"Drawn In"

We are still with "The Pugilist" although probably not for much longer!

Why would anyone join a revolutionary organization? Dowling's two guards give different answers:

(i) "'What brought me into the Society in the first place was...well, one damn thing after another, like when I was a miner and they boosted our quota too high for us to maintain safety structures and a cave-in killed a buddy of mine.'" (p. 113)

(Proof enough that the "People's Republic" is governed neither by nor for the People.)

(ii) "'I believe in God.'" (ibid.)

This guy is not prevented from going to church but he objects to all the clergy being spokespersons for the state: "'The Social Gospel...'" (ibid.) I would not object to a Social Gospel but I would object to state-controlled clergy but, in any case, we are not talking about me! The present point is that motives differ.

At a recent gathering, I met a guy who said that he was a Marxist who believed in God. I looked forward to some interesting conversations but then he stopped coming! Our paths cross and part for diverse reasons.

CS Lewis as fictional character and first person narrator tells us that he was:

"...afraid that I might get 'drawn in'. I suppose everyone knows this fear of getting 'drawn in' - the moment at which a man realises that what had seemed mere speculations are on the point of landing him in the Communist Party or the Christian Church - the sense that a door has just slammed and left him on the inside."

-CS Lewis, Voyage To Venus (London, 1978), Chapter One, p. 6.

I do not think that everyone knows this fear but obviously some of us do. Sometimes people say, "There was no turning back..." In "The Pugilist," some people who joined the Society would have started with speculations...

When I first read Voyage To Venus, I was leading a very sheltered life in a boarding school and was astonished that Lewis would link together the Communist Party and the Christian Church like that. I started learning about people and the world after leaving school.