first, yet with a willingness to share her thoughts with him after he has exhibited his sincere commitment to being a genuine listener. Michael struggles himself with feeling competent enough to be an official representative of Christianity to her, as he feels that her crises make his qualifications appear too inadequate. Father McKuen experiences an additional crisis when he becomes sick after frequent visits to Mary. Although his doctor assures him that he does not have typhoid, McKuen engages in a repetitive deep cleansing of his hands, so much so that he creates intense pain and bleeding. “All the while, though,” he says, “I was content with the pain; grateful for it, because I didn’t think about Mary” (36).

Dr. Ann Saltzer’s crises include coping with the death of her parents when she was only a young girl. Growing up, she had dreams where she was seated behind the driver of the carriage that killed them. In her dream, instead of her parents getting hit, Saltzer pushed the driver out of

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the carriage to his own death. Originally disturbed by this dream, her perspective changes after her interactions with Mary Mallon. She believes that her dream persona was justified in pushing the driver out of the coach: “I had killed a killer,” Saltzer says. “One man died so two could live. It wasn’t murder, it was saving life, and I’d do it again if I had the chance” (53). This new recognition of Saltzer’s is translated by her into a resolution to search for ways to prohibit

Mary’s release from the hospital, where she would only move to infect other healthy people.

These ways that will prohibit Mary’s release may now include means that would lead to Mary’s own death.

Martin Frazier, a fellow patient on the island hospital, is desperate to meet Mary, as he is also a healthy carrier of typhoid. His crisis experience has led him to accept his own culpability in transferring the sickness to others, specifically the patrons of the candy store he owned. His own acceptance through education of new science has left him desperate to share his experience with others who may be in a similar situation. Mary chooses to remain isolated. Even when

Frazier asks her how he will assimilate back into everyday life (“How can I live with it? Can you tell me that? How do I go on day after day?”), Mary’s reply to him is: “Alone. You do it alone”

(58). Mary’s moments of faith crisis drive her further into isolation. She cannot discuss the value of community, for it is not something that has been offered to her, despite any deep-seated desire to experience it.

The crisis moments in Mary Mallon’s life cause her to question the Christian faith. There are several scenes in St. Germain’s play devoted to discussions about faith between Mallon and

Father McKuen. In one of the first conversations in which Mallon shares her doubts aloud with

McKuen, she states that God’s willingness to forgive anything is a “rumor” (31). In this same scene, she asserts that God must love germs because “God made everything” and “everything he

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made is good” (31). When McKuen challenges her assertion, she reads from passages in the

Bible which seem to support her point. In a later scene, Mallon tells McKuen that she is

“finished with the Bible” and will not read it again, as it is “too willy-nilly” for her (47). Mary’s crisis of faith has brought her to the point where she believes that hope is a worthless pursuit. In the absence of this hope, and feeling no reprieve for the oppression of her circumstances, Mary says to the young priest that “maybe we are made in [God’s] image. Maybe if we work all our lives to feel nothing we can become the monster He is” (51-52). This strong sense of emotion, this close proximity to hatred and resentment, is echoed later in the play when McKuen pleads with Mary to “realize God can forgive anything we do” (63). Mary’s response?: “I don’t forgive Him! [. . .] Who’s ever forgiven me? Did He; your Lord of death and silence? You want me to pray, Father; I do pray. I pray there is no God. I do. Because that would be better than this God who does nothing” (63). Mary’s God, here, seems a little like Steve’s in Grace: removed, detached, unconcerned, inaccessible, even perhaps malicious.

The crises moments in the lives of these characters cause them, after the lapses of time and the reflections of self, to act in sometimes surprising ways. After his experience with Mary,

Father McKuen left the priesthood to become a social worker. His experience with Mallon led him to become more skeptical himself of the Christian faith: “I continue in social service, trying to be more human than God. Waiting, but never expecting, for Him to redeem Himself” (71).

Mallon herself apparently did some reflection of her own after initially leaving the confines of her cottage. Once free, she returned to what she knew how to do well: cook. After more individuals became ill as a result of her cooking, she was eventually apprehended again and taken once more to the isolated cottage, where she lived alone for the last twenty years of her life. Her twenty years of reflection did not lead to other conversations about her life; however,

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they did generate an inscription on her tombstone, for which she paid herself, which reads:

“Mary Mallon. Died November 11, 1938. Jesus. Mercy” (71). This inscription seems to echo something Mary once said to Father McKuen. She seemed to confirm that she still had some true feeling for Christianity in her life when she admonished the young priest to “Believe what you like. Just don’t turn your back on [God]” (50). After more time of imposed solitude, in which there is much time for reflection, it would appear that Mallon has chosen to believe, even as she faced her own death.

There are many passages from the Bible which are read or referenced in this play, both in ways to support or challenge the Christian faith. Father McKuen, in trying to understand Mary’s assertion that perhaps God is using her as an agent of death, searches the Scripture, ostensibly to help affirm his skepticism of Mallon’s statements. Near the end of the first act, he reads from a passage in Isaiah (45:7), which says: “I am the Lord, there is no other. . . I form the light and create the darkness, I make peace, and create evil. I, the Lord do all these things” (42). This passage can especially be connected to doubt and crises of faith. Such a passage could indeed fuel, or even spark, McKuen’s own doubts.

In a charitable exhibition of acceptance, Dr. Saltzer chooses not to poison Mary by injection as she had originally planned to do, in order to “kill a killer,” as she interpreted her dream to say. This decision is made after Mary shares her own story of hardship and immigration with Saltzer, a story which includes details of how she lost her infant daughter and her husband on their way to America. Saltzer extends Mallon a handkerchief and room for some grace, yet this acceptance cannot encompass sharing teacups with her newfound friend, for fear out of contamination. Saltzer’s ultimate rejection of Mallon, although troubled and not easy, does nothing to give Mary the hope of true reconciliation for her with anyone else. Here, some

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doubts have been overcome for Saltzer; however, some doubts still remain, which only

perpetuate even more doubts for both Saltzer and Mallon. These doubts are such that question

the ability for lasting human connection, in addition to questioning the care and concern of God.

• THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

As can perhaps be assumed from the play’s title, the character who experiences the

strongest crisis in Djanet Sears’ The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God is the primary

female in the story: Lorraine (Rainey) Baldwin-Johnson. As mentioned in my previous chapter,

the prologue depicts Rainey pleading with God to save the life of her young daughter, Janie.

This plea, however, does not elicit the type of response Rainey desires. This loss leads to a

series of losses for Rainey. She loses her daughter. She loses her faith. She loses her desire to

remain in a marriage to Janie’s father, a minister named Michael. And, three years later, the acts

of the play chronicle her struggles to come to terms with the losses of all of these parts of what

she once knew as her life. To add to the emptiness of those losses in Rainey’s life is the fact that she may now also lose her father, Abendigo (Ben) Johnson, to an illness in his old age.

For his part, Ben is welcoming the crisis moment of terminal disease. He tells Rainey, a doctor herself, that he wants to leave the hospitial: “I want to go home. I’m ready. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time” (50). Ben’s peace with what is certain to be imminent death for him contrasts with how his daughter handles this “crisis”: “I just get stuck in all these dead places. Why do people have to die?” (52).

In another scene, Michael is giving a sermon about the biblical character of Job. Job was a follower of God who was devout and good. Michael quotes from the passage in the Bible where it chronicles Satan’s challenge to God that Job would curse God were his life to become

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miserable. God, with faith in his servant, allows Satan to have access to Job. Michael continues the story, “’So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.’ And still this good man, this pious man, this man who served God faithfully all his life. Still, with all these trials, Job did not turn away from the Lord”

(71). In the very next scene, Rainey quotes from the book of Job, even though she was not in the audience to hear Michael’s message. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” (72), she says, strongly connecting her own crises to those of Job’s. Rainey’s crisis after the death of her daughter has made her question her life’s work. She had chosen to become a doctor after her beloved stepmother died. “I had to learn how to help, really help people, heal people. . . . Cheat.

. . . Cheat death” (85). Her failure to prevent the death of her own daughter has her pursuing an alternate profession, and has paralyzed her from even visiting her daughter’s grave. She tells

Michael that, if she goes, she’ll “drown. I’ll drown in it. I’ll drown” (87).

