By Tom Frame
Last year marked the
passage of 400 years
since the first part of
Cervantes’ masterpiece Don
Quixote was published.1 The
commercial success of the book
was extraordinary and astonished Cervantes who
had previously known only disappointment and
despair. Four centuries on, it is possibly the world’s
most published and translated book after the Bible
(it has appeared in 85 languages), while the central
character has become one of the most popular in
literary history. And yet, a debate continues about
why Cervantes wrote the book and what readers
should make of Don Quixote’s adventures.
Given all that was said and written in 2005,
I was surprised that little attention was paid by
commentators to what I regard as one of Cervantes’
principle concerns – the pursuit of virtue; and that
Christians were conspicuously absent from among
those celebrating this important milestone.
I want to argue that Don Quixote ought to be
read as a religious book; to assert that Cervantes
would have taken issue with Hillsong’s presentation
of Christianity;2 and, to claim that its main message
is important for the Australian Church.
It is remarkable that the character of Don
Quixote is still so widely known. On first
inspection he appears to be an eccentric whose
absurd behaviour lacks both authenticity and
appeal – especially to a modern audience with little
interest in what he aspires to do and longs to be.
Writing while he was in prison, Cervantes tells the
story of an unremarkable middle-aged gentleman,
Alonso Quixano, who becomes obsessed with
medieval books on chivalry. He styles himself ‘Don
Quixote de La Mancha’, after the noble knights of
the Middle Ages. Mounted on his horse Rocinante,
Don Quixote, with his squire Sancho Panza – a
rustic buffoon apparently attracted only to
1 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s (1547-1616)
2 Hillsong is a pentecostal-style ‘mega church’ in Sydney.
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But he proceeds to show that
responses to this knight have become increasingly
more generous and diverse through time.
I believe that Don Quixote ought to be read as a
religious book. To me, the Don represents the noble
hero fighting for lofty ideals and sublime values
in a hostile and uncomprehending world. In my
interpretation of Cervantes’ work, Don Quixote
can readily be seen as a Christian saint who holds
fast to his faith in a world that can neither share nor
live up to high standards of moral virtue.
This is, in part, a reflection of Cervantes’ own
experience of life as a one-time soldier, prisoner of
war, undischarged bankrupt and failed tax collector.
He spent time in gaol for offences committed by
others, suffered permanent disability from a war
injury, and was temporarily excommunicated after
a dispute with the Dean of Saville. It is crucial,
therefore, to remember in studying this novel that
the author was a religious man possessing religious
beliefs living in a world largely shaped by religious
institutions.
Throughout his life Cervantes tried to live
morally and virtuously but repeatedly found
himself a victim and an outcast.
The world in which Cervantes lived and about
which he wrote was in a state of flux. He is afraid
that religious commitment and moral virtue have
become more of a hindrance than a help in the
new world where money, position and power are
highly sought after and widely esteemed.
In this thoroughly pragmatic world that is
evolving before his eyes, Cervantes observes that
shrewdness, influence, wealth, gender, and youth
appear to be what matter most.
Through the character of Don Quixote,
Cervantes laments that noble values have actually
become ridiculous. They are pitiable at best and
dangerous at worst. Humility, integrity, compassion
and love itself create painful realities, whichever
way one looks at them.
Standing back from the novel to observe both
its author and the broader context in which he
writes, the conclusion must be that the virtues
Cervantes seeks to honour and the conflict with
contemporary culture he depicts are a Christian
worldview.
But how is this relevant to Australian
Christianity? In my view, the novel speaks
directly and intuitively to the prevailing
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Australian Government level think about that a
lot... How do we make our industry strong, our
economy strong? How do we make our schools
strong, and how do we make our public strong, and
where does the strength of a nation come from?”
As a political leader in a religiously plural society
he could not be too precise!
Viewed from a distance, it is a conference of very
mixed and, in my judgment, confusing messages.
The conference theme was ‘strength’ and yet St
Paul is adamant that ‘weakness’ and humility are
more likely to be routes to blessing and fulfilment.
The promises of material prosperity and personal
success stands in stark contrast to the poverty of
Jesus and the humiliations suffered by the apostles – most of whom died violent deaths because they
refused to conform to the customs and convictions
of the day.
The promotional material for this year’s Hillsong
Conference at the Sydney Superdome in July
promised –
(M)agnificent wisdom from many of the world’s finest
leaders, magnificent worship which will ascend into the
heavens and bring His glory to earth, and magnificent
inspiration and perspective that will enable us all to
make a difference in our world. Our labour this year
will be to roll out the red carpet and make Hillsong
2006 a wonderful experience for you, your family, your
team and your church. We love you, we believe in you,
and we can’t wait to celebrate with you in July.
Everything, from trendy logos to personal
endorsements, gives the impression that Hillsong
is attuned to the spirit of the times and responsive
to market research. It is a professional and effective
organisation committed to the achievement of its
corporate objectives by satisfying the needs and
aspirations of its target audience.
