In His Steps

“It seems to me there’s an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do? Is that what you mean by following His steps?”

These words, spoken by Jack Manning, the homeless man who wanders into the Raymond church the day after encountering Rev. Maxwell, cut Henry’s heart to the quick. Jack’s question becomes the catalyst for Rev. Maxwell’s challenge to the congregation. Here is the central theme of the novel: What would happen if those who claim to follow Jesus actually went out into the world and acted like their faith were sincere? The troubles that plague Raymond, both in the suburbs and the downtown setting in the Rectangle, are transformed by the words and actions of the Christians who determine to actually follow the Gospel and the example of Jesus.

“I want volunteers from First Church who will pledge themselves earnestly and honestly for an entire year not to attempt anything without first asking the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’” 

Rather than issuing generic platitudes about what one ought to do, Rev. Maxwell issues a very specific challenge to his congregation for a set amount of time. Eschewing the theoretical, he moves directly to the practical. In this way, he makes his own convictions public and sets an example for those whom he is called to lead. Pledging to this course of action himself, he hopes the whole Church will follow him and thereby change the community in an unprecedented way.

“‘Do you mean that we can’t run the paper strictly on Christian principles and make it succeed?’ ‘Yes, that’s just what I mean. It can’t be done. We’ll go bankrupt in thirty days.’” 

Speaking with his managing editor, Clark, Edward Norman wants an honest opinion on his chosen course of action to change the tenor and content of the Daily News. In Clark’s opinion, the newspaper will quickly fail if their new, faith-based protocol goes against the grain of all established newspaper principles and guidelines. This is the first major obstacle that a member of the First Church encounters as a result of their year-long pledge to act only as they think Jesus would.

“I am under condemnation for being one of the most selfish, useless creatures in all the world.”

In conversation with Rachel, Virginia Page tries to make an honest assessment of her own wealth and privilege. Educated in the best schools and living in a magnificent house, Virginia begins to look on her life of extravagance with disgust and sorrow. While always a kind and conscientious individual, Virginia discovers that her wealth cannot be merely a means to satisfy her own desires but must be dedicated to the common good. As one to whom much has been given, she determines to be a good steward of the fortune with which God has blessed her.

“Of course, I understand Mr. Maxwell’s statements. They are perfectly impractical to put into practice. I felt confident at the time that those who promised would find this out after a trial and abandon the whole idea as visionary and absurd.”

Here we have the judgment of Madame Page, Virginia’s grandmother, who is appalled at the apparent change in her granddaughter. Unwilling to give up her place in society or to do anything that might be cause for scandal or ridicule amongst her peers, Madame Page condemns Rev. Maxwell’s challenge as impractical and irrational and expresses her expectation that Virginia will have nothing to do with the matter.

“Well, I do not and cannot love you because you have no purpose in life.”

Rachel’s rejection of Rollin sheds light on both characters: Rachel as a woman of character and principle, and Rollin as a man who, while kind and affable, is stuck in a perpetual childhood and immaturity. By the end of the novel, this line takes on an element of irony. Rollin becomes one of the most dramatic figures of purpose driven transformation.

“The First Church of Raymond had never really touched the Rectangle problem. It was too dirty, too sinful a place for close contact.”

Those who take the pledge face their principal dilemma in the Rectangle and the evangelization efforts begun there by Mr. Gray. A symbol of the radical divide present among the community, the Rectangle represents the depths of sacrifice required by the pledge. Rather than considering the Rectangle as something impure and unholy, it is precisely there that the congregation are called to give witness to their faith and imitate Christ, who himself spent time amongst the outcasts and marginalized.

“The moment Jasper had spoken her name, and she realized that he was telling her of his love, she felt a sudden revulsion for him. Had he no respect for the supernatural events they had just witnessed?”

In confessing his love for Rachel after the events of the revival meeting, Jasper demonstrates the shallow depths of his affection and of his life in general. While Rollin had been moved by Rachel’s voice to a place of repentance and conversion, Jasper had merely focused on the aesthetic beauty of her performance, finding himself drawn to her, rather than to the object of Rachel’s devotion. In this moment, Rachel finds herself immediately and fixedly repulsed by him.

“I want to do something that will cost me in the way of sacrifice. I am hungry to suffer something for Jesus.”

Rachel’s words to her mother represent the thoughts of countless individuals who chose to change their lives and devote themselves fully to the imitation of Jesus. Rachel expresses the core of the desire for self-sacrifice to the Gospel and to Christ. She longs to commiserate with the poor and the outcast in a way that would breed a genuine and experiential compassion.

“Maxwell, you and I belong to a class of professional men who have always avoided the duties of citizenship. We have lived in a little world of literature and scholarly seclusion, doing work we have enjoyed and shrinking from the disagreeable duties that belong to the life of the average citizen. I confess with shame that I have purposely avoided the responsibility that I owe to this city personally.” 

Donald Marsh, as the president of the local college, confesses his shortcomings to Rev. Maxwell and in a moment of honest self-criticism. He realizes that he has lived a life too steeped in the theoretical. While the work and life he has lived is certainly not a bad one by any means, Donald Marsh realizes that he is called in this moment to enter into the world of politics and social change, rather than be a man of mere words.

“They also agreed, however, that there could be no one fixed Christian way of using money. The rule that regulated its use was unselfishness.”

This is a particularly crucial decision the group reaches in their unceasing desire to answer the question, “What would Jesus do?” They determine that, regarding the use of money, there is no one fixed rule for spending; the general rule for its use must be generosity and charity. Expenditure must be consistently for the common good.

“‘You shall not touch me,’ she exclaimed hoarsely. ‘Leave me. Let me go to hell. That’s where I belong. The devil is waiting for me. See him!’ She turned and pointed with a shaking finger at the saloon-keeper. The crowd laughed.”