Michael’s response to Christianity in crisis seems to encourage others to have faith. In the prologue, he tells the congregation at Janie’s funeral that God “asks us to put our trust in him, especially at those times when faced with things we cannot understand. He is with us. He is by our side” (6). Perhaps this expression of Michael’s is part of what prevents Rainey from feeling comfortable in her marriage to him, as it appears that she does not feel the same way. Even after he tries to comfort her, she struggles out of his arms to say “I begged. I begged him. I begged him, Michael. Michael, I begged God. I begged you. I begged you. I begged you” (7), identifying Michael as a representative of that Christian faith. In a later scene, Rainey talks about how she is “praying a lot lately. I don’t know why I do that either. I don’t even know that

I’m praying. [. . .] I’m not praying to God though. God, the Father. No father of mine would allow Janie . . . [. . .]” (20). She now believes the stars in the night sky not to indicate a

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supernatural world beyond, but instead to reflect a “vast realm of nothingness” (21). This difference between how Michael and Rainey deal with the crisis of losing their daughter is illustrated again in another conversation of theirs where Michael tells Rainey that her decision is too “easy” – “Tragedy strikes and suddenly all your faith dissolves” (29). Equally surprised at what Michael’s response is, Rainey says, seemingly with incredulity, “and your faith grows stronger” (29). Michael’s belief is that “we only grow through our suffering. It is part of God’s plan” (29). Here, for Michael, the doubts and the crisis have purpose. God is not some remote, unfeeling, uncaring entity. Rather, God still feels remote, but perhaps is closer than can be felt.

There is something to be discovered, perhaps, as a result of pain. The crisis of faith can somehow lead to an increased understanding of purpose.

When Rainey and Michael discuss together the role of tragedy in their lives and how they each respond to it differently, Rainey asks with a combination of sarcasm and honesty “And all I have to do is believe?” Michael’s response is taken from Scripture: “ask and you shall receive.

Seek and it shall be given unto you” (30). These words create skepticism for Rainey and seem perhaps too simplistic. She admits that she once felt similarly to Michael, stating “I used to be just like him. Believe, like him” (32). Despite her protests to Michael, however, there seems to be part of the Christian faith that remains somewhere deeply-rooted inside of her. When her father collapses in sickness and exhaustion, Rainey is quick to recall her medical CPR training, and is quick to begin a prayer that is exactly like the one she offered in the prologue when holding her dying daughter: “Oh God! Please, please, please, please God! Oh Jesus. Please.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God” (47). These words seem to come almost involuntarily. As such, they could betray a deeper-seated faith than Rainey would admit. Or, they could be evidence to the fact that Rainey is simply filling the air with a sort of nervous talk, mindlessly speaking

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words that have been engrained in habits since childhood – but words that she probably would not choose to use if she were conscious of them, as they might be evidence of a faith that she no longer espouses.

In a later scene, Rainey tells Michael that she “just can’t let [her father] die” (84), that she still hurts from Janie’s death. She has visions of still being able to save Janie. “If I can run fast enough, faster than time, time will slow down and go backwards. And I can’t. I can’t run fast enough, Michael. I can’t run fast enough” (87). Michael eventually convinces Rainey to visit their daughter’s grave. That scene is not included in the play, but we see Rainey running away from the cemetery and into the creek. Her old wounds feeling fresh, she remarks to her husband: “I hate it. I hate your faith” (88).

The community of faith has an omnipresence throughout this play, as the members of the chorus take different physical forms, most notably Negro Creek, but also the ancestors and the local congregation. When Darese begins to sing the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” at

Janie’s funeral, the chorus of voices join hers, evidencing a community of people who are surrounding Rainey and Michael with support while simultaneously enriching and encouraging each other. The value of community is certainly exhibited throughout this play. This scene is just one example. Here, the community of Christian faith serves to help meet the personal needs of individuals who are experiencing moments of crisis. After Michael’s church is vandalized,

Rainey expresses her condolences for what the perpetrators “did to the church.” “The church isn’t those four walls,” says Michael. “Maybe God is in the people. In those tiny miracles of human kindness” (89). Many Christian faith traditions would indeed affirm Michael’s speculation, here, that the church is made up of people and not buildings. In this broader concept of faith and Christianity, God can indeed be seen and can work not only through Scripture but

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through people. In the last scene, the play ends similarly to how it began – with a funeral. This time, the funeral is for Rainey’s father, not her daughter. The chorus of actors in the play have now again become a community of supporters. They are mourners, and they surround Rainey.

“Often, no words need to be said between them. There are no words” (111). And, just as Darese began to sing a hymn at the end of Janie’s funeral, so now a hymn is sung. This time, the entire chorus together sings, invoking God to “abide with me,” even as “the darkness deepens” (115).

As these characters, adherents of Christian faith, experience dark moments, they invoke one whom they believe will be the “help of the helpless” (115).

Reflections on Doubt and Faith: A Summary of Approaches and Themes

When the characters in these plays experience crisis moments in their faith, they typically run toward or away from what they have known to be true about that faith. First, however, will often come a moment of pause, so to speak, in which the questioning of that faith can occur. For some of the characters, this moment of questioning can lead toward hope. In Christian faith, hope can play the role of longing “with a restless heart for a reality beyond reality” and of trembling “with the possibility of the impossible” (Caputo 15), and of believing that “there is indeed something deeply true about religion” despite the lack of “absolute or capitalized

Knowledge” that can be seen, heard, or touched (Caputo 111). Everything, then, is removed from any concrete type of knowing into the realm of faith through blind belief. Although this might be unsettling for some, noted author Madeleine L’Engle maintains that “faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys;” faith is not something that is “within the realm of verification. If it can be verified, we don’t need faith” (22). This sense of faith as a chosen way,

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thoughtfully selected by an individual after having experienced crises or doubts, seems somehow

to be a truer, deeper understanding of faith. The crisis is not an interruption of faith; it is,

instead, a crucible for a stronger faith.

Lyotard also argues that pleasure can derive from pain (78); perhaps this can be taken to

mean that there is the potential for an eventual reason for suffering, or at least something “good”

that is experienced after having also experienced something “bad.” Frank Burch Brown,

professor of Religion and the Arts at Indianapolis’s Christian Theological Seminary, indicates

that “although God as known to God’s own self must be essentially unknown and

incomprehensible to human beings, God chooses in acts and events of self-communication [. . .]

to relate to humanity truly and trustably, in some manner appropriate to our limitations” (119).

For the characters in these plays, they may not be aware of a larger purpose beyond their crisis,

or a broader connection with humanity because of their crisis, but these purposes and

connections arguably do indeed exist. God’s “ways and truths,” writes Brown, “are far from

rational by our standards” (120), but people of faith are sometimes not meant to understand the

reasoning for trial or suffering; instead, their faith and hope and love in and of God are encouraged to continue.

Christian theology, writes Brown, “is the attempt to understand and reflect methodically on the identity, meaning, and truth of what the Christian tradition confesses, celebrates, and practises” (38). He argues that “to reflect on these things within a Christian framework is to engage in theo-logia (thinking and talking about God), because God is considered the ultimate reference point for all Christian life and practice” (38). For the Christian, God is indeed the ultimate reference point, but God’s position is not necessarily intended to be received by the

Christian as an impersonal dictate; rather, “religious truth is tied up with being truly religious,

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truly loving God, loving God in spirit and in truth” (Caputo 111). This love is a genuine love and is intended to flow out of our genuine appreciation for how God’s love was extended to us before our own was extended to him (as expressed in the gospel of John). John Caputo believes that religion is “for lovers” (13), and that:

the religious sense of life awakens when we lose our bearings

and let go, when we find ourselves brought up against something

that exceeds our powers, that overpowers us and knocks us off

our hinges, something impossible vis-a-vis our limited potencies.

The religious sense of life kicks in when we are solicited by the

voices of the impossible, by the possibility of the impossible,

provoked by an unforeseeable and absolute future. (13)

Sometimes, in moments of crisis or grief, the Christian can have a feeling of being disoriented and uncertain. What can provide hope for the Christian in this situation is, instead of concentrating on what caused the crash, tuning into the sense of what is spiritually possible.

This sense of powerlessness has the potential to be freeing. “The religious sense of life has to do with exposing oneself to the radical uncertainty and the open-endedness of life, with what we are calling the absolute future, which is [. . .] a risky business, which is why faith, hope, and love” are so necessary (Caputo 14, 15).

