Lucky Per

Lucky Per – Henrik Pontoppidan – 1898-1904

***

Per blushed and tried to make a polite objection, but the pastor did not let him speak. “I don’t have any illusions. Our time has turned religion into marketplace wares, and you can’t blame people for looking for the shops that sell the goods most cheaply.”

Per felt obliged to defend his father-in-law’s perspective. Without naming anyone, Pastor Fjaltring answered that a benign, half-patronizing, or, perhaps, merely curious relation to the great questions of life was, in his eyes, worse than no relation at all. Faith is a passion, and where that does not exist, it makes mere sport of God. To stir up a certain spiritual vigor artificially in the populace is so far from preparing the earthbound for a serious and sincere faith—or even for serious doubt—that, on the contrary, it destroys the seeds, which lie in the soul of every person, of a real relationship with God. He paced back and forth on the carpet and stopped suddenly at the other end of the room. It looked as if he were reminding himself not to let himself venture too far. But his desire to talk was aroused, and, as a swarm of thoughts were urged out of his loneliness, he could no longer hold back the words:

“The science of modern engineering cannot be absolved from bearing a good deal of responsibility for the superficiality and shallowness that is the curse of the contemporary world. The hurried progress of the machine age carries over to the religious life. When people from all spheres are habituated to satisfying their needs with the least possible personal effort, they demand also, in the realm of belief, that faith be acquired without too much strain or too much time. And the preachers of God’s word—whether pastors or lay—generally do not have the will to resist that demand. To be sure, pitifully little is known about man’s soul and the conditions needed for its vigorous development,” he continued, with more and more passion. “But it seems generally recognized that happiness in the worldly sense has made mankind sterile. The soul’s native element is grief. Happiness is an animal vestige in us. Therefore, you can see that people in prosperous times easily fall into all sorts of peacock and mimic manners, while in times of sorrow, if they looked inside themselves, down to the divine springs of individuality, they would take on an entirely transfigured bearing.

“To be sure, Christianity announced itself on earth as ‘glad tidings.’ But if that phrase were taken literally, mankind would be stuck in an insoluble contradiction. A faith that proclaims joy, peace of mind, and happiness has choked up the nourishing springs of the soul and extinguished spiritual life. Even the idea of a paradise beyond as a place of perfection can only with difficulty be reconciled with our present religious understanding. The words about abandoning hope, as Dante used them over the entrance of his Hell, could, with adequate justification and with frightening implications, be engraved over the gates of a so-called heaven when there is no longer any possibility for self-development. To the limited discrimination of mankind, it looks as if, for the time being, we are bound to stay among the unredeemed and provisionally damned to gain cleansed and purified souls and true salvation, understood as spiritual insight.

“But in all probability, we have not yet understood God’s intentions in the Gospels. And in that case, we can realize why Christianity, after two thousand years, despite its great words and promises, still is not capable of accomplishing more for the sake of the moral progress of mankind. Certain theologians deny straight out Christ’s divine birth, and, in reality, the affinity between him and the Old Testament God is not easy to understand. You could say, without exaggeration, that one is the other’s complete opposite, even caricature. But if Christ is not God’s son, who can guarantee for us that God did not let him be born, be tortured, suffer an ignominious death to serve as a discouraging example to us?” Pastor Fjaltring stopped his pacing abruptly, as if anxious over his own words. His forehead, during his long speech, had become red, and nervous spasms jerked steadily from his shoulders up into his face.

“Well, I hope you understand I am not saying these things to jest. I think that the figure of Christ and his mission finally will be made the object of critical examination, and that time is surely coming—so let it be thorough and without prejudices, because our salvation is at stake.”