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Oscar Wilde’s “alternative religion”

Oscar Wilde was easily one of the finest brains ever to grace the British Isles. Not only was his mastery of the English language supreme, but his clarity of thought and ability to gauge the ‘reasons behind the reasons’ was second to none.

Of course I cannot agree with Wilde’s conclusions, that no external source could be the basis for the authority of the individual, “But whether it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its symbols must be of my own creating.” These words point (as put perfectly by Imogen Black) “to an existentialist crisis, a man coming to realise that he has nothing but his own perceptions for truth who has made a god of himself.” Yet at the same time, despite this relativising of truth, which the Christian worldview cannot abide, I’m not sure that Wilde’s preferred vision of religion was so far removed from the kind of religion that Christ actually produced. Today I came upon this gem:

When I think of religion at all, I feel as if I would like to found an order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Faithless, one might call it, where on an altar, on which no taper burned, a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling, might celebrate with unblessed bread and a chalice empty of wine. Everything to be true must become a religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than faith. (De Profundis, letter written in 1905)

If we unpack this statement, it proves to be quite revealing. Let us examine each statement in turn and compare it to the religion imagined by Jesus

1. Wilde: “I would like to found an order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Faithless”
   
   Christianity: The basic prerequisite of a Christian is not someone who has accomplished something great by believing but someone who has failed to trust in God their whole life and has only come to Jesus when they realised how ‘faithless’ they really are. In Christianity, since faith is a gift given only to those who have realised just how faithless they really are, the phrase “confraternity of the faithless” is basically – and uniquely – describing true Christianity. In fact, to call Christans ‘the faithful’ is a complete misnomer; they are not the faithful, they are the faithless who have received the faith of Christ as a free gift. There is no other religious system (and in Wilde’s mind, all frameworks are religious systems, including the secular one) that resembles Wilde’s suggestion here apart from Christianity. Modern secularism is hardly a ‘confraternity’; it is rather a selection of individuals who are united less by their system than by other factors.
2. Wilde: “on an altar, on which no taper burned”
   
   Christianity: This is where it really starts to get interesting. The reason why Christianity does/should not have altars (of course this is in line with my personal unease at the presence of ‘altars’ in most Anglican/Orthodox/Catholic churches) is because the fire has already been spent. On the cross, Jesus passed through the fire of God’s judgement so that those who turn to him would not have to. The sacrifice has been offered on the altar that is the cross of Calvary. What this means is that – in stark contrast to every other religion, both secular and non, Christianity is the only religion where its followers are not in the business of the daily grind of justification. The altar and the sacrifice upon it denotes just this grind, where people are constantly engaged in the struggle to justify their existence, their actions, their place in this world. When Christ passed through that fire, he made it possible for his followers to have ‘an altar on which no taper is burned’
3. Wilde:: “a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling”
   
   Christianity: Jesus is called the great High Priest in the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. This great High Priest, before going to the cross, states, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death”. Then, on the cross, he uttered a fateful cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” This, more than any other, was the cry of “a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling.” On the cross, Jesus suffered the utter desolation of his soul, so that peace everlasting could come into the hearts of those who trust in him. On the cross, he gave up his peace and perfect relationship with God the Father, so that it might be given to mankind as a free gift by faith. This is the religion Christ created, a religion whose great high priest became a man in whose heart peace had no dwelling.
4. Wilde:: “might celebrate with unblessed bread and a chalice empty of wine”
   
   Christianity: The only reason that a Christian believer has to celebrate is through the cursing of Christ, in his body, on the cross. Christ’s body – the bread he speaks of – was the most ‘unblessed bread’ in all of history, so that those who trust in him would be able to celebrate in the new creation with the blessed bodies that he won for them through the cursing of his own. The resurrection is confirmation that this was done in the power of God and that the power that warred against the body had been defeated. Similarly, the chalice of wine (symbolising God’s judgement) is empty because Jesus drank it all on the cross – every last drop. The Christian is able to celebrate because the wine he or she drinks speaks of life when it should speak of death. We deserved to drink this chalice, but Christ drank it instead; that is why the chalice is ‘in remembrance’ and always pointing to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross; not our own offering to God, but that which he offered in our place.

The Wildian ‘ritual of agnosticism’, born out of the general existential crisis common to all humanity, at the final analysis is simply a yearning for the kind of religion that only Jesus Christ provides.

In the end, we see that Oscar Wilde’s desired “alternative religion for the faithless” is actually describing the Christian faith. Perhaps he realised this before he died, perhaps not. The question is: do you?

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