In his Confessions, St. Augustine’s opening line says that our hearts are restless and will not rest until they rest in God. Although not necessarily a fan of theatre (at least as it found its primary expression during his lifetime), Augustine left insights for the contemporary Christian insights that can move to places where his biases cannot always go; these words of the heart’s restlessness are some examples of just that. L’Engle articulates that, in the Christian life,

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“generally what is more important than getting water-tight answers is learning to ask the right

questions” (15), and Caputo offers what he calls a “modest contribution to [the] ageless

restlessness of the human heart [. . .]: we do not know who we are - that is who we are” (18).

This idea of embracing the mystery of life, and growing comfortable with “holding” uncertainty has value when undertaking a study such as this one. The one experiencing the crisis should not necessarily look first for the reasons why the crisis has come; instead, there is value to living in the mysterious moment, and trying to come to terms with the circumstances of the crisis. When tragedy befalls, and we are forced to examine what it is that we truly believe, we will respond to faith either with more fervent adherence or with a turn toward abandonment. The moments of disquiet associated with dark times of crisis and doubt are instrumental in leading us to that response.

The crises of faith, experienced by the characters in these plays and exhibited for the plays’ audiences, hold the potential for meaningful discussion and thought regarding how

various Christians, in their understanding and practice of Christianity, interact with their

contextual cultures, experience doubt and crisis, and attempt to reconcile those moments of

uncertainty and tragedy with their faith. These plays allow for the investigation of crises of faith,

without feeling the unnecessary burden of ending the plays with completely tidy resolutions.

In this chapter, I have sought to explore how these plays address issues of Christian faith,

specifically relating to the nature of that faith and when moments of crisis emerge relating to that

faith. I have striven to further highlight the relationship between faith and doubt, including how

the two reference and challenge each other and how, in some cases and for some individuals, the

two even seem to strangely be strengthened by the other. Drama is particularly good at shaping

crises, and that is certainly true for the scripts in this study. Particularly, the apparently

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oppositional forces of faith and doubt help to create the conflict and reveal the characters within these plays. For some, to truly feel a sense of deep Christian faith, they must also experience some very real moments of crisis or doubt. As I mentioned earlier in this study, Christian faith is not always simply blithely accepted. It must endure being interrogated by those who claim it or who are considering claiming it – those who ask difficult questions in order to better understand their own commitment to or rejection of that faith.

I believe that this chapter connects to themes in chapter four and chapter three, in that quick, clear answers are not always readily available (nor are they always immediately sought) as they relate to Christianity in the contemporary cultural moment. There is something to be said for embracing the mystery and holding the uncertainty. In my conclusion, I attempt to further explore these connections that can be made across the chapters of this study.

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CHAPTER SIX. CONCLUSION CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE: FAITH IN CULTURE

In this concluding chapter, I first investigate how the lives of the characters are religious,

how these expressions of religion are connected with human experience, and how Christian

concepts are present in the pages of these playscripts. Following that, I endeavor to offer some

concluding thoughts for this study, in which I observe connections between the plays that are a

part of it and contemporary understandings of Christianity.

As I mentioned in a previous chapter, one can see varied presentations of Christianity

even among blatantly “Christian” individuals in the media of recent years, from the late Jerry

Falwell to Benny Hinn, and from Fred Phelps to Robert Schuller. The religious right. The faith

healers. The gay bashers. And proponents of a “feel-good” gospel. This list can go on. How

can there be such a difference of opinion with such similarity in some of the words by which

they identify themselves: “Christian,” “Christ follower,” etc.? All of these individuals identify

themselves as “Christian,” but the modus operandi of each seems to stand in stark contrast with

some of their fellow individuals also claiming Christian faith.

Bearing in mind such variance in how Christianity is lived in the daily actions and words

of these individuals, as well as the seemingly inherent controversy that comes with media

explorations into Christian faith, such as The Passion of the Christ, how can one wade through the intensity of opinion in attempts to understand the “mission” of some of these individuals?

One is confronted with various questions: What is Christianity? Who can represent

Christianity? How is Christianity represented? In that representation, is it actually

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misrepresented? How is Christianity misunderstood? Although I cannot provide definitive

answers to these questions, it is my hope to explore potential answers to these questions by

investigating the scripts of this study. In their pages, I assert that there is quite the variance in

how Christianity is lived in the actions and words of the characters that populate these scripts.

In his book On Religion, professor of religion John Caputo states that “having a religious sense of life is a very basic structure of our lives [. . .] that should be placed alongside other very basic things, like having an artistic sense or political sense” (8, 9). He later clarifies that “there is a fundamentally religious quality to human experience itself. [. . .] There is a deeply religious element within us all, with or without religion, so this little essay on religion is also an essay on being human” (109). Caputo notes that he borrows this idea of “religion without religion” from Jacques Derrida, someone whom Caputo interviewed, wrote about, and respected.

In fact, On Religion is dedicated “to Jacques Derrida, who loosened my tongue.” For Caputo,

religion, then, is simply a part of everyone, whether they attest to being “religious” or not,

whether they attend religious ceremonies or not; it is just a part of how the human being is

comprised. Considering this, examinations into faith can be made on behalf of those in the plays

who claim to be religious as well as those who do not.

Not only can religion be located within a person, as Caputo argues, but the structures of

religion can exist outside of a person. Cultural critic Judith Buddenbaum states that “both mass

media and religion shape public opinion” (30); extrapolated and combined, then, it would make

sense that religious forms of mass media are attempting to do the same thing, to shape public

opinion. Similarly, media scholar Quentin Schultze observes that “religion and popular culture

have long shared a love-hate relationship, alternately courting and criticizing each other” (39),

which has resulted in the fact that popular culture can seem “both highly religious and deeply

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secular” (46). He also notes how this combination does not always do justice to the complexities

of faith: “Mainstream popular culture dilutes the authority of established religious traditions.

Commercial popular culture, in particular, constantly creates a lowest-common-denominator religiosity that implicitly challenges the particular beliefs of virtually all religious groups” (40).

To give just one example of this process, Schultze cites the television series Touched by an

Angel, in which, he argues, “popular culture expresses an amorphous faith that flattens religious

traditions” (40).

This “flattening” of religious traditions can transform an expression of Christian faith in

the culture from something that initially appears to be sympathetic with that faith (Touched by

an Angel might appear, on the surface, as an affirmation of Christian principles) into something

with which many people of faith take issue (due to the aforementioned show’s implied

inclusivity for all persons with “moral values,” so to speak, OR due to how certain theological

arguments seem to lack the sophistication that various religious groups might desire for them to

have). This television program and other expressions of faith in culture, like the plays in this

study, have the potential to become a part of a “culture war,” as articulated by Stout earlier in

this study.

In the pages that follow, I will attempt to explore patterns of behavior or belief in the

lives of the characters, partially by asking how they exhibit, embody, or carry out their Christian

faith. When asking how the characters are religious, I will investigate what elements of

Christian religion are present in the lives of characters in these plays, how the characters

perceive Christianity, and how the Christian religion is connected with human experience.

Additionally, I consider how concepts are present in these scripts that can be understood to be

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representative of Christianity. In these examples, there is room for both the group and the individual dynamic in the expression of Christian faith.

THE SEPARATISTS: QUIET IN THE LAND AND AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

• QUIET IN THE LAND

At the beginning of this play, there is a religious ceremony involving the adult baptism of two eighteen-year olds: Kate Brubacher and Menno Miller. A third individual who was also raised in the Amish tradition but who chose not to be baptized is Jacob (Yock) Bauman. After the ceremony, Yock asks Menno why he “knuckled under” and joined the church. “God wanted me to,” Menno replies. Despite encouragement from his father, he claims it was his own choice:

“I prayed about it. . . and [. . .] it’s like you want to fly, you’re that happy” (16-17). At the beginning of the play, Yock explains why he did not choose to be baptized along with Menno and Kate: “I couldn’t just say the words, not when I don’t believe them” (19). Although this phrase might seem at first glance to be anti-Christian because Yock’s decision was to not join the church, I believe that it still is a Christian concept in that it embodies speaking truth and meaning what you say.

Yock’s grandmother, Hannah, tells Yock in a later scene that he will have to join the church next year. She wants her son Christy to become bishop and “a bishop’s son has to set an example” (37). Some contemporary Christians express their religion through orchestrating all the right appearances. Christy, concerned about appearances but also what they represent, interrogates Yock about why he missed the baptismal ceremony. Yock tells his father that a non-

Amish friend of his, Paddy O’Rourke, got his car stuck in a swamp: “I just couldn’t leave him there, Pa.” Zepp Brubacher, Christy’s friend, is quick to point out that “there’s something about

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that in the Bible, isn’t there?” (26), highlighting the act of serving others in helpful ways. Zepp himself is quick to offer similar help himself later in the play when Mr. O’Rourke mentions that the war has made it difficult on their own farm as they are “short of hands” (40).

