What follows is my notes from a short lecture I gave entitled “A Christian Rationale for Teaching The Crucible” on the evening of a performance of extracts from the play by some of my students.
A Christian Rationale for Teaching The Crucible
The Crucible tells the true story of the famous Salem Witch trials of 1692 in the newly founded America. In this new and highly Christian society, a group of young girls were found dancing in the woods at night and casting spells, an act which is regarded as a cardinal sin due to it’s connection with pagan practices. Some of the girls are taken sick and the town credits this to the presence of the Devil in their Godly society. What follows is the untangling of an elaborate web of deception and revenge as one village member accuses another of being a witch in order to exact some long awaited punishment for what they perceive as a previous wrong upon them.
The presence of the self proclaimed witch hunter Reverend John Hale forces the accused of the town to either confess to witchcraft or be hanged. Either way, those who are accused are left in a situation which leads to inevitable loss. The instigator of this mayhem is the young Abigail Williams. We never get to glimpse the real person that she is, all her behaviours are elaborately concocted displays in order to get what she wants. And what she wants is John Proctor, a clear minded, strong farmer who sees through the madness of the witch trials yet harbours a deep and dark sin so abhorred by his contemporaries. He has engaged in an adulterous affair with Abigail, forsaking his wife and allowing his sin to get the better of him.
The play charts the progression from the shaky foundations on which the first accusations are made to the final act wherein the town will once again come to its senses having witnessed the hanging of Proctor as a witch.
Written by Arthur Miller, the Crucible is a modern classic. It was penned during a time when America suffered one of its modern day witch hunts through Senator Joseph McCarthy and his whipping up of the political mob to lynch those who may swear any kind of alligence to communist activities.
The play is a critique of hysteria caused by majority groups in society. In it’s wider context it laments the destruction caused by using minority views as scapegoats for moral depravity. In the immediate it criticises the place where religion and politics meet and where personal moral convictions lead to the oppression of those on the outside of the clique. I have re-produced an article for you from the Royal Shakepeare Company’s 2006 production in which the production team make it abundantly clear that the fundamentalist Christian foundations on which America was built are still deeply rooted in society today and are now finding their fruition through the politically religious right. So why study it? Where does the Christian draw redemptive lessons from a story which is anti-hysterical in it’s wider context yet equates Christianity with the whipping up of that hysteria and lays the blame for much of our fear squarely at the feet of religion?
We must take care not to dismiss Miller’s central point. His motivation may be anti-religious, however, this does not make his analysis of the events of 1692 in Salem any less salient given the horrific behaviour of many of the participants. We may do well to draw truths from Miller’s work while carefully analysing where he makes non-sequiters in the implied conclusions of the material.
I would like to outline just a few of the lessons we can learn from studying this terrific and exciting script.
Warnings
As Christians we cannot be ignorant of our heritage. We believe sincerely and truthfully that the saving power of the gospel is what will bring about change in the heart of man. We believe that Christ’s death is for all people across all of history (ironically, a view not held by the Calvinist Puritans). However, we must take care not to idealise all actions by Christians as laudible. The Salem Witch Trials are a dark portion in the history of protestant Christendom and we do well to learn the lessons of the society the Puritans tried to build. In moving away from England in 1620 they sought to build a society that was based entirely on the Bible, one in which no hint of sin would be tolerated. Unfortunately, they made a categorical error when it came to the gospel. God is the author of salvation, a political system cannot force anyone to be a Christian, this is the redeeming work of the Holy Spirit.
Hypocrisy
Students study the hypocrisy of the Puritans and compare it to that of the Pharisees in Matthew 15 which reads
‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
Matthew 15:8-9
those who spoke God with their lips but did not act it out in their hearts. The people of The Crucible’s Salem, by this time second generation Puritans, held in high regard the need to be Godly. Their outward appearance was entirely pure, they attended church, spoke with regard for one another in public and read their Bible’s every day. Yet behind closed doors things were happening which negated this outward purity. People were stealing land, gossiping, back biting and using their influence to accuse others with which they disputed of witchery. This is aptly summed up in Mrs Putnam’s line “There are wheels within wheels in this village and fires within fires.” In this we see the need to not only proclaim the gospel with our lips but to hide it in our hearts as well. Sin is an ever present danger for us all and far greater than we give it credit for. The people of Salem had words on their lips but sin in their hearts. The sin of the village is encompassed in John Proctor and Abigail Williams’ extra marital relationship which, while not a real event, is written into the play to symbolise the hidden iniquity in the town at the time.
