Gilead

In my previous post I looked at some words from Kuyper that expressed the goodness of creation as well as it's potential (perhaps hope is the better word) in Christ. As a pastor, theologian, statesman, journalist, teacher and, more generally, an active participant in culture, Kuyper expresses in a very clear manner the implications of a good creation order for Christians who are attempting to work out the will of God for the earth in it's fallen condition.

Recently, in reading the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, I stumbled across a beautiful and moving literary expression of this same concept. Robinson's novel is written as an aging, Congregationalist minister's letter to his young son just before he dies. Robinson expresses here, as well as in many other wonderful passages throughout the novel, the beauty that is to be found in this present life, while looking forward with anticipation to the joys of an eternity spent before the face of God:

I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.

In this wonderful expression of truth, Robinson masterfully shows the tension between the beauty and sanctity of our everyday lives and the great anticipation that we should have of the glory that is to be revealed. While she is not a theologian (at least not formally) Robinson communicates through her fiction a practicality and wisdom regarding theological truth. I've no doubt that John Calvin, who is quoted by the old minister frequently, would be proud to see his work employed in such a unique way. Calvin's classic, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, was originally intended, not as a theological textbook, but as a guide for working class Christians to guide them through the complexities of the faith. Robinson has managed to take those words and show just how practical, comforting, and beautiful they can be, even to the inhabitants of a little Midwestern town called Gilead.