Loreen is a relatively minor character in her own right, but she sparks the movement of Virginia’s heart in breaking from her friends and committing to helping the underprivileged. Loreen has been completely taken advantage of and left for dead, abandoned and rejected by everyone. Here she tries to extract herself from Virginia’s good will, completely convinced that she is unworthy of the help.

“To Madame Page, society was a power to be feared and obeyed. The loss of its good will was a loss more to be dreaded than anything, except the loss of wealth itself.”

Virginia Page’s grandmother demonstrates the general attitude not only of the Page family before the movement, but of the local aristocracy at large. One of the difficulties of the movement from the start was the pushback from the wealthy and the influential who might see the status quo changed by new ideas. Madame Page symbolizes those qualities antithetical to Jesus’s example: preoccupation with wealth and social repute.

“Loreen opened her eyes and smiled at Virginia, who wiped the blood from her face, then bent over and kissed her. Loreen smiled again, and the next moment she was gone.”

Loreen’s death is a monument in the narrative that marks the dedication of the new community based in the Rectangle’s revival meetings. In the midst of the change occurring politically and socially regarding local saloons’ liquor licenses, Loreen’s death symbolizes the fight against the evil and apathy of all those who would prioritize money and vice over human flourishing and neighborly love.

“Virginia, what miracles we can accomplish for humanity if we have such a lever as consecrated money with which to move things!”

One of the most significant stances taken by the characters in the novel is their stance regarding money. Rather than taking a radical, binary position—such as stating money is either evil or the greatest good—they judge that money is of great use when put towards the flourishing of the common good instead of private and selfish goods.

“But the paper will not necessarily be weak because it is good. Good things are more powerful than bad.”

The struggle with the newspaper’s character was always about whether the paper could survive and be profitable if it were run according to Christian principles. Ed Norman, determining to change the paper in this way, firmly believes this will ultimately be a positive and strengthening move as goodness and truth categorically trump evil. Above all, this is a philosophical conviction.

“What would Jesus do? Jasper had finally answered the question by denying his Lord. It grew darker in his room. He had deliberately chosen his course, urged on by his disappointment and loss.”

For the first time, the reader sees a member of the original circle turn away from the promise and refuse to walk down the path that his friends have taken. Jasper’s choice is not so much an explicit choice against the pledge as it is a refusal to answer in the affirmative. His refusal is an apathy and “forgetting” of all that his friends stand for and what he presumptively believed as a member of the church in Raymond.

“Rachel went into the house, and sitting down in her room said to herself, ‘I am beginning to know what it means to be loved by a real man.’”

When the reader first meets Rachel, she is initially repulsed by Rollin Page’s lack of direction and conviction. After the pledge and the events at the revival in the Rectangle, however, Rollin’s entire life changed, and with it, Rachel’s attitude towards him. Now Rachel sees Rollin as a mature and self-sufficient partner who is dedicated to what is highest in life, rather than being possessed by an immature infatuation.

“Felicia, you can never reform the world. What’s the use? We’re not to blame for the poverty and misery.”

Rose and Felicia, perpetually at odds in their preferences, clash over their opinion on social poverty. While Rose takes an apathetic perspective, content not to trouble herself over the world’s misery out of practicality, Felicia is far more sympathetic. Rose here attempts to scold Felicia into taking her side, the practical side, in opposition to what she sees as fanciful idealism.

“Martyrdom is a lost art with us. Our Christianity loves its ease and comfort too well to take up anything so rough and heavy as a cross.”

The pledge in Raymond takes on the general pallor of choosing as Christ would choose, but the movement in Chicago, as voiced here by the Bishop, takes on a more explicit trend towards suffering, self-mortification, and martyrdom. Christianity in the modern world, claims the Bishop, has become too comfortable with itself, and too used to being easily accepted; it has lost its original splendor and influence.

“The bishop was very pale, but calm as always. He looked his friend in the face and answered, ‘Aye, Calvin, I will go with you, not only to this house of death, but also the whole way of human sin and sorrow, please God.’”

Upon hearing of the death of Mr. Sterling, the Bishop is galvanized into making the pledge and reforming not only his own life but devoting himself to the salvation of his city. While it had seemed to Dr. Bruce that his friend the Bishop was quite sympathetic to the movement, it was still unclear whether the Bishop was committed; the news of the Sterlings’ sudden deaths, however, draws the Bishop to a decision.

“‘Edward’—Dr. Bruce spoke abruptly—'I have not yet been able to satisfy myself, either, in obeying my promise. But I have come face-to-face with the decision I feel I must make. In order to fulfill my pledge, I shall be obliged to resign from Nazareth Avenue Church.’ ‘I knew you would,’ replied the bishop quietly. ‘And I came this evening to say that I shall be obliged to do the same with my charge.’”

In choosing to follow the movement, the two friends decide that in their own personal circumstances they must leave behind their positions of power and leadership to start fresh. Separately, they come to the same conclusion, thus binding them together (and to the pledge) even more strongly. This fact—that the two men’s separate decisions converge toward communal action—underscores a note of divine providence.

“I am not condemning the church. I love her. I am not forsaking the church. I believe in her mission and have no desire to destroy it. Least of all, in the step I am about to take, do I desire to be charged with abandoning the Christian fellowship.” 

Upon deciding to leave his position, Dr. Bruce is at pains to make it very clear that he is not leaving his institutional position because he believes it to be wicked or outdated. He believes the institutional Church is good and necessary and to be most cherished; it is simply that in his particular circumstances, he needs to take a different approach to evangelization in order to reform the city and be loving toward the poor and helpless.