Gilead Pages 83-86 Summary & Analysis

John remembers an argument that his father and grandfather had once. His grandfather walked out during his father’s sermon and returned to the house later that day. His father and grandfather sat in hostile silence for a long time until his grandfather admitted that he “wanted to hear some preaching,” so he went to the Black church instead. He said that the sermon there was on the text “Love your enemies” (this was after the small fire at that church), and that the sermon was “very Christian.” He finally lamented that there’s no end to his bitterness and disappointment. John’s father replied that his father had put his hope in war, while he had put his hope in peace, which is its own reward.

So far John has mostly alluded to the estrangement between his father and grandfather; now he begins to fill in details. The tension seems to have originated over his grandfather’s distaste for John’s father’s preaching—a conflict that would’ve been incredibly personal for a pair of father-son preachers. John’s grandfather implies that his son’s preaching wasn’t real preaching—preaching with conviction—like what he hoped to find in the Black church. It seems, though, that even the Black church’s sermon let him down by being too forgiving in the face of injustice. His disappointment, and John’s father’s comment about war and peace, suggest that John’s grandfather couldn’t accept attitudes of peace and forgiveness after what he experienced in his efforts against slavery; he believed the injustices ran too deep and remained unresolved.

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John’s grandfather said that this is exactly what kills him—that the Lord never came to his son. John’s father stood up and said that he remembered his father walking to the pulpit in a bloody shirt with a pistol in his belt and realizing that “this has nothing to do with Jesus.” He was certain of that as of a so-called vision. His grandfather retorted that his vision was more real to him than his son standing in front of him now. His son replied that nobody would doubt it. John says that’s when a chasm really opened between the two men.

John’s father’s objections offend John’s grandfather because they strike at the heart of the difference in their convictions. John’s grandfather thinks that his son’s preference for peace means that he’s never truly encountered God. But John’s father’s visceral memories of his father’s preaching—complete with hints of violence like a gun in his belt and blood on his shirt—make him doubt that his father was truly following God rather than simply justifying his own convictions. The two men find their stances irreconcilable.

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John has kept a note his grandfather left behind, saying that “No good has come, no evil is ended.” But John remembers his father preaching with conviction about Abel’s blood crying out from the ground. He respected and loved his father dearly.

John’s grandfather’s note is obscure, but it suggests that in his view, the war—and his own son’s preaching—have failed both to forestall evil and to accomplish good. The reference to Abel’s blood is an allusion to the first murder in the Bible, when God told Cain (the murderer) what he’d done to his brother Abel. The implication here is that John’s father preached against brother killing brother in the Civil War—a pacifist view John himself came to share.

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Over time, John learned about his grandfather’s involvement in the violence that took place in Kansas before the Civil War. His grandfather and John’s father disagreed about it and finally agreed never to talk about it. He knows his father regretted his anger, but he also hated war. The patriotic celebrations at the start of World War I almost killed his father. He knows his father remembers his own father going off to war while he was young and had a sick mother and many younger siblings at home. One of his brothers, Edwards (named for the theologian Jonathan Edwards), ran off and was never found.

Because John’s grandfather’s convictions were so central to his identity, his disagreement with his son on this matter would have been intensely personal. But it becomes clearer that his son’s opposition had much to do with being abandoned during the Civil War. The strain of trying to hold things together at home, with a sick mother and a runaway brother, would have inevitably shaped John’s father’s feelings about the demands that war makes on families. He probably also felt that his father chose to put his ethical commitments ahead of his wife’s and children’s needs.

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Gilead

Marilynne Robinson

Gilead: Pages 83-86 Summary & Analysis