Modern application
The play is able to help us more finely tune our senses when it comes to modern day witch hunts. The Puritans behaved the way that they did because of fear. Their fear arose from the very real prospect that, having gone through the pain of the reformation, sin would once again enslave their town until such time as they would be under the rule of it either by secularism or, worse still, a return to Catholic Popery. The Puritans are to be highly commended by us Christians for seeking to live their lives according to the Bible; it was an experiment that was both to help them and harm them. While Godliness leads to contentment, in this case it lead to fear which in turn lead to the need to rid the town of anything suspected to be ungodly. The play was written during the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s in which the House of Un-American Activities hauled people (including Miller himself) in front of them demanding that they admit their allegiance to the communist party and name names or risk public disgrace. Secular interpretations of The Crucible equate the witch hunts of Salem with forms of religious extremism today, which is the most obvious interpretation. In an interview for The Royal Shakepeare Company, Dominic Cooke, director of the 2006 production in Stratford, answers the question “Why did you want to direct The Crucible?” with the following quote:
“I wanted to direct The Crucible because it seems, sadly, a play very much for our times. With Bush and Blair generating hysteria over terrorism and the frightening rise of Christian Fundamentalism in the US, there are real parallels between the world of Miller’s play and our own times.”
He is later quoted as saying,
“Similarly, our post 9/11 world is characterised by politicians, in the US especially, exploiting public fear to get away with destroying civil liberties and also blaming minorities, for example gay people, for corrupting American values. It seems society’s need to find scapegoats and go on witch-hunts hasn’t gone away. We live in very fearful times and Miller shows how dangerous it is to make decisions when guided by fear.”
It is interesting to note the centre pages of the programme which I have reproduced here.
On one side you can see the danger of Islamic extremism equated with what this director would interpret as Christian extremism on the other side. It is interesting to note the contradiction in what Cooke says. Cooke is quick to condemn those who are “finding scapegoats” through condemning practices such as homosexuality, a practice which is incidentally not new but has been classically condemned by Christians for millennia. He then, however, gives his reasons for producing the play as a commentary of the times we live in due to the “frightening rise” of religious fundamentalism1. Can you see the irony of producing a play about religious fear out of leftist fear of where our current climate may end up if we give in to fear? In other words, Cooke and those who share his view are no more immune to the dangers of fear mongering than the religious, making the application of Miller’s play wider than to groups regarded as religious bigots.
Turning this around we can see modern day witch hunts in numerous ways. It seems that sometimes tabloid newspapers almost exist to create witch hunts. When Jade Goody was accused of racism in 2007, the media launched a campaign to blacken her name and condemn anyone who may stand up with her. Another example could be said to be the fear that surrounds scientists who subscribe to a creationist view of the universe. Men and women have been demonsied and lost their jobs because of their beliefs about creationism. The underlying feeling of those who oppose this rise is fear that we will be dragged into a theocracy much like the popular myth of Medieval suppression of knowledge and progress.
In this play this evening then you will see a town divided by sin, you may see a sarcastic, even cynical, edge inherent in the text. Yet teaching the Crucible to our students can deepen their understanding of current criticism of Christianity, how witch hunts are still very real and most importantly, how, if we do not take care of our spiritual walk, our sinful nature can come rushing to the surface of our lives and choke the reality of the Holy Spirit living inside of us.
Ремонт и отделка офисов, квартир или дач – это самая распространенная на сегодняшний день проблема большинства людей, решившихся, наконец, привести в порядок свое жилище. Мало того, что ремонт – это занятие трудоемкое и напряженное, еще и найти достойную компанию, занимающуюся отделкой квартир или офисов сегодня практически невозможно. Дело в том, что все меньше и меньше в нашей стране остается фирм, делающих свою работу качественно, эффективно и недорого.Однако наша компания является приятным исключением из этого неприятного правила. Мы вот уже долгое время занимается отделкой и ремонтом квартир и в г. Зеленоград и еще ни разу нам не приходило от наших клиентов ни неприятных отзывов, ни каких-либо жалоб. Богатый опыт наших специалистов, а также высокий профессионализм всех без исключения наших работников, поможет сделать хорошо, качественно и – главное – доступно как косметический, так и капитальный ремонт. Современное оборудование, новые технологии планировки и дизайна, а также индивидуальный подход к каждому клиенту и гибкая система скидок сделали нашу компанию самой успешной на сегодня фирмой, оказывающей услуги по ремонту и отделке квартир и офисов в г. Зеленоград. Список услуг: ремонт квартир ремонт квартир в Москве ремонт квартир в Московской области косметический ремонт квартир капитальный ремонт квартир евроремонт кватрир ремонт магазинов ремонт ресторатов ремонт офисных помещений отделка квартир ремонт ресторанов ремонт квартир под ключ строительство коттеджей VIP ремонт квартир отделка квартир в новых домах
тэги: ремонт квартиры ремонт квартир ремонт квартиры москва ремонт квартир москва ремонт квартиры в москве ремонт квартир в москве ремонт квартиры ключ ремонт квартир ключ ремонт квартиры под ключ ремонт квартир под ключ отделка квартиры отделка квартир отделка квартиры москва отделка квартир москва отделка квартиры в москве отделка квартир в москве отделка квартиры ключ отделка квартир ключ отделка квартиры под ключ отделка квартир под ключ