The Letter Killeth; a little article reflecting on a letter from a Bishop, a letter from Saint Paul, a letter from Thomas Hardy, and a letter from Jesus.
William Walsham How (1823-1897) Bishop of Wakefield, writer of the magnificent hymn, 'For all the Saints', champion of the poor and of children, famed for inspiring and understandable sermons, I now realise is the same worthy Bishop who wrote a letter to the national press announcing that he had thrown a copy of Thomas Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' into the fire. He took up the book having read a critical review and was apparently "disgusted by its insolence and indecency."
There in a nutshell are all the contradictions of organised religion, good works and loud condemnation.
As Saint Paul, in 2 Corinthians, and Thomas Hardy, on the title page of Jude the Obscure, both observe, "the letter killeth." The full quote from 2 Corinthians 3:6, in the language of the King James Bible that Hardy knew and studied, is " Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
Paul is contrasting the Old Testament Law of Moses written on stone with the teaching of Jesus written by the Spirit in the hearts of Christians, in verse 3 he explains, "ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ... written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." The stone carved letter of the law kills, the Spirit written Heart gives life.
Put simply, Christianity should be life giving, if not you are doing it wrong. It is very easy to slip from living according to the Spirit of Jesus to living according to the letter of the Law, I think Paul is suggesting the Church in Corinth to whom he is writing may have done so.
Jude the Obscure is, in part, a book about a man who finds his experience of the Church life killing not life giving, a Church that responds to his suffering with judgement rather than mercy. If the Church were to respond to all suffering sinners with condemnation and exile there would be no one left in the building, including the good former Bishop of Wakefield, William Walsham How.
In a letter to a friend Hardy makes reference to the book burning Bishop, writing, "if the Bishop could have known him (Hardy) as he was, he would have found a man who's personal conduct, views of morality and of the vital facts of religion, hardly differed from his own."
People are right to reject religion if what they are getting is the letter that kills.
The Spirit that inspired that "minister of the new testament" William Walsham How to works of charity, and to express the gospel in clear and striking terms, gives life, as Paul writes in verse 17, "... where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
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