Would Cervantes have shaken his fist at
Hillsong’s social, cultural and political conformity,
as Don Quixote ‘tilted at windmills’?
Home Truths
material things – leaves his provincial village to deal with
injustice and promote equity, on a great quest that
takes them across Spain. But the world is not ready
for the ‘Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance’.
Don Quixote’s disillusionment with the world
turns into delusion. He enters a fantasy land which
simultaneously delights and destroys him.
He mistakes windmills for giants (from which
the famous phrase ‘tilting at windmills’ is derived);
inns for enchanted castles; fl ocks of sheep for
armies; and a horse trough for a baptismal font, as
he struggles to reconcile appearance with reality.
As the American literary critic Lionel Trilling
has noted, Don Quixote acts as if the world were
what he would have it be – as if the ideal were the
real. But it isn’t and he descends into madness.
On returning home he resumes the persona of
Alonso Quixano and announces that his sanity has
returned. Shortly afterwards, he dies. Death, the
final injustice and the ultimate bondage, seems to
have triumphed as the world apparently continues
to scorn the virtuous.
a “funny book about a silly man”
What are we to make of Cervantes’ novel, four
centuries on? The celebrated American poet Mark
Van Doren commented somewhat facetiously
in 1958 that theories about Don Quixote may
outnumber theories about anything else in the
literary world.
Interpretations have quite predictably changed
with the times and yet no consensus regarding
even the central theme of the work has emerged.
This is despite Cervantes’ claim in the prologue
that “he has no other object in view than that of
overthrowing the authority and prestige which
books of chivalry enjoy in the world at large and
among the vulgar”.
In his 1991 study The Sanctification of Don Quixote,
Eric Ziolkowski explains that the earliest views of
the “funny book about a silly man” held that it
was “a mere burlesque, and of its hero as merely a ridiculous fool”.
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mood of our times. There is a push among
Australian churches to make religious faith
relevant, acceptable and ‘cutting edge’ – whatever
that means.
There is a feeling that Christianity needs to
be freed from social or cultural baggage in order
to remove all non-biblical and non-theological
obstacles to believing and belonging; to declare
that Christians are no different from the
undifferentiated population in their appreciation
of, and participation in, public life.
Many churches now stress the continuities
between themselves and their core convictions
and prevailing social mores and cultural attitudes.
This is largely because these churches promote
religion and spirituality as a form of therapy and
self-realisation rather than as the pursuit of truthful
living marked by the acquisition of moral virtue.
This is apparent in the themes and tenor of the
Hillsong conferences – the biggest annual Christian
gathering in Australia.
These churches promote religion
as therapy rather than as the
pursuit of truthful living
Last year’s conference was held at the Sydney’s
Olympic Superdome and featured an array of
speakers from Australia and the United States. It
was estimated that nearly 30,000 people attended.
Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition
Leader Kim Beazley sent official representatives.
They were joined by five Federal Cabinet ministers,
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, eight Liberal
backbenchers and two National Party Senate
leaders. The event was reported in every Australian
metropolitan daily newspaper and several evening
television news bulletins.
Politicians spoke in fulsome praise of Hillsong
and its ability to “pull a crowd”. Although an
agnostic, Bob Carr told the conference he liked
the idea of “Christianity shorn of its medieval
accretions”.
“I like the idea of each believer reading the Bible
and finding his or her path to individual salvation.
I also like the spontaneity and informality of
Hillsong’s worship. It’s actually very Australian.”
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello was inspired
by the conference theme – strength: “We at the
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To my mind, there is much in this contemporary
presentation of Christianity that seems far from
Jesus’ invitation to carry one’s cross and to follow
even unto death. At Hillsong there is no mention
of the trials of personal sufferings (because they
reflect a lack of faith); the torment of unanswered
prayer (because one is not praying in the right
way); the persistence of besetting sins (because they
are usually of the devil); the eschewing of private
wealth (because the faithful are rewarded materially by the Lord); the possibility of personal ridicule
(unlikely among the culturally compliant).
There is, of course, no virtue in being irrelevant,
second-rate, or ‘daggy’. But there must remain
scope for recognition that Christianity will at times
be unfashionable, counter-cultural and disruptive;
while Christians will be non-conformist, peculiar
and out-of-step with prevailing social customs and
the cultural mood.
Only by a conscious promotion of the Church
as a community that upholds a different account
of individual identity and human destiny can
Christians discharge their obligation to be light
and salt in a perishing world.
There is, in my view, much of value for Christians
in the novel Don Quixote. Although never promoted
as a handbook for religious life, it contains much
that will sustain Christians as they seek to be the
hands and the heart of Christ wherever God has
been pleased to place them.
Dr Tom Frame is Anglican Bishop to the Australian
Defence Force. His latest book is Church and State
– Australia’s Imaginary Wall, published in August by
UNSW Press, pp 95, rrp $16.95. ISBN 0 86840 916 2