Some of the younger Amish in the community find it frustrating when Christy becomes the local bishop. Martha, Kate’s sister, states: “all he’s doing is preaching about what we’re doing wrong” (74). Even Hannah, Christy’s mother, is motivated to say to her son: “You don’t get stray sheep back by yelling at the ones that stayed put” (75). It is important to keep in mind that the individual expressions of religion are not one-dimensional. Humans are complicated beings, and issues are not always perceived in a manner that is traditionally “black and white.”

Near the end of the play, Kate gives an example of how this is true for her community with an insight regarding her bishop: “Christy can be so hateful and hard to please. And then he smiles at you and you feel that safe” (91).

Menno is motivated to be more evangelical in his expression of Christianity. He advocates for some machinery to help with the farming so that the Amish can have more time to share their religion with others: “The word of God is important. That’s what we ought to be planting. And not just in our own fields” (78). In a scene between Menno and Zepp when they are working the fields, Menno has been talking with Zepp about the increasing importance of evangelism and speaking about their religion. Zepp’s response to Menno is: “I suppose we got a choice. . . we can talk about the word of God. . . or we can live it. Now, I’m not sure which the

Lord would prefer, but I’m sure He’ll never be short of those wanting to talk” (78). Does the way Christianity is given flesh by its adherents have to be limited to a dichotomy of “only words” or “only actions”? No; the two should be consistent with each other. However, if one is

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to be valued more highly than the other, it would seem that the old maxim of “actions speak louder than words” is more than appropriate here.

Christy accuses Menno of not being true to Scripture: “You pore over the Bible, not for comfort, not for wisdom. No, you’re looking for ways to put your elders in the wrong. You take a couple of words out of a verse, you twist them all around so you can justify any fancy thing you want” (94). When Kate is nervous that Menno will start a new church because of a disagreement with Christy, she meets with her mom to share her fears. If the split occurs, Kate hopes that Lydie and Zepp would leave, too, and come with her. She even suggests that Lydie would be able to have a telephone and a piano if they split. Lydie assures Kate that she only wants “them things on the outside. The church is on the inside. All them things are just what might be nice, like summer all year ‘round” (99).

By the end of the play, Kate is frustrated with what she perceives to be a lack of compassion in her Amish church. She pleads with Christy to accept Yock back into the community after he has been to war: “You can leave him damned or you can help him. And if you turn your back on him now, I’m leaving the church. And I’m not just switching my membership, I’m clearing right out. Because the church is supposed to be about love, and it’s not” (105). In the final scene of the play, Yock hopes aloud to Kate that he will be able to find acceptance somewhere in a Christian environment: “Even if they won’t take me back, I could find another church. There must be one that’ll take a repentant sinner” (103). Later in this scene, Christy says to Yock: “You. . . you can be saved. . . you just. . . you can’t. . .” (107), indicating that there is hope for Yock to have a place in Christian circles, only not in his specifically Amish one.

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• AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

The play begins with a Shaker hymn, followed by a time of communal confession. The

“sisters” of the Shaker community individually stand, one at a time, to confess their sins before the entire group. Many of the women who live in this religious community begin to have what they believe to be spiritual visions. Fanny, one of the newcomers to the group, tells of being able to see light and hear music.

Members of this community are given the opportunity to sign a covenant to officially join the group when they are of a certain age and when they have lived with the sisters for a certain length of time. Polly, another one of the newcomers, asks Rachel how she knew she was ready to sign the covenant and officially join the community. She asks if Rachel “just suddenly became a believer” (26). Betsy, a deaconess, replies that you “don’t have to be a believer to sign the covenant. [. . . you] just have to try.” She continues by encouraging Polly to “have faith and belief will come. Work like you believe. Sing like you believe” (26). This can relate to Robert

Webber’s assertion in chapter three that the Younger Evangelicals “minister in a new paradigm of thought” (48). Betsy’s encouragement to Polly to “have faith and belief will come” seems to echo Dawn Haglund’s description of Christianity moving from a paradigm of “behave, believe, belong” (Webber 48) to belonging first (emphasis mine), following by belief and then behavior.

Rachel, who is a longtime Shaker, encourages the newcomers to keep their “eyes on heaven. Not on earthly wants” (28), as Mother Ann Lee taught. The next Shaker hymn that is sung in the script is by Polly, with the words singing of setting aside thoughts that may be considered to be selfish: “My carnal life I will lay down because it is depraved” (29). The songs included throughout the script provide a nice expression of how religion is present in the lives of these characters. The words of the Shaker hymns are indicative of the spiritual concepts to

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which these women aspire. In one scene (nineteen), a Shaker worship service is portrayed. The women sing together a Shaker song, the refrain of which bids the participants to “sing on, dance on, followers of Emmanuel,” which is a biblical word meaning “God, with us.” Each woman has the opportunity to sing a line, which the other women will repeat to create the verses between the repeated refrain. The lines the women contribute include “O sisters, ain’t you happy,” “I mean to be obedient,” “I’ll cross my ugly nature,” “I love to attend to order,” and “I’m glad I am a

Shaker” (47-48). The songs that are present throughout the script strongly reflect Christian principles or concepts. One Shaker hymn in particular speaks to the importance of living in community: “If ye love not each other in daily communion, how can ye love God, whom ye have not seen?” (61).

Early in the second act, Peggy, a longtime Shaker, sings the words to the Lord’s prayer:

“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is done in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (56). This prayer is still used as a religious expression for many Christians across denominational lines.

Late in the play, Hannah, the eldress of this particular Shaker group, is communicating with Fanny, one of the newcomers. Fanny has been testifying to the fact that she has been the recipient of spiritual visions. Hannah does not take this to be true, believing instead that Fanny is construing these things herself:

HANNAH. [Angels] are not here, I’m telling you.

[. . .]

You have created this yourself.

FANNY. Why do they talk to me?

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HANNAH. Indeed. Why would angels speak to you? (64)

In this scene, Hannah exhibits her prejudiced opinion that young believers cannot be vessels of spiritual gifts, especially believers who have not officially joined the church by signing the covenant. This viewpoint is still present in contemporary culture for some who are skeptical of anything new and feel that God must speak through the oldest, and most “experienced” members of a particular Christian group.

Near the beginning of the play, the newcomers are encouraged to utilize their abilities for the edification of the community. In one instance, Hannah affirms Jane’s ability to make “fine oatmeal sweetcakes,” and asks her to contribute to the group in that way. Instead of feeling put upon, Jane is honored with the opportunity to serve, especially because she knows that “Sister

Peggy always does the baking.” Hannah’s response is that “sometimes we need to change the way we do things” (18). Little does Hannah know that she will need to heed these same words in a much different context later in the play. Hannah also exhibits her welcoming spirit to the newcomers when she tells Fanny that she is safe with the Shakers, “and kindly welcome” (20).

Providing this type of safe place or haven can reflect the hospitality evident in various Christian communities throughout generations.

Later in the play, when other sisters are talking about levels of faith and belief, Rachel shares her opinion that you “have to want to believe. It’s the journey that matters” (26). This focus on the journey can parallel the Christian notion of sanctification, in that becoming more like Christ as followers of Christianity does not happen immediately after saying some “magic words,” so to speak.

When Izzy must leave the community to be reunited with her long-lost father, she is extremely saddened to be separated from the sisters. Jane, a newcomer who has lost several

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children, is sensitive to Izzy’s situation and likely feels that she is losing another child, in a way.

She promises to write to Izzy, even though she does not know how. Her love for Izzy compels her to learn new things in order to give in new ways. And, indeed, near the end of the play,

Hutton scripts a scene in which Jane is learning to read from Betsy, with the Bible as her textbook. Specifically, she is reading from a familiar passage known as the “Beatitudes”:

“Blessed are the poor in the spirit,” “the meek,” “those that mourn,” “those that hunger and thirst after righteousness,” etc. (71). This scene also serves to almost bookend the script with a reference to this scripture, because Hutton, in her cast list, identifies one of the beatitudes with each of the characters (10).

