Mary C. Bagley, Ph.D.

"Can Christian faith sustain the life of the mind? To many academics, this question would seem absurd. In their judgment, religion is fundamentally dogmatic while the life of the mind requires openness, creativity, and imagination. This stereotypical assumption regarding the nature of religion in general and Christianity in particular has contributed significantly over the past one hundred years to the divorce between faith and learning on countless campuses throughout the United States.” (Hughes and Hill 1)

As the above quotation states, to many academics, faith and learning appear to be oxymorons. Somehow, the Christian institution of higher learning has become synonymous with the idea that education is censored there—the idea that only the Bible, a few biblical languages, and Christian philosophy should be taught in a Christian school. Of course, that kind of thinking could not be further from the truth. The twenty-first century Christian college or university needs a liberal arts education where nothing is censored, although the pedagogue often places the Christian perspective upon the subject matter being taught.

Faith and learning should never be oxymorons because one complements the other. However, not all postmodern academes would agree with this statement. The postmodern literary canon may contain many texts contradictory to Christian ideals and teachings. Postmodern texts embrace all areas of human experience including the existential, the suicidal, the naturalistic, and countless others. Most scholars would expect liberal postmodern thought to affect the text selection in a Christian college or university although most English professors teach the literary canon.

Many students (and parents) bring to a Christian school certain expectations. One of these is that they will not read any literature that is not uplifting to the Lord. Of course, this remains contrary to the idea of a liberal arts education as nineteenth-century philosopher and divine John Henry Newman points out in his book The Idea of a University. A liberal arts education, according to Newman, should open one’s mind to the world, to look at life in its goodness as well as its ugliness. In his book The Idea of a Christian College, Arthur F. Holmes also writes:

The fact is that too many young people attend college or university and their parents encourage them, without any gripping sense of what the college is all about beyond tentative vocational goals or questionable social aspirations.... Many suppose that the Christian college exists to protect young people against sin and heresy.... The student responds in certain ways to certain stimuli, is at a loss when he confronts novel situations, as he will in a changing society undergoing a knowledge explosion. (3-5)

However, what one does not expect is the problem that teaching the Greek and Roman classics presents to Christian students, some of whom ask why they have to read something that is pagan and not reflective of biblical teaching. For example, I once assigned my students the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes. The day I came into the class to begin my lecture, a student approached me and said she could not read this play because it offended her. She was shocked at the subject matter and the sexual references. I told her that if it bothered her so much to read this classic, I would give her another Greek play to read, Agamemnon by Aeschylus.

After the student had left, I regretted my decision. This student was an English major who intended to attend graduate school. I asked myself, “Do I not owe it to her to equip her for further study in the English language and literature?” The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) offers a specialization in English and has been known to include a question or two on Lysistrata. It is in the literary canon and has been read and studied by scholars for 3,000 years. Why should this student be excused from reading something because it differs from her way of thinking? Isn’t the purpose of a liberal arts education to open a student’s mind to new worlds and different perspectives of thinking? If the student thought the same as the writer, then the student need not read the writer.

In a course such as “World Literature” or “World Literary Types,” the students are told that they will read some of the greatest minds that have ever written in history. Every text—including the Bible, Koran, and Analects-illustrates a philosophy of life. Many of the great fiction writers illustrate themes in their works that were never clearly stated but implied. Each theme reflects an idea or ideal in history. By reading literature, the students may explore across-the-curriculum subjects such as philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, and politics. The students should not be denied learning how others lived and thought because others' lives are different from their own. George M. Marsden, in his book The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief, concurs:

So from its beginnings, Western university education involved a fusion of pagan and Christian elements. The trivium and quadrivium defined the basic liberal arts. Moreover, the consensus prevailing through the early centuries of the university was that a proper arts education involved substantial study of Aristotle, especially on logic, metaphysics, and natural philosophy (natural science). While some questioned elements in Aristotle's ethics or metaphysics that questioned Christian dogma, virtually all recognized a pinnacle of intellectual achievement that must be mastered. (34-35).

