The Wonderful World of Faith

Religion can often be thought of as a crutch for those who are not strong enough to deal with the realities of life. In some senses, this is true, yet at the same time those involved in a church might have to approach twice as many problems compared to a person who isn't involved with such an institution. In Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, we see a man who approaches one of the main problems with the Christian church we have seen since its beginning in the book of Acts in the Bible. This problem is heresy, where people say they are living a morally upright life in relation to the Christian faith when in reality they are actually lying and committing every sin under the sun. This would cause a man such as Goodman Brown to look down upon those who have been living in such a lie when he has not been. We see what happens when Goodman Brown is put into a situation where he finds the congregation actually worshiping the devil and how he reacts to such a scene. Through Goodman Brown we see a man who has turned from a passionate faith to one of dissatisfaction because of the people he has surrounded himself with in the church.

Young Goodman Brown shows a very strong faith when he departs on his journey. He goes into the forest and essentially begins to lose his faith. His wife being named Faith, is actually symbolic to his faith when Goodman Brown cries out "'My Faith is gone! There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given.'" His strong statement is one that actually comes to be partially truthful through what he encounters in the forest. He sees a congregation not devoted to God, like he thought, but one devoted to worshiping the sin of mankind. At this sight he tells Faith to look up to heaven as he did to resist. This shows the devotion of Goodman Brown to his faith, and we see that he never truly renounces his faith. Rather, he loses his faith in the people around him. In some sense, we see that if the "crutch" we receive from religion is placed on the people around us, we will in fact fall away from this faith because of the heresy we see in others around us. Goodman Brown still continues to go to church, however, it seems as though he goes in vain because of the things he witnessed, knowing not whether if it was even real or not. He lived in such a gloomy state up until the last days of his life, and it was described that "they carved no hopeful verse upon his tomb-stone; for his dying hour was gloom."

On a more personal level, I have encountered such a scenario when I was involved with a church in high school. There was a split because the pastor's daughter had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, and many people left the church, including the pastor eventually. They immediately turned their back on those that stayed with the church, however people eventually started stop going. Their faith was not in God but rather in the people that were at the church. They went to church not for God but for people, which can objectively translate into a wrong reason to go to church. This occurred while I was in high school, and seeing this I saw how heretical people were. They were not willing to give someone a second chance, something Jesus actually preaches directly about in the gospels. He explains to one of his disciples that if your brother makes a mistake, you should never stop giving him second chances, his emphasis being on forgiveness. Young Goodman Brown encountered a sin that was occurring in his church, and rather than even approach the people about it, he chose to live a distant life. From Hawthorne's perspective, this story is about the heresy he saw in the church and how he felt about it for the rest of his life. I can't really blame Hawthorne, because I can relate to Goodman Brown as well. I felt as though everyone else in that church was heretical and didn't go for the right purposes. At that point, when you start going and despising almost everyone else there, you realize that you aren't going for the right reasons either. So much like Hawthorne, I left the church behind me also. I still have faith, just not in the people.

Hawthorne presents a great argument within his story of Goodman Brown. We see a man who loses faith primarily because of the people around him. This is why Hawthorne lost his faith as well, because of the people involved with the Salem witch trials. Criticism can be put on both sides, those who committed the sin and those who failed to give a second chance. These are the unfortunate problems we see within churches today, and I'm sure many people go through situations like this. Hawthorne shows us that we should readily give second chances and at the same time hold ourselves accountable so as not to fall into the same boat as those who are heretical about faith.