When other women besides the newcomers see and hear visions, as Fanny has been doing, Hannah still cannot see them. She desperately pleads to be able to see, but her request is not granted. As a result of this, however, Hannah realizes that she has misjudged Fanny and treated her with a lack of charity. In one of the final scenes in the play, as Fanny is preparing to join another Shaker community, Hannah kneels at Fanny’s feet, removes Fanny’s shoes and washes her feet. Footwashing is a Christian custom that traditionally expresses respect and servitude. This way of honoring someone else is often uncomfortable for the observer or even the participants, but it is a powerful picture of how Christians are to treat and serve one another with humility. Jesus himself washed the feet of his disciples, as recorded in the New Testament.

Here, this seemingly simple act of Hannah’s symbolizes contrition and an expression of restoration.

THE FUNDAMENTALISTS: GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS AND GRACE

• GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS

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The first time Dr. Philip Gottschall appears in David Rambo’s play God’s Man in Texas, he is described as “vigorous, leonine, [and] magnetic” (15). He is kneeling “beside the pulpit, praying silently, bathed in a shaft of heavenly light from the TV broadcast-strength spotlights above” (15). This scene seems to combine some of the Traditional Evangelical with some of the

Pragmatic Evangelical, as articulated by Robert Webber. Specifically, here, it is the mediatized world with which the Pragmatic Evangelical is familiar, and the senior minister who represents the Traditional Evangelical. Here in this scene, I believe that Gottschall is aware of the significance of his outward posturing and its connection with a perceived strength of inward faith.

At one point, Gottschall confronts Jerry with an accusation of conspiracy, an accusation he also leveled at Hugo earlier in the day. However, this time, Gottschall attempts to use passages from the Bible to support his own opinion about Jerry: “These six things doth the Lord hate: [. . .] a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, [. . .] feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren” (60-61). Sometimes, misperceptions lead to inaccurate accusations. In Gottschall’s vehement attack on what he believes to be sin, he is unaware of the ugly presence of some of these things in his own life.

Jerry’s first sermon given at Rock Baptist ends with a traditional “altar call” invitation:

“Come. Come forward now. As God is speaking to you right now, Jesus is listening. Come.

This is the moment. All your days on earth have been building up to this moment, right now, when you come forth and let Jesus be your savior. Come. He died for you. His Father is calling you. Hear his whisper. Come. Come” (17). Earlier in the same sermon, Jerry talks about the voice of God. He speaks of the “power of a father’s voice; so terrifying when it thunders and so

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reassuring when it’s a whisper” (16). This concept of a reassuring whisper is consistent with

biblical passages, and bookends the playscript. Immediately after introducing this concept, Jerry

gives an example from the biblical books of First Kings and Exodus. He talks about God’s whispered words recorded in those books to Elijah and Moses, respectively. At the end of the play, when Jerry has removed himself from the context of Rock Baptist Church and is pursuing a ministry apart from a megachurch environment, he prays to hear a reassuring message from God:

“Whisper in my ear, and I will proclaim. [. . .] Lord, I’m listening” (65). This searching for the whisper, apart from grand notions of celebrity, depicts a faith commitment to Christianity which is arguably more concerned with understanding and exhibiting an authentic faith, a commitment which is largely unconcerned with how other humans perceive the one who is in search of this strengthening and expanding of faith.

Gottschall claims to stand for the truth of the Bible: “The word cannot be chopped up, molded, subverted to suit what passes for popular morality these days. [. . .] The word is not some roadside fruit stand; pick what looks pretty and tastes sweet, and ignore the rest. [. . .]

Gotta take the sweet and the sour” (23). Again, here Gottschall may not be aware of how he

himself might be selecting the passages of Scripture that best suit his needs. In the same scene,

Jerry states his belief that “one of the reasons God sent his son to live among us was to give us a

model, an ideal. Whether we sell cars, preach, or pitch vitamins, he speaks to all mankind” (21).

This statement parallels the New Testament passage in the apostle Paul’s first book to the

Corinthians where he states that “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the

glory of God” (I Corinthians 10:31), and also seems to be a concept resonant with the notion of

“younger evangelicals” of life as ministry.

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• GRACE

Steve and Sara are a young, married couple who have recently moved to Florida from

Minnesota. In the first scene, Sara is listening to a Christian pop song in her apartment when

Steve enters with what to him is great news. When he tells her that “we got the call,” and that

bonds are being issued, Sara’s “Praise God!” is, according to Craig Wright’s stage directions,

“utterly sincere” (4). She interrupts Steve’s story to insist that they pray right then, even if it’s

“just real quick” (5). Just after the beginning of the play, when Sara asks Steve to pause in the

telling of his story of good news to pray, she exhibits a serenity and a comfort with herself in that

moment. While Steve has been impatient for the prayer to end so that he can continue his story,

Wright tells us that “Sara’s eyes are still closed. A moment passes. She smiles, feeling a

genuine deep peace” (6).

Steve seems to exhibit a view of Christianity which seems to resonate with a

contemporary cultural phenomenon in Christianity which has come to be known as the

prosperity gospel. Essentially, this approach to theology takes the opinion that God wants all

Christians to be prosperous on earth, including financially. Such a view can be interpreted in

these words of Steve’s: “From our point of view, I asked the Lord for five million dollars at the

Believer’s Convention last year in Saint Paul, I’ve worked the Five Spiritual Principles, I’ve

been a prayer warrior, I just got fourteen” (10). In contemporary Christian culture, this type of

approach to Christianity has often been called subscribing to a “recipe theology.”32

Steve is extremely energetic about sharing his Christian faith. Some of his actions and words seem to typify what many in contemporary culture have come to experience as the words of extremely religious individuals with a specific agenda. Instead of being interested in listening

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to the stories of others, or in building relationships, they are primarily seeking to “win converts.”

One of the first questions he asks people, including the exterminator, Karl, who visits their apartment, is “D’ja go to church, growing up?” (22). Sara is uncomfortable with continuing the conversation when Karl is clearly not receptive to Steve’s line of questioning (“Steve, maybe we should just. . .”), yet Steve is determined to press the issue, feeling supremely confident that he has been shown the right path in life: “I [. . .] asked God to show me the truth, and He did [. . .]”

(24).

Steve also uses his faith as an “excuse” of sorts to not thoroughly investigate issues with logic or reason. Steve and Sara are endeavoring to begin a chain of Christian hotels. The call

Steve received at the beginning of the play was to tell him that the idea was being bankrolled by a Mr. Himmelman in Europe. However, when weeks pass with no sign of the money, Steve’s faith is still unwavering, claiming to their neighbor, Sam, that they money will be wired

“because Mister Himmelman’s on the hook for it. He promised me” (35). Steve here evidences a trusting quality in the nature of his religion, a “faith” required in his Christian faith. In the trust, he also seems to disregard common sense.

Sara tells Sam that she “prayed the prayer” to “accept Jesus into [her heart]” when she was an adolescent at Bible Camp. When Sam asks her if she “actually felt something,” Sara replies with a simple “Yeah” (56-57). Sam pursues this further by asking if Sara really felt that someone was listening. “No, not someone,” replies Sara. “It wasn’t a someone. It was more like Everything Else was listening. Like the Everything Else was a Someone. Somehow” (57).

Sam asks to hear the prayer, but it is personal to Sara. So, she asks for something personal in return – to see Sam’s face which he keeps bandaged. He complies, although reluctantly at first,

32 In the early 2000s, many Christians exhibited a similar assumption after reading the popular book The Prayer of

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and then Sara speaks the prayer. Sam feels compelled to repeat each phrase after Sara, even

though Sara tells him he does not have to do that. There is a strong tradition of formulaic prayer

in some Christian religious traditions and denominations, including in fundamentalist ones. The

words can indeed be powerful. However, when spoken emptily, the words can also be robbed of

their meaning.

When Steve’s life is falling down around him, he loses the sense of balance and purpose

to which he had been clinging. Mister Himmelman’s promise was never realized. Sara has

become romantically involved with Sam. When his faith in others is shattered, his faith in

Christianity shatters, as well. He loads a gun and plays Russian roulette. Each time the gun fails

to produce a bullet, he inserts another one, saying “[God] wants this to happen. He won’t be

happy until I’m dead” (69). Steve, in his fury and confusion, asks Sara if she thinks it is God’s

will that she be with Sam instead of with him. When she responds in the affirmative, he replies

“Of course you do, Sara. It’s what’s good for you” (78). Although speaking from his anger,

Steve has a valid point in this argument. Sometimes, Christians have the notion that what they

perceive to be the happiest path for them must also necessarily equal God’s plan. While God

arguably does not want all Christians to be miserable, I believe that the ugly parts of life are not

to be avoided. As discussed in the previous chapter, Christians have the potential to grow in

faith as a result of hardship, doubt, and crisis.