This level of achievement needs to be taught whether it is pagan or Christian as long as it is taught from the Christian perspective.

Curiously, the student mentioned above said that Agamemnon was much better for her as a Christian to read. Agamemnon is a play about a woman killing her husband, who has brought his mistress home from the Trojan War. Interestingly, the playwright’s another work, The Choëphoroe (Libation-Bearers), deals with the children Elektra and Orestes murdering their mother. This made me wonder why a dramatic work that has less sexual content but more violence is preferable to a non-violent one about sex. Is violence better to read about than a dramatic comedy about sex?

These plays were performed in ancient Greece during the Dionysian festival. The entire idea of a Greek tragedy or comedy was for the audience to see the play and feel better after viewing it. According to Poetics, by Aristotle, a tragedy’s purpose is to purge its audience of all sad and unhappy feelings; the audience will cry and weep, and then feel better for expurgating these emotions. A comedy begins badly and ends better; it shows a positive view of life. Surely, a comedy would be more uplifting than a tragedy and just as valid a literary text.

Two years ago, the Faith and Learning Committee of Missouri Baptist University sponsored a “Conversation with a Scholar” forum on whether certain books should be censored at the University. Several students in the audience said they had problems with reading literary texts with sex and violence in them. Yet, the problem with censoring these texts, as one professor pointed during the debate, would also exclude the Bible which contains many accounts of violence and sex.

T. S. Eliot, in his book Christianity and Culture, also explores the problem of how a Christian deals with the world. He states, “The Idea of a Christian Society is one which we can accept or reject; but if we are to accept it, we must treat Christianity with a great deal more intellectual respect than is our wont; we must treat it as being for the individual a matter primarily of thought and not of feeling” (5). In other words, Eliot believes a Christian MUST explore the world, not just a Christian environment. Eliot also notes that literature should make one think and should expose one to experiences and deepest pathos never felt before. Eliot’s observation is correct because the whole purpose of education is to open a student’s mind.

In his book Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning and Living, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. points out that it is a Christian's calling to understand our world as God's good (though fallen) creation and to engage it and reform it according to a deep understanding of the implications of our faith. Plantinga makes an important point in faith and learning because a Christian must deal with a fallen world just as Christ dealt with a fallen world and came to save it. A Christian cannot reject the world if he or she is to do God’s work in it.

The student mentioned above turned out to be a ministry student. If that student is a counselor and cannot read Lysistrata, then how can that student counsel and help others? The purpose of a liberal arts education is to show the student the beauty and the ugly in the world and the many ways to deal with them. A higher learning institution would be remiss if it did any less. “Learning,” as Cornelius Plantinga writes, “is a spiritual calling; properly done, it attaches us to God” (158).

Now that we have explored the notion that faith and learning are compatible with and necessary to each other, let us observe the pedagogue’s role in teaching British drama from 1890 to 1920 from a Christian’s point of view. Between 1890 and 1920, English drama underwent a renaissance. For two hundred years, English drama had been mostly replaying the same themes; critics generally agree that dramatic creativity was at a low point from 1800 until 1890. The late 1890s was indeed a phase of transition in the drama as characterized in Oscar Wilde’s decadent writings, as well as in John Millington Synge’s, William Butler Yeats’s, and George Bernard Shaw’s social dramas and problem plays. For Yeats, Synge, and Shaw, theatre mirrored life, which meant that drama had to deal with problems in life. Problem plays often consisted of comic dialogue although the playwright used humor to point out a serious business. Many of the British playwrights were Irish, not a part of English society. They, therefore, could not write from the English perspective: they viewed life and society as an outsider looking in.

One of these innovative writers is Oscar Wilde, whose writing mirrored the zeitgeist of turn-of-the-century (19^th- to 20^th-century) England. In one of his better-known works, The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde espouses his theory of art reflecting life and life reflecting art. Also, this work is considered a prime example of decadence, a style of writing for which Wilde is noted. Decadence may best be defined by Wilde: “There is nothing great left to do, so let’s be great and do nothing” (50).

