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In “Luck”, a clergyman describes how he attempted to protect a military man from his own blundering ways-from the time the man was a cadet to his battlefield experience in the Crimean War. Due to “luck”, however, every situation in which the military man found himself seemed to work in his favor. Finally, the man became a renowned and highly decorated military leader. The reader has every reason to believe that the man will continue through life as the fortunate “fool” that he is. Throughout his writings and his life, Mark Twain earned a well-deserved reputation as a cynical critic of Christianity, as illustrated by his observation that “[i]f Christ were here there is one thing he would not be–a Christian.”1 Beginning with the publication of The Innocent’s Abroad in 1869, Twain’s irreligious sentiments and apparent anger toward religion in general and Christianity in particular have played a major role in how his audience has understood him. Many genteel Victorians, for instance, were outraged by his ridiculing “sacred scenes and things” and accused him of being a “son of the devil.” Modernists, on the other hand, embraced him as “the fallen angel of our literature” courageously deconstructing artificial notions of reality to reveal life’s absurdity and ultimate meaninglessness.2 There is, however, an overlooked spiritual dimension to Mark Twain’s life and work that challenges the widely held perception of him as a devilish nihilist. Where orthodox Victorians demonized him and modernists applauded his jeering treatment of traditional religion, I believe Twain’s iconoclasm actually shared more in common with effort of liberal Protestantism to revitalize religious experience in 19th century America. It is apparent to me from his relationships with liberal clergy like Henry Ward Beecher and his close friend Joseph Twichell to his numerous writings on religion that Twain was actively engaged throughout his life in the critical examination and experimentation of what has been called the “theological renaissance of the nineteenth century.”3 I would like to examine here briefly the various strands of radical and liberal thought I see underlying Twain’s personal religious quest with an eye toward how they were manifested in his writings.
Approximate Word count = 1293
Approximate Pages = 5.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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