Karl returns near the end of the play and tells Steve that he owes Steve something. He

tells of how his wife died from cancer recently, but at the cemetery, he saw Rachel, his

childhood sweetheart. She had survived the Nazi camps in World War Two. When he

apologized to her, she extends grace to him and says that she understands. “So. I owe you to

Jabez, believing that saying a certain prayer would achieve earthly riches for the speaker.

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say,” Karl says to Steve, “You are still a Jesus Freak. And there is no God. But there is something, Jesus Freak. [. . .] There is something in the world that waits, and then [. . .] comes back for us. Sometimes” (75). Here, Karl’s willingness to engage with an idea he previously rejected can be an example of the value of connecting with the ambiguities and embracing the mysteries of life.

THE MARGINALIZED: A PLAGUE OF ANGELS AND THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK

GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

• A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

In Mark St. Germain’s A Plague of Angels, two of the characters offer their thoughts on

Christianity more consistently than the others in the playscript: Mary Mallon and Father Michael

McKuen. Through a series of interchanges interspersed throughout the play, St. Germain deftly charts the progression of the spiritual journeys of Mallon and McKuen. At the beginning of the play, McKuen is admittedly idealistic in his youthful exuberance to serve God and the church.

He tells of his first encounters with Mallon, to whom he was assigned to meet regularly. Being newly ordained, he visited with ambitions, no doubt, to share long and significant conversations about Mary’s faith. McKuen’s idealism was to learn a quick lesson from reality: “I saw Mary once a week. I brought her a Bible, smiled for forty-five minutes while she ignored me and knit.

After my second visit I smiled less; on my third I brought the newspaper” (12).

Mary Mallon is being kept against her will under forced quarantined conditions, for she is believed to be a healthy carrier of typhoid. She does not believe herself to be responsible for anyone else’s sickness, as she herself has not been sick. Father McKuen tells a story of when

Mallon requested to be administered the sacraments: “’Of course,’ I told her, ‘but you need to

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make a confession first.’ ‘I have nothing to confess,’ she said, ‘I have nothing to be sorry for’”

(21). Early in the script, St. Germain establishes what will become a recurring type of

conversation between Mallon and McKuen: something I call the “Bible war.” This “war” occurs

when these two characters use various biblical passages to advocate a position or prove a point.

“Of course, you have to read things in context” (16), says McKuen. Mallon is quite happy to

oblige, citing another verse in more context. This passage also reflects a phenomenon that exists

in contemporary culture yet has existed for hundreds of years before today: using the Bible to

support a position to which one is wholly committed, without necessarily studying the context or

content of the Bible.

McKuen earns Mallon’s trust, however, through his consistent visits and sincere

demeanor, and she takes the initiative to allow the conversation to enter what is more personal

territory for her: “I want to ask you some questions about God” (30). Although Mallon and

McKuen do not always agree on interpretations of the bible and of theology, they generally share their ideas in a non-threatening way, which transforms Mary’s “cell” into a safe place for honest dialogue, where both of their views can be challenged in healthy ways. One of Mary’s questions concerns the nature of suffering. She posits that God must love germs, because “God made everything” and “everything God made is good,” so he “must love them” (31).

FATHER. I really don’t think God loves sickness.

MARY. No? (She picks up her Bible, turns to a passage.)

“So angry was the Lord that when he departed and

the cloud withdrew from the tent, there was Mariam,

a snow white leper. Then Moses cried to the Lord,

Please, not this, pray, heal her –“ (Mary puts down

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Book.) He didn’t. But he did that to her, God.

FATHER. (Interrupting) Yes, Mary, but Jesus also cured the sick.

MARY. (Pause) Not all of them.

FATHER. He cured lepers, the blind, the crippled…

MARY. He didn’t cure all of them! (Looks quickly into the Bible,

Luke 7, 20-22, and hands it to Father.) Look there. Read.

FATHER. “At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases

And sickness and evil spirits and gave sight to many who

Were blind –“

MARY. “Many,” it says. He cured “many.” So there were those

He did not cure. Or would not.

FATHER. Mary, what are you saying? (32)

Mary believes, or at least wants to believe, that God is responsible and she is not. “I’m just His cook,” she says. “It’s His hand that cures, his hand that kills, not mine” (33).

Mary experiences several flashback scenes in the play, where she remembers with fondness a time when she lived in the house of a former employer, as their cook. She shared a special bond with the family’s daughter, Sarah. It is later learned that Sarah succumbs to typhoid. In one of the flashbacks, Mary is firm with Sarah that she needs to say her prayers before a bedtime story can be read. Yet, after the prayer, when Sarah says to Mary “I prayed for you,” Mary reprimands: “Don’t do that. [. . .] There’s plenty who need it more” (35). Mary’s statement here seems to prefigure her crisis of faith which is to come. Perhaps her faith crisis will lead her to believe that prayer is ineffectual, or perhaps she will come to believe that her own situation is beyond hope.

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After a lot of discussion with Father McKuen where she playfully espouses Darwinism

and other seemingly non-Christian viewpoints (at least in the traditional understanding of the

word), Mary says to him: “Believe what you like. Just don’t turn your back on Him” (50),

exhibiting a stubborn belief in God despite her stubborn questions. However, her belief in the

existence of a God does not necessarily mean that her feelings toward that God are charitable.

Her life has been difficult, and filled with loss, accusation, and isolation. She tells Father

McKuen, “Maybe we are made in His image. Maybe if we work all our lives to feel nothing we can become the monster He is” (51-52). This view of God as detached from the torment of our existence is also not a new concept and is still one that persists for some in contemporary culture.

This also recalls, to some extent, the examination of faith crisis that was discussed in my previous chapter.

Near the beginning of the play, Mallon’s skepticism of a picture of Christianity that is all

happiness all the time is made clear, as well as her self-identification with other skeptics of the

past: “I’ve been re-reading Deuteronomy. Would you like to read it? In context?,” Mary asks

(16). She continues by reading directly: “‘And the generation to come of your children that shall

rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land shall say, when they have seen

the plagues and the sickness which the Lord hath laid upon it: Wherefore hath the Lord done

this?’” After putting down the Bible, Mary adds her own punctuation by stating: “I take some

comfort in that” (16).

When Mary stubbornly insists that she was a “good cook” who “didn’t make their

germs,” she also suggests that “Only God could do that” (32). She takes the opportunity to

wonder aloud about the nature of death:

MARY. God calls us to him when he likes. We don’t know

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his plans, his reasons.

FATHER. Of course not.

MARY. We all die. What’s a day or a lifetime when we know

in the end we’ll all be called to God?

[. . .]

MARY. So when sickness takes us, is it always a punishment?

Or is it a reward, being called home to the House of

the Lord?

[. . .]

MARY. They call them germs; I don’t know if I believe in them,

but even if I did, I don’t think I’d call them germs.

To me, they sound like angels. (33)

In this context for Mary, germs can serve as angels, as they would function as an escape from her suffering and oppression. They would become vehicles for ushering her into paradise and away from her quarantined world of imprisonment where others call into question her life’s work and passion.

Immediately before their conversation about God and Charles Darwin, Mallon decisively says to Father McKuen: “I’m finished with the Bible. I won’t read that again” (47). Continuing to explain her position, Mary articulates that “it’s too willy-nilly for me. Speaks out of both sides of its Testaments. ‘Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth’ says the Old. ‘Turn the other cheek’ says the New. Jesus gushing over the Poor on the Mount, and then complaining to his

Merry Men when they buy food for those poor instead of perfume for his feet. Sort of like Tea

Leaves, don’t you think, Father? You read into them what you wish, back up whatever you

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believe with some chapter and verse if you searched hard enough” (47-48). This seems to

correspond with characters in other plays of this study who use the Bible for similar purposes: to

justify personal opinion and support subjective viewpoints. However, it also portrays Mary as

someone who is unwilling to consider nuance in this instance, choosing instead to dismiss

difficult dialogues as simply being contrary.

• THE ADVENTURES OF A BLACK GIRL IN SEARCH OF GOD

Djanet Sears’ 2003 play The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God begins with a prayer: “Oh God! Please, please, please God! Oh Jesus. Please. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God”

(5). The character uttering these words is Lorraine (Rainey) Baldwin Johnson, an African-

Canadian woman in her late 30s or early 40s. Her body is moving quickly, as if rushing to some hoped-for rescue, and she is carrying the limp body of her young daughter in her own arms. She stops, and lifts the child toward heaven and begins to merge her own words with the words of the

Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven. Please. I beg you. Beg you. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. . .” (5). Rainey, the wife of a minister, begins the play with an expression of her religion. Her situation is a desperate one, and her initial instinct here is to attempt to connect with what her religion has taught her is a “higher power.” In

Rainey’s prayer at the very beginning of the play, she includes a plea for her daughter which involves a notion of sacrifice: “And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. And I will do anything. Take me. Please. Take me instead” (6).