As a reflection of decadence, The Importance of Being Earnest has no theme or point. Or perhaps, better stated, the absence of theme or point is the theme/point. The brilliance lies in the dialogue which is witty, ingenious, and perverse. Wilde feels that life is decadent, and he confuses life with art in the play as the child is replaced by a book, and vice versa. When Wilde was arrested in April 1895 on the suspicion of being a homosexual, he had a yellow book in his hand; a yellow book was considered a case of guilt by association since yellow in the 1890s was associated with homosexuality. Many critics—including Joseph W. Donohue, author of the essay ”The First Production of The Importance of Being Earnest: A Proposal for Reconstructive Study”—believe that the book in the play is the yellow book. This is considered one of the introductions of homosexuality into drama.

When this is taught, some students protest and ask why this play is included in the history of drama. They ask, “Should not this play be left out and replaced with another?” Well, considering that The Importance of Being Earnest is regarded as one of the best plays written in English literature and that students will probably have to read, know, and be tested upon in exit exams, graduate entrance exams, and perhaps on graduate exams, the answer is definitely, yes.

George Bernard Shaw is known for his problem plays. One of Shaw’s main goals was to bring English theatre to the heights of William Shakespeare. Interestingly, Shaw wrote an essay entitled “Poor Shakespeare!” where he argues that his writing is superior to Shakespeare’s; the reason is that Shaw was able to view and learn from Shakespeare, but Shakespeare could not do the same to Shaw. In his review of the Elizabethan bard’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shaw condescendingly states, “Even I who know a great deal better, as I shall presently demonstrate rather severely, enjoyed myself at the play tolerably” (68). Though Shaw’s ego is clearly inflated, he may be right in sensing that a new and important age of theatre is dawning. Actually, Shaw is one of the main figures for this enlightening period. In many of his plays, he introduced new ideas and concepts. For example, in Candida (1898), Shaw introduced the concept of the New Woman and showed a restructured family situation. In this play, the main character, Candida Morell, challenges societal moral attitudes. As critic Henry L. Mencken asks, “Shall a married man expect his wife’s love without working for it, without deserving it?… May not the woman who lives in the ardor of sanctity be more thoroughly immoral, at heart, than the worst of her erring sisters?” (59)

Candida makes a statement about morality and freedom as she asserts herself as the New Woman. The question of Candida’s morality makes an interesting statement about society. Written in the same decade as Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Candida examines and redefines purity. Critic Surrendra Sahai sees Candida as the failure of a husband to understand his wife; she functions as a “sentimental prostitute” (159).

Now Candida is considered a major play in the literary canon. Should issues such as Candida be considered a “sentimental prostitute” not be brought up in a Christian school? The issue would be brought up in a secular university. If the critics’ point of view was not offered in understanding the play, the Christian English major would not have the academic tools to succeed in the secular university graduate school.

Shaw’s other plays reflect the changing drama as well. Mrs. Warren’s Profession, for example, shocked many nineteenth-century playgoers with its immoral attitudes. Michael Bell, in his essay “Modern Movements in Literature,” comments:

[Shaw] offers himself as distinctly a man of the new age and in his conception of modernity…. Shaw is not only a man of ideas, but seems almost entirely made of them…. This quality [ideas] comes out, I believe, in his preface to the early play Mrs. Warren’s Profession. The play is a brilliant reversal of the conventional Victorian “courtesan” convention in which the audience enjoyed a sexual thrill contained and neutralized by a sense of superiority to the “fallen woman.” (82)

Mrs. Warren gained her wealth from the world’s oldest profession, and she tried to make her illegitimate daughter respectable. But her daughter learns of her mother’s past, and the play is about the tension of the mother and daughter in trying to reconcile.

