Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gilead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Life, Death, and Beauty
Christian Faith, Mystery, and Ministry
Memory, Vision, and Conviction
Estrangement and Reconciliation
Loneliness and Love
Summary
Analysis
As they’re sitting there, Jack suddenly cuts in to ask John his views about predestination. John hates discussing this topic—no matter how heatedly people discuss it, their opinions never budge an inch—so of course Jack would bring it up. When John hedges, Jack simplifies the matter by asking John if he thinks some people are simply “consigned to perdition.” John replies that this doesn’t really simplify anything, and that human beings lack the capacity to truly penetrate the mystery of God. When Jack continues to press him, John isn’t sure if he’s serious.
Predestination (the teaching that God appoints some people to receive salvation while passing over others) has often been a contentious topic in Christian history. Presumably Jack knows that, so it annoys John that he’d bring it up now, and he struggles to believe that Jack is really asking these questions in earnest. He keeps putting Jack off by observing that God is beyond human understanding.
Themes
Jack says that this isn’t an abstract matter. He says that it seems that, in John’s view, predestination doesn’t mean that a good person will go to hell simply because that’s his fate. Glory excuses herself from the conversation at this point, and Boughton agrees that it probably won’t go anywhere useful, but John’s wife listens quietly. Jack is insistent, so John says he doesn’t believe that a person who’s good in any meaningful sense, or for that matter a person who’s sinful, is necessarily “consigned to perdition,” according to the Bible. John adds that he has seen people’s behavior change, but he’s not sure if that means their nature changes. Jack says he is being “cagey.”
Jack keeps pressing the matter of predestination. He tries to pin down John’s specific views on this matter, but everyone else tries to steer away from the controversial topic—except for Lila, who seems to take a personal interest in this subject, too. John eventually concedes that he doesn’t think the Bible teaches that anyone is automatically consigned to hell. He also doesn’t think a person who changes their behavior has necessarily changed deep down. But Jack doesn’t accept John’s distinctions, accusing him of avoiding a straight answer.
Themes
John insists that he is just saying there are things he doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t want to impose a theory on something that’s ultimately a mystery. His wife looks at him, and he knows he must sound upset—and he is. Most of the time when a “smart aleck” starts questioning him about theology, they’re just trying to make him look silly, and he doesn’t find that funny these days. But then his wife surprises everyone by speaking up and asking what’s the point of a person being saved if there’s no hope of them changing. She blushes, but Boughton tells her it’s a good question, one that he’s never found a good answer to.
John takes Jack’s questions personally. He doesn’t believe Jack is being serious and is trying to make him look foolish somehow. Lila, though, seems to sense a deeper seriousness behind Jack’s questions, and she’s invested in the subject, too—especially the hope of a person changing their life. Her remarks hint at her own experience of becoming a Christian later in life, but her story remains a mystery for now.
Themes
Jack tries to dismiss himself from the conversation since no one seems interested in pursuing it, but John’s wife speaks up again and urges him to stay. After an awkward silence, John suggests reading Karl Barth, just for something to say, but Jack scorns this. John’s wife, without looking up, says that a person can change—that everything can change. Jack says that’s all he wanted to know, and the conversation ends.
Karl Barth was a Swiss Protestant theologian whose life would have been roughly contemporary with John’s, and in fact Barth was at the peak of his public influence as a theologian around this time (the 1950s). It’s clear, though, that by making this suggestion, John is just trying to put an end to the conversation. Again, Lila sees a deeper significance in the conversation and hints that she’s experienced radical change herself. This suggests that although she’s not educated like John, her perceptiveness is much greater in some ways.
Themes
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John is left wondering about the conversation. He doesn’t enjoy discussing theology with people who are not sympathetic to it. As a small-town pastor, it’s not a situation that comes up very often. And when it comes to Jack Boughton, John has trouble believing he’s sincere. But as they’re walking home, his wife says that Jack was just asking a question, and that “some people aren’t so comfortable with themselves.” John feels rebuked by this.
John isn’t used to being aggressively challenged on his beliefs this way, and it seems to unsettle him—especially given John’s fraught history with Jack. But, lacking such a history, Lila seems to understand Jack much better than John does and even to sense pain underneath his sharp words.
Themes
John has always tried to avoid saying anything that his brother Edward would find naïve. This practice as served him well. After all, some religious people speak in such a way that they invite contempt. But John advises his son to avoid defensiveness. It suggests a lack of faith. And sometimes in the act of trying to protect oneself, “we are struggling against our rescuer,” though John admits that he has seldom managed to live by this.
Intellectual integrity is very important to John, thanks to his atheist brother’s challenging influence. However, he appears to sense that he bungled the conversation with Jack by being too defensive. A secure faith isn’t threatened by hard questions. Moreover, he thinks that sometimes a challenging questioner can actually provide a vital turning point in someone else’s faith.
Themes