Michael Baldwin, in his early 40s, is husband to Rainey Baldwin-Johnson. In the prologue, Rainey’s pleading prayer of desperation is intercut with a sermon of sorts from

Michael. After a few lines, it becomes clear that Michael’s message is being given at the funeral

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of their daughter, Janie. This message of Michael’s includes the words that “the Lord calls on all

of us, each and every one of his children to have abiding faith. He asks us to put our trust in

him, especially at those times when faced with things we cannot understand. He is with us. He

is by our side” (6).

When Michael begins to quote from the Christian hymn “What a Friend We Have in

Jesus,” emotion overtakes him. When this occurs, an older member of the congregation, Darese,

stands and sings the song, exhibiting a generosity of spirit to sing the song “for” Michael while

also exhibiting a sense of community to the mourning family, for, as she stands and sings, she is

joined by the other members of the congregation in a show of spiritual support.

In the second scene of the first act, Rainey has an extensive monologue, which Sears has

structured to, at least in part, break the theatrical framing of the “fourth wall” when the stage directions say “She [Rainey] looks out at the audience” (18). In this monologue, Rainey also recollects the death of her adoptive mother, Martha: “I hate that word – ‘passed.’ Gone on. Like there’s something to go on to” (19). Here is where we begin to see some of the doubts Rainey has about elements of the Christian faith, including, as in this instance, the notion of supernatural life after earthly death. Later in the same monologue, Rainey shows another instance of this doubt when she says: “I’m just praying. . . . Funny, I’m praying a lot lately. I don’t know why I do that either. I don’t even know that I’m praying. [. . .] I’m not praying to God though. God, the Father. No father of mine would allow Janie. . .” (20).

Rainey’s father, Abendigo (Ben) Johnson, is aging and ill yet paradoxically still so full of life. He is a retired judge who has not lost his sense of justice. He fights for issues which are important to him and to others in his community. And he feels a deep sense of connectedness to the soil of his ancestors. In scene seven, he tells Rainey: “Seven generations of Johnsons are

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buried in that church ground. I want to be buried facing the creek” (55). Rainey responds, “I want to be cremated” (56).

ABENDIGO. Well, you can do what you want. I’m just

glad I won’t be there to see you go up in

flames.

RAINEY. I don’t believe I’ll be there either, Pa. [. . .]

(56)

Rainey’s response seems to refer, perhaps even unknowingly, to the ancient Christian Paul’s statement that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.33

In the second scene of the second act, Michael and Rainey share another meaningful conversation. Among the things they discuss together are the imminent death of Rainey’s father

Ben and the death of their daughter Janie. Regarding the latter, Rainey tells Michael “I prayed.

I really prayed, Michael. I told him. I told God, bring her out of this please, and I’ll do anything. Anything! And when she. . . . When she died, I thought. . . . I thought, fine. . . . Fine. .

. . You’re just going to have to do it yourself” (85). Relying on the self to do things and to take action instead of trusting a God whose ways are unknown is not a new impulse for those undergoing moments of faith crisis. What further complicates this is Rainey’s admission in a previous scene of an internal conflict: “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t believe in God.

The problem is. . . I do” (73).

In the third scene of the second act, we learn that Michael, too, has his doubts, despite his continued position as a Christian minister. He confesses to Rainey: “I’m a fraud. I’m a fraud,

Rainey. I’m a faithless preacher. If there is a God I’m surprised he hasn’t struck me down by

33 This passage can be found in context in the New Testament book of II Corinthians, 5:8.

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now. I simply, I just believe that the church, it helps people. It helps me. That’s why I do things the way I do there. It’s a comfort. The church is. . . . It’s the people” (88). Michael’s words here affirm the presence and work of God through the church. He continues to state that

“the church isn’t those four walls,” and that “maybe God is in the people. In those tiny miracles of human kindness” (89). Both Michael and Rainey, then, find that they cannot easily discard their connections to and relationship with the God of Christianity, despite the crises in their lives which have the potential to damage, if not sever, that relationship.

When Abendigo is talking with Rainey about his desires for end-of-life decisions, their thoughts naturally move toward what happens after death. Abendigo tells his daughter that

“Heaven is Negro Creek. My grandmother left her life in that water. My body will rot in the earth and nurture the land, enriching the soil and more grass will grow and flowers and shrubs.

And a cow might eat the grass and a part of me will be in the cow and in the cow’s milk. And maybe someone on Negro Creek will drink that milk or eat that cow. And the circle will just keep going, and going and going” (94). Abendigo also tells his daughter that “we pretend we’re alive. But we spend most of our lives living in spaces that no longer exist. I am here now. And

I have to live as I believe” (97).

At Abendigo’s funeral, the church expresses its religious faith through song. When the coffin is closed, someone in the congregation begins to sing the spiritual “Precious Lord, Take

My Hand” (115), and as the coffin is moved from the church to the graveyard, the congregation sings the requested hymn of Ben’s: “Abide with me: fast falls the even tide, The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless,

O abide with me!” (115). As the members of the church sing the words of this hymn, the

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essentialism of the Christian faith, that is present in the words and meaning of the hymn, is being carried through changes of generations.

In the last scene, Rainey and Michael seem to be on the verge of a potential reconciliation. When Michael muses about “All these endings,” Rainey remarks “All these beginnings” (112). She makes a strong connection between feeling a rush of life when her father died that was similar to the rush of life she felt when her daughter was born. When Michael, in the epilogue, speaks a line in Latin to Rainey, she is quick to translate it as “God’s mystery tremendous and fascinating” (116). These words have a strong connection with a passage from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. In chapter 55, Isaiah records God as saying: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. [. . .] As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8,

9). Such a passage seems to call upon the Christian to adapt a “blind faith,” wherein the believer trusts God despite their own inability to see what the future will bring or what the purpose is of the suffering in the present. It also calls attention to the concept of a faith without words, a concept which I will explore more fully before the end of this chapter.

Connections and Summations

Earlier in this study, I quote John Caputo as stating that “there is a fundamentally religious quality to human experience itself. [. . .] There is a deeply religious element within us all, with or without religion, so this little essay on being religious is also an essay on being human” (109). In this chapter, I have attempted to investigate how the human experiences of the characters in these plays have reflected or addressed qualities of the Christian religion, with specific regard to how Christians embody and enact their faith. In contemporary culture, as

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observed by Daniel Stout, much more of the sacred is “being defined at the level of personal experience” (10). Stewart Hoover echoes this concept when he articulates that religion, today, resides “more and more in the hands of the individual, and less and less in the hands of institutions, denominations, congregations, or para-church groups” (50). Examples from these plays have provided example after example to support these assertions – that Christianity is indeed a community, yes, but that it is also comprised of distinct individuals with unique experiences and understandings of how Christian faith is connected and expressed within their own lives. In her edited volume Plays for the End of the Century, Bonnie Marranca speaks to how dramatic literature connects with this sentiment when she writes that “some of the most thoughtful plays written today join poetic language to a new spiritual energy that addresses metaphysical questions, the crisis of spirit, and theological concepts such as sin, redemption, evil, and grace – formulated within an iconography of saints, angels, heaven, and hell” (xii).

Throughout the pages of this study, these plays and the characters within them speak to the nature of Christianity in the contemporary moment. They consider ways in which

Christianity operates both as cultural phenomenon and religious expression, and insight is achieved, through analyzing these scripts, in regard to how Christianity has been presented onstage over the past three decades, approximately. In ways that are simultaneously unique while sharing similarities, the plays address how various themes and concepts are at work in their pages, themes and concepts that can help to foster and illuminate a greater understanding of how Christianity functions in North America at the turn of the millennium. Christian faith can both influence and be influenced by the culture which surrounds it. These plays, created by distinct individuals with varying (and largely unknown) degrees of their own commitment, or lack of one, to a Christian faith, are valuable tools in applying concepts of Christianity to our

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surrounding culture. Thus, the plays are able to function as works of art that can be seen as exploring both Christian and non-Christian personal experiences of the sacred.

