Refection on the Sparrow

I had two general thoughts after reading some of the other posts and our discussion in class. First: while there were several references made in class and on the blogs to the blind devotion of the priests on the mission, and while that seemed true in the case of Sandoz, his training had been for a critical, informed, academic faith, not the stereotypical uniformed devotion. However, he seemed to lose all academic aspects of his faith about thirty seconds after hearing the transmission. Both while reading and during our discussion it struck me that one of Sandoz's primary flaws was that he became so wrapped up in his own personal pentecost that he seemed to completely forget his (presumably) extensive knowledge of both biblical and church history. While many posts and much of discussion make the assumption that the god in the book (assuming there is one) is the god of the deists who created and left, rather than one who leaves turtles on fenceposts, I don't think that this is a necessary assumption. If Sandoz's education was anything like what I'd imagine it to be, he would be well aware that the path of god, even a biblical interventionist god, often didn't lead to good places for the followers. The obvious case of this is the story of Job where a god who intervened in peoples lives on a regular basis deliberately allowed Job's faith to be tested. While this is the almost obligatory reference with regards to this novel, there are other examples of an intervening, turtle-leaving god allowing bad things to happen. John the Baptist, the "voice in the wilderness," had his severed head given to Herodias on a silver platter after having baptized Jesus; he was following the spoken will of god-on-earth and I'd argue that he had it at least as bad as Sandoz. That said, I'm pretty sure that all (there might have been an exception) of the twelve apostles were martyred, and the will of god in people's lives doesn't get much clearer than in their case. So I don't think that we can say with certainty that, in the context of the book, Sandoz's error lied in assuming that the turtles on fenceposts had been left deliberately, but rather that he made the assumption that the turtles were leading to someplace he wanted to go. Even with a complete belief in a biblical interventionist god, he should have been aware of the implicit dangers attached to "god's will."

This leads to my second (briefer) thought, which is that the church would have had a much easier time dealing with Sandoz had he been victimized in a more sanitized way. Mike talks in his post about the saintliness of Sandoz, and it seems to me that the church would have had a much easier time viewing him as good (or even saintly) if he'd simply had the good graces to be martyred like all of the others. In thinking about all of the examples of people being punished for following "the will of god" it occurred to me that while its relatively easy to glorify someone who dies in the name of god, you don't get too much press on people who were raped in the name of god. I guess death makes for better PR. Anyway it just makes me wonder how many cases like Sandoz there are out there. People who almost died for god, but didn't quite get there, and because of that were viewed with suspicion and became outcasts rather than getting their own feast days. Maybe not many, but somehow I doubt it. Either way I find myself looking forward to Russel's further portrayals of faith in the next book.