Why Flannery O'Connor Scares Me

Page 7 November–December 2007 Why Flannery O’Connor Scares Me Rob Johnson Reverend Jimmy Swaggart scares the hell out of me: he’s the only man, I fear, who can save my soul. You remember Jimmy, the preacher who was caught with his pants down (but still wearing his underwear, he claimed) in a car full of prostitutes, and subsequently lost his ministry. Actually, it was taken over by his son, who turned out to be a snake in the grass waiting for his father’s downfall. Before Jimmy was stripped of his ministry, however, his church limped along for a few months. Jimmy gave his famous “I have sinned” sermon with tears streaming down his reddened face, a morality play endlessly rerun on TV for millions of the Righteous to scorn and laugh at. Right before the end, and before Jimmy was exiled to preach in the little backwoods Louisiana church where he preaches to this day, he gave a sermon that damn near knocked me to my knees. It was the best sermon I’ve ever heard, and I was raised Southern Baptist in Texas, where God tells men to become President, and they do. It was several months after the “I have sinned” sermon, and Jimmy seemed to be regaining his flock just at the moment he would lose it. There was Jimmy, in a tent-revival type fury, exhorting his flock against the sins of blasphemy, adultery, and fornication, and he was really whipping them up, the crowd’s “Amen!” following every admonition .At the pitch of the crowd’s indignation (and I too was with them, probably stoned, watching latenight TV), the Reverend Swaggart suddenly paused, and went quiet. The crowd settled down, but became increasingly uncomfortable as Swaggart remained silent, his eyes closed, a pained look on his face. He looked as I imagineArthur Dimmesdale looks in the pillory scene in The Scarlet Letter (1850). Slowly, he opened his eyes, which seemed to be looking at a far away place only he could see. “I used to throw stones,” he said. “But not any more.” Long pause, and his eyes came back into focus and looked at every member of his flock and all of us watching TV, too. “But not any more. For I have sinned.” And we remembered who he was, and saw how we had been tricked by his self-righteous act. It felt like having the rug pulled out from underneath you. I stumbled from my chair, looking for the phone to call him and pledge money to his cause. I had six numbers dialed before I came to my senses and snatched my soul back from Jimmy Swaggart. If Swaggart’s the only preacher I fear can save my soul, Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood (1952) is the only book I know that can save my soul. Not the Bible, not Dianetics (1950). In fact, if I were ever chosen to re-edit the Bible, I’d include Wise Blood (or at least “AGood Man Is Hard to Find”) as one of the books, right between Jonah and Job. Her novel works the same way Jimmy Swaggart ’s “I don’t throw no more stones” sermon works: It appears to be saying one thing while it’s saying the opposite, and then it pulls the rug out. For that reason , Wise Blood is a famously misunderstood book, at least from the point of view of the author, who wrote it to show what a world without God looked like but ended up writing a book that appealed most strongly to an audience (including me) that cheerfully disbelieved in God and rooted for Hazel Motes to get away from Jesus—Jesus, who leaps along the tops of the trees chasing after Hazel, like one of those ninjas dancing across treetops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). “That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence,” she says in her “Author’s Note” to the second edition of Wise Blood. “For them, Hazel Motes’ integrity lies...