As Robert Webber posits, contemporary Christians (“younger evangelicals”) place value on “the resurgence of the arts” and have a renewed “appreciation of the performative symbol”

(51), such individuals of faith are perhaps more inclined to engage in a study like this one, where

Christian concepts can be illuminated by works of art intended to be performed. However, this study is certainly not exclusive to such individuals. Some of the plays, in fact, present the material in such a way as would make some Christians uncomfortable; they could perhaps more easily find reception by those who do not identify themselves initially as people of Christian faith. Each of the playscripts that are a part of this study can engage with notions of Christianity and culture, Christianity and consumerism, Christianity and crisis, Christianity and community – and not only in a way that is somehow limited to an audience of those who call themselves

Christians.

These plays connect with concepts of contemporary Christianity as articulated in my third chapter, specifically that rationality is not always privileged in contemporary culture, and that market-driven endeavors are viewed with skepticism. Additionally, these plays continue to make connections with Webber’s “Younger Evangelicals” and McLaren’s “Emergent”

Christians in that value is placed on welcoming individuals without preconditions of behavior or belief, and that meaningful interactions can be found within the context of a faith community that is committed to respecting and honoring individual distinctions while challenging those individuals to an increased understanding of the complexities and nuances of Christian faith and belief. As McLaren states, there is value in a Christianity that challenges its followers to “focus not on fill-in-the-blank answers but on queries – questions that make one reflect, think, take

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stock, and pay attention to what’s going on in one’s own soul” (246). The plays are not only

about the way Christians experience God, but also about how non-Christians struggle with

understanding and experiencing the “sacred.” It is my assertion that these plays serve as a new

millennial catalyst for asking questions about Christianity.

In examining the pages and characters of these plays, I have been reminded of the

importance of not oversimplifying life’s tragedies by allowing questions to be quickly answered with what become trite and unsatisfying answers which refuse to engage the questions, the crises, and the doubt. Such attempts only temporarily cover the troubling feelings of uncertainty, but do nothing to truly understand them or work to move past them. Another interesting thing these plays do is complicate the traditional understanding of clear protagonists and antagonists within the stories. The six plays in this study, situated in the contemporary cultural context, move away from such clearly defined character types towards more nuanced presentations of all characters as both flawed and inspired in certain ways. Thus, dramaturgical elements that have been useful for “church” dramas in the past are now being challenged or uprooted in favor of more realistic portrayals of conflicted individuals.

Additionally, these plays provide insight into understanding contemporary experiences of

Christianity in that, within their pages, people who are initially reticent to accept or even explore principles of Christianity may indeed reconsider such apprehensions after encountering a

Christian who values transparency and vulnerability in interpersonal interactions, and who chooses authenticity over self-importance or easy judgment. This, too, connects with Webber’s articulation of the “younger evangelical” as someone who “actively seeks authenticity” (53).

In this “new essentialism” which I introduced earlier in this study, the essentialism of

Christianity still exists in contemporary society, but has adapted to the unique challenges and

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concerns of the contemporary moment: that occasionally, the answers will not come quickly and

easily, that embracing ambiguity in our cultural contexts and moments of crisis is often

necessary, that efforts to totalize or know everything are often futile, and that welcoming the

future despite not knowing what it will bring are actually consistent with Christian concepts of a

faith that trusts and believes despite not knowing all of the answers. I have detailed several

instances from the scripts in the previous chapters of how the characters reflect these concepts.

Another valuable insight on which these six plays comment is the recurrence of the idea

that the church is immaterial; it exists both within and outside of this “worldly plane,” so to

speak. As such, the church cannot truly be explained logically or described in terms of its

material existence (its building, its programs). To do so would be to work against the nature of

faith, which, as the writer of Hebrews says, is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of

things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, emphasis mine). Again, there is value here on a trusting faith in

the God of Christianity despite an unknown future. A reminder that the church is about its

individual members and its God can also help to point others toward the value of understanding

Christian community as both a welcoming and a purposeful place. There is a saliency to these

Christian themes when presented to contemporary non-Christian audiences in addition to

contemporary Christian audiences. Marranca writes that the inclination in contemporary art

“embodies one of the great themes [. . .]: the secularization of the spiritual” (xiii). Indeed, these plays, which are largely about the spiritual, were not initially written for a necessarily spiritual audience. The themes of the sacred within their pages speak to readers and audience members who are both spiritual and secular; these are not works of Christian exclusivity.

There are certainly many unanswered questions and unexplored issues relating to a study of this nature, questions and issues including intertextual concerns regarding dramatic literature,

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contemporary culture, and Christian faith. Further inquiries could be taken to more deeply

investigate notions of Christianity and contemporary culture, particularly as they relate to the

field of theatre. Further studies could potentially focus more specifically on a particular

religious group or even more recent works of dramatic literature. Future studies could also have

focal points that are more “issue”-driven, like Martha Greene’s 2001 dissertation Social Gospels:

Class, Race, and Sexuality in Twentieth Century Biblical Drama. More time could be spent

examining Christianity outside of North America, as well as in the United States and Canada

separately. This is especially true as the nature of Christianity within the contemporary culture

continues to change. Brian McLaren continues to be a polarizing figure in contemporary

Christianity. Others who would also be considered “younger evangelicals” by Robert Webber’s

characterization are even publishing their own treatises of how they differ from McLaren. Take,

for example, Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s 2008 book Why We’re Not Emergent (by Two

Guys Who Should Be).

Additionally, conversations continue about this topic outside of established religious

circles, as well. The April 13, 2009 edition of Newsweek ran a cover story entitled “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” by Jon Meacham. It would quickly be followed, however, in the very next week’s edition of the same magazine, by an interview with author John Micklethwait on his own book, with Adrian Wooldridge, entitled God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith

Will Change the World. Clearly, there is still much to mine about Christianity in the contemporary cultural context.

What I have written in these pages is only a meager offering of an investigation into an area that interests me and which I think is worthy of study. I do not have any grand notions that this study will revolutionize the fields of religion, theatre, and contemporary culture. However, I

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do feel that it is valuable as an entry point into considering the intertextuality of Christianity and

the theatre in the contemporary cultural moment. Theatre has a long history of being used as a

means of religious expression; those who are curious about investigating issues of contemporary

Christianity will, I believe, find some value in understanding how the experience of Christian

faith connects with expressions of dramatic literature in contemporary society – expressions

which depict the experiences of characters who may or may not confess a similar faith

commitment. In this study, I have examined how human experiences, as recorded in these pieces

of dramatic literature, have reflected or addressed aspects of Christian faith, with a specific focus

on how Christians embody and enact their faith. As a result, these plays have the potential to

“make one reflect, think, take stock, and pay attention to what’s going on in one’s own soul”

(McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy 246).

In my opening chapter, I quote Robert Wuthnow as stating that “the future will be a time

when people yearn to hear the voice of God” (180). In these plays, that voice can be heard in

varied ways, and are not limited to being heard by Christians. As Djanet Sears’s play ends,

Rainey speaks of feeling a “rush of life” when her daughter was born and when her father died.

This rush of life, this feeling, facilitates an understanding of a faith that is felt and believed but

that does not necessarily require words. In the scripts that comprise the case studies of this

dissertation, I assert that the sacred can be sensed through expressions of Christian faith that are

not always necessarily connected to words. In Quiet in the Land, it is in recognizing that God

knows no barriers. In As It Is In Heaven, it is in humility, service, affirmation of giftedness, and forgiveness. In God’s Man in Texas, it is in the quiet, the stillness, the whisper. In Grace, it is in

the unexpected places which challenge preconceived notions. In A Plague of Angels, it is in

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times of isolated reflection. In The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, it is in expressions of community and togetherness.

I opened this study with a story taken from my childhood, a story which told of at least one who vigorously and repeatedly spoke “Amen” during church services. I now conclude this study stating the importance of “living” the Amen. Instead of simply voicing “Amen” after

“Amen,” it is vital that Christians take their words of affirmation of faith and convert them to actions which can be evident of their faith as they move through life. And, lest one think that this is a profound new statement or sentiment, let me grant assurance that, as the writer of the

Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes states, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes

1:9). “Living the Amen” is, then, a twenty-first century echo of the prayer of St. Francis of

Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” An admonition to avoid words seems a contrary way to conclude a doctoral dissertation, yet it somehow seems appropriate given the examples of Christianity that have been studied in these pages. As I continue to examine how faith is evidenced in the stories of Christians, both of fiction and of flesh and bone, I am drawn back to the compelling nature of the call to live the Amen.

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