poem

Thomas Hardy poem

Thomas Hardy, like many other Victorian intellectuals, gave up his Christianity after reading 'Origin of Species'. His other poems occasionally touch on the rejection of religion, for example 'God's Funeral', and perhaps if the social attitudes of his day had allowed, he might have published some more radical material. This little gem however shows his thought clearly enough.

The Respectable Burgher on "The Higher Criticism" (*)

Since Reverend Doctors now declare
That clerks and people must prepare
To doubt if Adam ever were;
To hold the flood a local scare;
To argue, though the stolid stare,
That everything had happened ere
The prophets to its happening sware;
That David was no giant-slayer,
Nor one to call a God-obeyer
In certain details we could spare,
But rather was a debonair
Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:
That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,
And gave the Church no thought whate'er;
That Esther with her royal wear,
And Mordecai, the son of Jair,
And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair,
And Balaam's ass's bitter blare;
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare,
And Daniel and the den affair,
And other stories rich and rare,
Were writ to make old doctrine wear
Something of a romantic air:
That the Nain widow's only heir,
And Lazarus with cadaverous glare
(As done in oils by Piombo's care)
Did not return from Sheol's lair:
That Jael set a fiendish snare,
That Pontius Pilate acted square,
That never a sword cut Malchus' ear
And (but for shame I must forbear)
That -- -- did not reappear! . . . (**)
- Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,
All churchgoing will I forswear,
And sit on Sundays in my chair,
And read that moderate man Voltaire. (***)

(*)'The Higher Criticism' was/is a school of theology, which I believe came from Germany, which came out at around the same time as Origin of Species. It sought to explain away the Bible miracles to fit in with 'modern science', perhaps so that it would be easier to believe. There is an atheistic American bishop by the name of John Shelby Spong, thankfully now retired (like our own heretic bishop David Jenkins of Durham who denied the resurrection) who similarly has denied the miraculous in Christianity. These 'modern' churchmen seem to hope that a more 'modern' or 'contemporary' or 'relevant' or whatever Christianity would be more likely to catch on, although I'm not clear why they would want it to! Those who water down the message to try to avoid criticism fall between two stools-they try to please everyone (except the Bible believers) and end up pleasing no-one (except Satan). And his useful fools the atheists-who laugh as 'bishops' do their job for them, and the Jihadi Muslims-who move into the spiritual vacuum and recruit the people who are looking for God but are put off Christianity by wishy washy bishops who are embarrassed by their own holy book and who would damn Jesus of Nazareth as a superstitious reactionary bigot and petty magician if He came today. Read C S Lewis's book 'Miracles' which explains beautiufully why miracles are not an intellectual, theological or scientific problem (given a God who is real) and why it's stupid and pointless to try to remove the miraculous from Christianity.

(**) presumably from the context -- -- stands for Jesus Christ, and 'did not reappear' can only be taken as a denial of the Resurrection, something that Hardy in his day can only hint at, and then in a humourous poem. But actually this is not a joke, this is Hardy's true belief, and a logical outcome of accepting Darwin-SH

(***) Voltaire was of course a radical atheist-SH)

The poem begins rejecting Adam, and ends rejecting Christ, the 'Second Adam'. The point is that if priests and preachers tell us that Genesis and other Old Testament stories are not literally true but merely fables, then probably so is the New Testament and the Resurrection, so why bother with the Christian religion at all? That is a road which has been taken by many. Evolution has been described as 'the most powerful engine of atheism ever invented' and so it is. How comfortable does that make you feel, brother and sister Christian? Biblical Christianity and evolution don't mix, and I wish that we Christians understood that as well as the enemies of our faith so clearly do. May as well be hanged for a creationist sheep as a ressurectionist lamb.

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