Should Mrs. Warren’s Profession be taught to a Christian class? Well, it is included in major anthologies as one of the great works of British literature. Actually, the Christian class that I taught felt compassion for Mrs. Warren and discussed how sad and cruel life can be to some people. The play made them think about a poor woman’s plight in nineteenth-century England and apply it to helping others today. One student who wants to be a professional counselor said the reading was helpful to her in seeing how others lived and thought. Diversity of thought is what a true education is about. Additionally, Shaw had tremendous influence on transitional drama. He introduced many innovative and new ideas into later nineteenth-century drama: psychology, the New Woman, socialism, a restructured family life, attack on middle-class beliefs, and the idea of language as a class barrier (which he wrote about in Pygmalion, later known as My Fair Lady).

Obviously from the quality of Wilde and Shaw, at whom students sometimes balk, one can see that their works need to be taught in a classroom not only because they are well written but also the points they make have political, historical, psychological, and sociological importance. They talk about ideas. Although some students may argue that these plays’ ideas are not supportive of Christianity, they cannot refute the fact that these ideas do exist and affect the lives of many people.

As Christians, we need to use these ideas in a Christ-centered way to teach literature because when we teach literature, we also search for truth. As Richard T. Hughes and Samuel S. Hill note:

First, the life of the mind commits us to a rigorous and disciplined search for truth. This dimension of the life of the mind presupposes something that both the Bible and human experience make very clear, namely that we are not gods, but finite human beings with very human limitations. This notion has enormous implications for those of us who serve as scholars.... If we take seriously this fundamental aspect of human experience, then we have no other choice but to search for truth. (5)

This search for truth also allows us to hear and learn from diversity of thought: “Otherwise, we never really take diversity seriously, never really hear those other voices, never really engage other cultures, other perspectives, and other religious traditions. When this happens, critical thinking evaporates into absolutistic thinking, and the search for truth is dead” (Hughes and Hill 7). The ultimate source of truth is in the Bible. However, studying with an open mind the literature of other culture and texts even contrary to the Bible allows us the chance to enrich our faith and service to the Lord as long as we read them with a Christian perspective.

Works Cited

Aeschylus. Agamemnon. New York: Dover, 1996.

Aristophanes. Lysistrata. New York: Signet, 2001.

Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. Malcolm Heath. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Bell, Michael. “Modern Movements in Literature.” The Context of English Literature, 1900-1930. Ed. Michael Bell. London: Methuen, 1980. 1-92.

Byrne, Sandie, ed. Bernard Shaw’s Plays. 2^nd ed. New York: Norton, 2002.

Donohue, Joseph W."The First Production of The Importance of Being Ernest: A Proposal for Reconstructive Study.” Nineteenth-Century British Theatre. Eds. Kenneth Richards and Peter Thomson. London: Methuen, 1971. 125-44.

Eliot, T. S. Christianity and Culture. Fort Washington, PA: Harvest, 1960.

Holmes, Arthur F. The Idea of a Christian College.Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987.

Hughes, Richard T., and Samuel S. Hill.How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind.Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002.

Newman, John Henry. The Idea of a University. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1999.

Marsden, George M. The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.

Mencken, Henry L. George Bernard Shaw: His Plays. New Rochelle, NY: Glaser, 1905.

Plantinga, Jr., Cornelius.Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning and Living. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002.

Sahai, Surrendra. English Drama: 1865-1900. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1970.

Shaw, George Bernard. “Poor Shakespeare!” Drama Criticism: Developments since Ibsen. Ed. Arnold Hinchcliffe. London: Macmillan, 1979. 68-76.

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. English Drama in Transition: 1880-1920. Ed. Henry F. Salerno. New York: Western Press, 1968. 47- 93.

MARY BAGLEY <bagley@mobap.edu> is Professor of English at Missouri Baptist University. She authored nine books, including The Front Row: Missouri’s Grand Theatres (1984), Professional Writing Types (1989), and The Art of Writing Well (1995), and edited several more books, including Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Romantic Literature (1994). She has published over 200 articles in magazines and journals and used to work as a newspaper editor. She received her Ph. D. from St. Louis University and her B. A. and M. A. from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

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