Yolanda Williams
English 0301
Professor Matthews
“Salvation”
Langston Hughes argues that religious indoctrinations could result in spiritual alienation. One point Langston Hughes makes in his essay is his experience of being “saved” only caused him to be disappointed in himself. Hughes says “I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved.”. This results in his lying to the church and his feeling of guilt for doing so.
The “saving” of Hughes eventually leads to his loss of faith in Jesus Christ. Hughes loses his faith because of Auntie Reed. She tells him that "when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to your insides!" Langston took this literally, expecting to actually see a light and to feel something happening in his body. When he doesn't see or feel anything after he's saved, Hughes gives up on believing in Jesus because he believed his aunt's descriptions of salvation.
Point 2. Westley lies to his friends an d pretend to be save
Evidence- Im tired of sitting here lets get up and be saved
They shouldn’t have pretended to be save
Point 3 Langston lied to his aunt about being saved
Evidence- I better lie to her an pretend that jesus came and be saved
Langston felt as though he was holding everyone up so he pretended to be save Langston Hughes paints a picture of himself as a little boy whose decisions at a church revival directly reflect man’s own instinctive behavioral tendencies for obedience. A young Langston whose congregation wants him to go up and get saved, gives into obedience and ventures to the altar as if he has seen the light of the Holy Spirit. Hughes goes on to say: " So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd rather lie, too, and say that Jesus had come ,and get up and be saved ." In saying this, Langston has obviously overlooked his personal belief to meet the level of obedience laid out by the congregation. It leads us to fact that people may believe strongly in an idea or thought but will overlook that belief to be obedient. One can make a justified assumption that everyone in society has at one time or another overlooked his or her personal feelings to conform this occurrence whether it is instinctive or judgmental is one that each individual deals with a personal level. He was a young boy who wanted to see Jesus, who wanted to earn salvation, but when he couldn't see Jesus, when everyone else saw, he found himself in the terrible position of disappointing not only himself but everyone in his community. He finally "saved" himself by pretending to see Jesus. He was saved not by love of Jesus as a congregation or preacher intended but by pretending to be other that who he was. Faith cannot be based upon whether or not we receive what we want. Hughes waited long and hard for Jesus to come, and he believed that He would and should come since he asked him. Hughes finally decides to get up after he grows impatient for waiting on Jesus to come to him and save him. He felt that since he was the last one on the mourner’s bench, the whole church was just waiting on him to be saved. He also believed that if God had not punished Westley for lying to the church then he should lie too. This has a great effect on him afterward when he realizes what he had done. The thing that add to the pressure is the repetition of the question “Why don’t you come? Why don’t you come to Jesus?”